Oakland A fans plan ‘reverse boycott’ of Rays in June: ‘The fans aren’t the problem’
The Oakland A’s started 2023 3:13 and currently have the worst record in all of Major League Baseball. Fed up with the franchise’s direction, some A’s fans are so frustrated that they’ve stopped going to games all together as team owner considering a possible move to Las Vegas.
However, some Oakland fans plan to conduct a “reverse boycott” and fill the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum for the team’s home game against the Tampa Bay Rays on Tuesday, June 13. With that, the fans of A hope to show the team and the league that the fans are not the problem.
A’s fans are hoping that showing up for a game on a random day of the week will show that fact to its fullest.
“So that’s something I’ve been thinking about for a while, and I mentioned it in response to a tweet from the Rooted in Oakland Twitter page. “Then I mentioned it to Jefferey August, who assembled a group of people to discuss it and the ball rolled. We chose June 13 because we wanted to develop a random midweek game against someone other than the Giants, Yankees, or Red Sox — in other words, a game that would normally be under-attended. We also wanted it to take place on a school-free evening, i.e. during the summer holidays. The goal is simply to show Major League Baseball, the local media and the nation that we can and will support the team. That the fans are not the problem. It seems to me that staying away just fuels the narrative that Oakland doesn’t support or deserve the A’s.”
During the first month of the 2023 season, the A’s rank bottom in the league with an average of just 11,580 fans per competition. Part of the reason for the drop in interest is the fact that the A’s have traded franchise cornerstones like Matt Chapman and Matt Olson in recent years. Oakland entered the 2023 season with the lowest payroll in the MLB.
Over the weekend, the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum made headlines as the A’s hosted the New York Mets. Mets broadcasters Gary Cohen and Ron Darling were forced to move to an adjoining booth to call Friday’s 17-6 win over the A’s for the usual visiting booth had recently been occupied by a possum.
