What does the Warriors’ move to SF mean to the people of Oakland?
Covering the walls of the Coliseum BART station (directly across from Oracle Arena) are dozens of Nike posters with images of Warriors players and fans and the simple tagline “The Bay wants it all,” a statement which, similarly to the “Golden State” moniker, undermines the city that the Warriors have played in for the last 40-plus years.
The Warriors will leave Oracle Arena and the city of Oakland before the start of the 2019–20 NBA season. Their new arena, the Chase Center, is currently under construction in the Mission Bay district of San Francisco, across the street from UCSF and just a few blocks down from AT&T Park. Oakland native fans and businesses alike are upset both financially and emotionally. The business that the Warriors bring will now be received by San Francisco, a city that is already much more financially prosperous and gentrified than Oakland. But beyond that, the team is essentially abandoning the city that stood with them through 40 years of hardships.
“I think it’s terrible,” says Mary Verstraete, a Warriors fan who has lived in the East Bay for more than 20 years. “The Oakland fans have been here a long time. We don’t need a fancier stadium. There’s nothing wrong with this stadium!”
The fans have been there for a long time, even when the team wasn’t exactly a championship contender. In the 46 years that the Warriors have been in Oakland, they have missed the playoffs 30 times. Only recently, with the ascendance of Stephen Curry and the acquisition of Kevin Durant, have the Warriors truly become an entertaining and successful basketball franchise. Now they’re taking their success back across the Bay and away from small Oakland businesses.
“It’s definitely going to affect the business, because of the traffic that [Warriors games] brought” says Adam Abdallaha, son of the owner of Fish King, a small family owned restaurant within walking distance of Oracle Arena. “Now they’ll just go straight to the bridge and spend their money in the city. It’s definitely going to impact the economics of this area.”
Warriors employees might also be affected by the move. According to Warriors employee Marissa Marshall, who works in event operations, her future with the team is uncertain, as the team has made no official statement as to whether or not all employees will be able to continue working with the team after the move. When asked if the Warriors have conveyed any information to her, Marshall responds “Oh no, I haven’t heard anything about that.”
This is not definitive, but the fact that some employees have not been given job certainty could be troubling to some.
Coupled with these financial issues are feelings of abandonment and disrespect. The Dubs played in San Francisco from 1962 to 1971 under the “San Francisco Warriors” title. After relocating to Oakland, the team changed its name to Golden State as to represent all of California rather than simply becoming the “Oakland Warriors.” In this attempt to represent a larger fan base, some Oakland fans felt unrepresented by their hometown team. Former NBA Center Shaquille O’Neal famously stated on a TNT broadcast that he wasn’t even aware that the Warriors played in Oakland.
“Are they in Oakland?” asked O’Neal, who would play the Warriors four times a year when he was with the Los Angeles Lakers. “I didn’t know that. We used to always stay [at hotels] in San Francisco so I thought we played in San Francisco.”
While this may seem silly to those from the Bay Area, it isn’t that absurd based on the way the NBA portrays, or rather doesn’t portray, Oakland. On many nationally televised games, the network will use B-Roll shots of San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge rather than Oakland and the Bay Bridge. Small things like this make fans who have stood with the team through mediocrity feel unappreciated and now, with the move, forgotten.
“This is all we got out here,” says Lorenzo Lamar, an Oakland Native and lifelong Warriors fan. “It ain’t like there’s a whole bunch of stuff in our city we got to look up to. What people don’t tell you in the news is that the projects, the hood, is on the other side of them railroad tracks,” referring to the line by the arena.
To others like Lamar, the Warriors were all that Oakland had. But until recently, these fans were all that the Warriors had too, whether they acknowledged them or not. The entire Bay might “want it all,” but Oakland just wanted some recognition from the team they love.
“We party big when the Warriors win and bring the community together,” says Lamar. “During the [championship] parade you don’t hear about nobody getting shot or nothing like that. It was just a bunch of good love feelings and the whole city came out. I brought my son to a Warriors game, and it’s a beautiful experience.”
