The Oakland Athletics are about to embark on a pretty brutal three-year stretch without home. The A's announced an agreement on Thursday to play the next three seasons in Sacramento,
California while they wait for a new permanent and long-term home to be built in
Las Vegas, completing their drawn out relocation. It is far from an ideal solution. In fact, it is a pretty terrible solution for everybody involved. If all goes according to plan, they will play the next three seasons at Sutter Health Park, a 14,000-seat Triple-A Stadium that is currently home to the Sacramento River Cats. As a Triple-A stadium, it does not have any of the amenities that Major League
baseball teams typically have, from locker rooms, weight rooms and family rooms. It is going to make the A's an even bigger punchline as an organization than they have already become. But it is not the first time a pro sports team has had a less-than-ideal short-term stadium solution. Let's take a look at some of the others. When the Chargers rushed out of San Diego and back to
Los Angeles prior to the 2017 season they did so without a permanent place to play. The temporary solution was the StubHub Center, a 30,000 soccer stadium that was by far the smallest venue in the NFL. While the stadium was always filled every week, it was typically overrun by visiting fans giving the Chargers zero home field advantage. They eventually moved into SoFi Stadium that they now share with the Los Angeles Rams. This is an ongoing situation in the NHL. The Coyotes have been unable to secure a new arena in Arizona, and now play their games at Mullett Arena, a 5,000-seat college hockey arena where the
Arizona State Sun Devils are the primary tenant. It is a very similar situation to what the Chargers had at the StubHub Center where the arena is always full, but typically with visiting fans. The Coyotes are no closer to a long-term home and their future in Arizona is very much still in doubt. When the Islanders were between arenas on Long Island, they found a temporary solution at Brooklyn's Barclays Center just after it opened. While the arena was primarily built for
basketball (the Brooklyn Nets) and concerts, they were able to squeeze an NHL rink into it but nothing about it made sense. The scoreboard was off-center and was positioned over the blue line instead of center ice, while one end of the arena had seats that were so obstructed the Islanders did not even sell them, resulting in a three-quarter horseshoe style seating arrangement. Islanders fans also hated it because it felt like their team was taken away from them as nobody wanted to make the trip into Brooklyn. Brooklyn also did not fully embrace them, often resulting in low attendance figures. The Islanders are now back on Long Island at a brand new state of the art arena that is built for them and hockey. The
Chicago Bears had to temporarily relocate down state during the 2002
NFL season when Soldier Field was being rebuilt and renovated. The result was them playing two hours south at the University of Illinois in Champaign, Illinois. While Bears fans still mostly filled the stadium, it created a situation where the team was basically playing a road game with travel over the course of an entire 16-game season. They ended up going 4-12 and were ravaged by injuries all season. When the Houston Oilers initially left
Texas to for Tennessee, they did not go straight to Nashville. They spent a couple of years playing in Memphis at the Liberty Bowl, and it was a complete mess. The city never accepted them as they knew it was a short-term solution, the stadium was outdated, while the Oilers and NFL made a mockery of the whole thing and attempted to swindle Memphis for everything they could . Memphis saw right through it and barely showed up for games. They finally moved to their permanent home in 1999 and were re-branded as the Tennessee Titans.