Casey Harrison
From left to right, Nina Thorsen, of Alameda, Calif., along with an As usher and Will MacNeil, of Dublin, Calif., tape homemade signs to the right-field fence at the Oakland-Alameda Coliseum on Saturday, Aug. 19, 2023. Thorsen and MacNeil are part of the Oakland 68s, a group of A’s megafans partnering with the Nevada State Education Association to circulate a petition to repeal a public financing bill for a new A’s stadium in Las Vegas.
Sunday, Aug. 27, 2023 | 2 a.m.
As longtime Athletics season ticket holder Nina Thorsen made her way to section 149 at the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum a week ago Saturday, she carried a large black duffel bag and an old, weathered tom drum that’s been a mainstay at A’s games through the years.
Inside Thorsen’s duffel bag lay more than a half-dozen makeshift signs that are regularly draped over the railing of section 149, which sits just above the scoreboard in right field — making it an almost unavoidable sight for spectators and players alike.
The signs were once cheerful homages to A’s players, but they have recently displayed more poignant messages: “Vegas Beware,” “Nevada Fold,” “Stay,” and “Schools over Stadiums,”just to name a few.
“We used to have really beautiful, professionally-made banners that were specific to players,” said Thorsen, 66, who has had season tickets since 2006. “We haven’t had many of them in the last couple of years because everybody keeps getting traded.”
Thorsen is part of a small but vocal contingent of diehard A’s fans who regularly sit in section 149 and call themselves the Oakland 68s — a moniker that pays homage to the team’s arrival in the East Bay since relocating from Kansas City, Mo., in 1968.
After the team announced its intention to seek Major League Baseball’s permission to relocate to Las Vegas in February, the Oakland 68s, a registered nonprofit organization, began selling green “Sell” T-shirts that are responsible for the Coliseumwide “sell the team!” chants that start during the fifth inning at A’s home games. Owner John Fisher has said he doesn’t intend to sell the team.
The 68s have begun collaborating with a group of Nevada educators to stymie the $380 million public financing package signed into law in June that has all but assured the team’s move to the Las Vegas Strip.
Enter the Nevada State Educators Association, the state’s largest teachers union, and its new political action committee: Schools Over Stadiums.
NSEA officials say they oppose the stadium funding package — which passed as Senate Bill 1 during a special legislative session June 14 — on grounds that the state should have invested further in its public school system rather than a stadium to lure professional baseball. Classroom sizes across the state continue to swell, while support and resources are falling at an alarming rate, said Dawn Etcheverry, NSEA president and an elementary school music teacher in Sparks.
“We started (Schools Over Stadiums) because our state’s priorities are in the wrong place,” Etcheverry said. “We saw a state legislature that never took up bills to address our class sizes, which aren’t even manageable for most educators.”
The club’s move still must be approved by MLB owners, but that is considered a formality. Commissioner Rob Manfred has said the league would waive relocation fees, and the team last week announced it hired Mortenson-McCarthy — which also built Allegiant Stadium — to construct the Las Vegas ballpark.
It’s planned to open in time for the start ofthe 2028 season.
Earlier this month, Schools Over Stadiums had its first fundraiser, raising “several thousands” at an event attended by about roughly 40 people in Oakland, Etcheverry said. The organization is planning to challenge SB 1’s approval, whether it be through a petition drive or litigation, said Chris Daly, government affairs coordinator for NSEA and Schools Over Stadiums.
“I think we’ve developed a high level of solidarity between Nevada educators and Oakland A’s fans who’ve been organizing,” Daly said. “They’re very savvy … and they’re building this interesting nationwide movement that is populist around baseball.”
As Nevada lawmakers were deliberating SB 1, some of the NSEA educators who testified in opposition to the bill began to notice their online “wish lists” of perennial school supplies were being fulfilled en masse. The donors were A’s fans, who like many in the NSEA were vocal opponents of the bill on social media.
While their goals are different, the factions have formed a symbiotic relationship universally opposed to the proposed $1.5 billion ballpark slated to be built on the southeast corner of Las Vegas Boulevard and Tropicana Avenue.
This rendering provided by the Oakland Athletics on May 26, 2023, shows a view of their proposed new ballpark at the Tropicana site in Las Vegas.
“It’s hard to say whether we’re using them to gain momentum and to gather resources, or whether they’re using us to kind of act as their best Nevada vehicle to stop the team from moving,” Daly said.
Whichever route Schools Over Stadiums ultimately decides to take to challenge SB 1 will be decided in the coming weeks, Daly told the Sun. But it seems the path will involve a petition drive of some sort, whether to repeal SB 1 altogether or amend it currently as written.
“I think it served two purposes,” Alexander Marks, a spokesman for NSEA and Schools Over Stadiums, said of the fundraiser in Oakland. “One (was) to finally just introduce ourselves in person. You know, these are friends that we’ve made online for weeks since the regular session. We were able to put faces to screen names and usernames.”
The other purpose the fundraiser had, Marks said, was to shore up support in the Bay Area and court potential “deep pocket” donors. Among the attendees of the initial fundraiser was Port of Oakland Board of Commissioners President Michael Colbruno and former Oakland Mayor Jean Quan, Etcheverry said.
“We’re still a new organization,” Marks said. “So some folks need to get comfortable with who we are.”
Marks continued: “Everybody likes to talk about how transient we are. Well, then we’re going to keep moving to other cities. We’re not going to be there for the long haul. We’re not going to love this team ever in the same way the current Oakland folks do.”
While many with the A’s fan group the 68s are eager to help Schools Over Stadiums, others are waiting to see whether the buzz online can translate into genuine political action.
Will MacNeil, 39, of Dublin, Calif., is a lifelong A’s fan who regularly attends games in section 149. He acknowledged that Schools Over Stadiums has a tall task in front of it, but he’s eagerly monitoring the situation.
“If we don’t help them out, they may not get the funding or they might not get the support they need to make sure this gets passed on the ballot,” MacNeil said. “So we’re happy to dive in fully and help them out. They’re going to help us out, too.”
But even some of the most passionate fans have raised concerns.
“It’s not like if they manage to get this on the ballot, and it passes, that money will be taken from the A’s and go directly to the teachers,” Thorsen said.
When a petition does go live, Schools Over Stadiums plans to bus in advocates from Oakland to help circulate the petition in Nevada, adding yet another layer of support from the Bay Area. And if the support is there to add a SB 1 referendum to the ballot in 2024, a presidential election year, officials with Schools Over Stadiums are confident they can convince voters to reject the ballpark proposal.
“There’s a bit of a political chess game being played,” Daly said. “Whether we bring it (a lawsuit) or it’s brought to us, we’re assuming there’s gonna be a pretty heavy litigation calendar on this.”
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