The Athletics’ first full MLB season at Sacramento felt like a total disaster from opening day onward. Owner John Fisher’s plan to find a quiet home before moving to Las Vegas has backfired. On the field, the A’s are struggling again. Off the field, things are even worse.

The problems have followed the team from Oakland right up Interstate 80. Players criticized the facilities of minor league ballparks. Tickets are selling for as low as $3 on some days. And the reputation of the A’s owner, John Fisher, is not just hurting his own team. It started to create chaos for another major franchise in the city.

This is where the Sacramento Kings and their owner, Vivek Ranadivé, enter the story. Ranadivé, who also owns the minor-league River Cats, welcomed his “friend” John Fisher to use Sutter Health Park. This decision has sparked outrage among fans, and according to a recent SFGATE article, many believe this connection has put a curse on the Kings.

One fan, Joseph Ferraro, shared his deep frustration with SFGATE. He first aimed at the A’s owner. “He takes the easiest way out in everything,” Ferraro said of Fisher. “The cheapest, the sleaziest way out. He doesn’t answer to anything either.” It reflects a fanbase that feels completely betrayed by the owner of their beloved team. But Ferraro saved his sharpest words for the Kings’ owner, and he believes Ranadivé is now guilty by association.

“The Kings owner that brought him in here, he deserves it,” Ferraro told SFGATE. “Being best friends with John Fisher, this is what you get. This is what the Kings get too. They just cursed the Kings — like, the Kings aren’t winning anything. That’s a terrible owner. He’s a terrible, terrible person for dealing with John Fisher. You’re best friends with him, you’re best friends with a rat. That makes you a rat.”

Ferraro also sees them both as men who sell false promises to their fans. “Those guys are selling hope, that’s it,” he said. “He’s probably selling hope more than the A’s, for sure. John Fisher ain’t selling hope. He’s just selling $3 tickets right now to me.”

Now, let’s examine the truth of the scorns

John Fisher and Vivek Ranadivé publicly celebrated their partnership around April 2024, the Kings had just broken a 16-year playoff drought, and their General Manager, Monte McNair, was the reigning NBA Executive of the Year. Then the feel-good story stumbled out of the gate to a disappointing 13-18 start to the 2024-25 season. And reports surfaced that the Kings were now “open to trading” their star point guard around January 28, 2025.

And then, when their season ended in a predictable play-in tournament loss around April 2025, they parted ways with GM Monte McNair. A move that ESPN’s Brian Windhorst declared, “It’s not a good organization… This is the definition of why they have been a bad organization for decades.”  And Matt George, host of the Locked on Kings podcast, pointed directly to the April 2024 press conference with Fisher, calling it the “beginning of the end.”

Meanwhile, the Athletics are currently sitting at 74-83 by late September after their disastrous 1-20 stretch in the early summer, and once again selling off one of their best player, All-Star closer Mason Miller, to the Padres at the trade deadline.

This toxic situation has now clearly spilled over and stained the Kings on the surface. But beneath it, we can’t ignore Vivek Ranadivé’s ultimate motivation.

Reportedly, Ranadivé believes that John Fisher’s plan to build a stadium in Las Vegas would ultimately fail. And Sacramento will become the default permanent home for the A’s, with the reasoning that wherever the team is at that moment is where it will stay.