Some 27,759 A's fans join at Oakland Coliseum for 'Reverse Boycott' - ESPN

OAKLAND, Calif. — On the same day the Nevada Senate voted to approve $380 million in public money for a Las Vegas ballpark for the Athletics, fans in Oakland held their long-planned «Reverse Boycott» intended to fill the Oakland Coliseum and prove their worth to owner John Fisher and Major League Baseball. The timing felt cruel in a cosmic sort of way.

It turned out to be a party without a celebration.

In the south parking lot, fans lined up three hours before the game to grab one of the 7,000 green «SELL» T-shirts provided $39,000 in community donations and produced by Oaklandish, a local clothing company. There was a taco truck and a DJ and tables set up for fans to make their own anti-Fisher signs.

The game drew 27,759, the largest home crowd of the season and more than triple the team's home average of 8,555. They watched their team beat the Rays 2-1, a seventh straight win that for one night at least pulled them up from baseball's basement (19-50).

The A's won 97 games in 2019 and made the postseason again in 2020 before Fisher began stripping the team of its young stars, reducing payroll to the lowest in baseball. The team raised ticket prices and did little to nothing to improve the fan experience as the wins dwindled, then used poor attendance and the condition of the ballpark to justify its decision to seek a new home.

The news of the Nevada vote cast a pall over what was expected to be a jubilant display of Oakland's ability to support its team.

«Now we just want to let people vent their frustrations,» said Jorge Leon, the president of the Oakland 68s, a fan club that helped organize the protest. He wore a SELL shirt and a wedding ring that inscribed «Oakland» in A's script. «If it's set in stone that they're