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November 20, 2023

Fans Use Custom Merch Kits to Try to Sway MLB Owners On Oakland Athletics Relocation Vote

The personalized swag boxes included a hat from distributor/decorator Oaklandish.

By  Christopher Ruvo

The fans went down fighting, and they did it with merch.

In a last-gasp effort to prevent the Oakland Athletics’ ownership from relocating the team to Las Vegas, supporters of the A’s created personalized swag boxes that they sent to select owners of other Major League Baseball teams.

The intention of the kits? Convince the owners to vote against allowing the A’s franchise to ditch Oakland and move to Sin City. Alas, for fans wishing to keep the Athletics on the “Bright Side of the Bay,” owners voted last week in favor of permitting the move.

Some observers felt the vote was kind of a foregone conclusion. After 55 years in Oakland, the A’s are Vegas-bound, with a $1.5 billion stadium scheduled to be opened there in 2028.

Still, from a promotional products industry perspective, it’s interesting that the fans turned to personalized branded merchandise to try to influence billionaire MLB owners on such an important issue. If nothing else, it’s a testament to the belief in the power of promotional products to impact audiences, even if it came up short this time.  

The box included a hat from Oaklandish (asi/169128), an Oakland-based apparel brand/promo distributor-decorator. Done in the Athletics’ unmistakable green and gold, the boxes themselves featured a silhouette of the city skyline, a depiction of the Coliseum where the A’s play, and the message “Stay in Oakland.”

Inside, there was a letter to each owner from the mayor of Oakland, a “Keep the Athletics in Oakland” postcard, custom baseball card of each owner, what fans described as a relocation fact sheet, and a video accessible by USB drive, DVD and QR code on why the A’s should stay put. Apparel brand Last Dive Bar and fan group the Oakland 68s were key to spearheading the kit’s creation and mailing. The 68s say they’re not done fighting to keep the A’s in their town.

“We will challenge the relocation and seek to disrupt it in any way possible,” the 68s said in a statement.

Notable, from a promo angle, is that this wasn’t the first time Oaklandish has supported the Keep the A’s in Oakland movement.

In June, ASI Media reported how the B Corp screen-printer helped fuel a grassroots protest that garnered national sports media attention and that went viral on social media by printing Kelly green T-shirts with one simple word: “SELL.”

The word “SELL” was directed to the Athletics’ billionaire owner John Fisher, whom fans revile, accusing him of running the team into the ground for years while trying to relocate the franchise.

On June 13, A’s supporters wore the shirts en masse at a “reverse boycott” game – called so because it involved flooding the stadium with fans rather than not attending in protest, as had become the norm. Said Oakland CEO Angela Tsay at the time: “T-shirts are a powerful way for people to send a message, and to be a part of something bigger than themselves.”

Indeed, some fans have also sported another T-shirt with a softer, almost sad message in light of the MLB owners’ vote. With an “A” stylized like the team logo, the shirt said simply – “STAY.”