Opening Day was on Thursday and, as of the publication of this column, the Oakland Athletics are undefeated after one game. Usually, I use Opening Day to celebrate baseball or my beloved A’s, but this year you’re going to just have to settle for another viewing of “The Unauthorized Bash Brothers Experience” because I’m using the occasion to advance a more noble cause: Demanding A’s owner John Fisher sell the team and go away forever.

For those unaware, Fisher is the billionaire failson of Gap founders Donald and Doris Fisher, and he fronted the money for Lew Wolff to buy the team in 2005; their bid was actually lower than that of Reggie Jackson and Bill Gates, but then-commissioner Bud Selig was friends with Wolff and gave it to him anyway because he apparently hates Oakland and me, personally. When Wolff sold his stake in disgrace in 2016, Fisher became the sole owner, and somehow things have gotten worse since.

Now Fisher is tanking the team to bring down costs despite, according to Forbes, making a $29 million profit last season. He’s threatening to move to Las Vegas because Oakland won’t build him a stadium for free, and the fans won’t pay the recently doubled ticket prices to watch a glorified minor league team lose 100 games per year so the owner can rake in 400 times the median household income in profit.

So this one’s for you, John Fisher. Because I hate you.

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Macklemore & Ryan Lewis — “Thrift Shop”

Comparing Fisher’s player acquisition strategy to shopping at a thrift shop isn’t fair to thrift shops. It’s more like “shopping” by picking up discarded furniture off the side of the road.

No disrespect to the Oakland Athletics offseason acquisitions, but I think even they’d agree that at this point in their careers, they’re better suited to backup roles and occasionally need a bit more time in Triple-A. But that’s all you can afford when your impoverished owner only has $2 billion of his parents’ money, and the team is in the tiny market that is the 12th-largest and arguably wealthiest metro area in the United States.

Or he could just cash out by selling and get the $1.1 billion team valuation in cash.

Pet Shop Boys — “Opportunities”

The team valuation is probably the most confusing thing about Fisher not selling. This is a billionaire who’s so desperate for cash that he’s willing to continuously erode not just his but his family’s reputation and standing in the community for $29 million per year in income. And yet he’s sitting on an asset worth more than a billion dollars with multiple willing buyers who could bid it up to double that or higher?

According to the Forbes article, the Oakland Athletics are worth about $1.18 billion. That’s the second-lowest value among all MLB teams ahead of only the Miami Marlins, and it’s so low in large part because of Fisher’s mismanagement. Yet Forbes also estimates Fisher’s net worth at $2.3 billion. That means more than half of his net worth is tied up in a team that’s, solely because of his incompetence, not appreciating in value.

Putting half your total worth into an asset that pays a 2.5 percent per year return, especially when inflation is easily twice that, is terrible business. But then again, this is John Fisher we’re talking about, so it’s not surprising in the slightest.

The Kid LAROI — “F*CK YOU, GOODBYE”

Why am I so confident that the team’s value is not appreciating because of Fisher’s ineptitude as a businessman? Because he doesn’t seem to understand how economics works.

In the NFL, team values are barely tied to their on-field performance. TV deals are negotiated leaguewide and split equally regardless of each team’s ratings, so franchise values are skyrocketing across the board. In baseball, however, each team negotiates its own media deal. So if you trade away every player that your fans have heard of, and the team loses 100 games, that makes people watch less, so your media rights will be worth less when the deal is up.

And what do you know? The A’s TV deal is up soon, just in time for the latest unnecessary roster teardown. The stands are empty because Fisher raised ticket prices by up to 80 percent during the same offseason that he traded away the most popular and talented players. Nobody wants to watch a team they don’t recognize. Oakland has extremely passionate fans, but we’re also fans who don’t appreciate being taken advantage of. So if you treat us like garbage, we won’t give you our money.

The old adage is true: You have to spend money to make money. Steve Cohen, owner of the Mets, lost $138 million in the 2022 season because expenses were so much higher than revenue, but the value of the team rose by $261 million. He understands that 261 is higher than 138. Fisher clearly does not, and he’s suffering the effects.

Motley Crüe — “Don’t Go Away Mad (Just Go Away)”

But enough about how selling the team will benefit Fisher because, honestly, I don’t want Fisher to benefit. The sole downside about him selling is that he would profit from what he’s done. If Oakland seized the team via civil forfeiture, I would completely change my opinion about whether that practice should be allowed to exist.

If Fisher sold the team to someone who understands baseball or, you know, basic business concepts, it would benefit the city of Oakland. Someone with a genuine interest in building the Howard Terminal stadium could get it done more quickly and smoothly, developing an area of the city with new housing—including low income—as well as a new commercial district. It would increase tourism and improve the city’s image and reputation almost as much as “Black Panther” did. And I would be able to buy a jersey with a current player’s name on it without feeling like I was throwing money away.

But instead, he’s desperately trying to flee the state.

A Flock of Seagulls — “I Ran (So Far Away)”

I do believe there was a time when Fisher (and Wolff before him) actually wanted to build a stadium in Oakland. I don’t think that’s true anymore. I think they’re going through the motions while sabotaging their own efforts and constantly moving the goalposts because they want to run away to Las Vegas.

Vegas, thanks to gambling money, is offering to build a stadium for them basically for free. Also, nobody there hates Fisher yet. He thinks that if only he got away from Oakland, he could make slightly more on his investment, apparently not realizing an underfunded team in a smaller metro region isn’t going to blow away an underfunded team in a larger one.

Take the only team worth less than the Oakland Athletics—the Marlins. Miami built them a gaudy, tragically hideous new stadium, and they responded by pouring money into the roster. It took a season or two before they traded all those new players away and replaced them with even cheaper ones than they had before. So despite the new ballpark, they’re the least valuable franchise in baseball. It should be a lesson to Fisher that even if he gets his Vegas ballpark, he’s still not going to make more than his current 2.5 percent.

It’s honestly embarrassing for him that he’s still clinging to this beautiful thing he ruined. Not as embarrassing as how badly he ruined the Oakland Athletics, but embarrassing nonetheless.

Just sell the team and walk away, John, so we never have to think about you ever again.

Follow publisher Daniel J. Willis and tweet column ideas to him at Twitter.com/BayAreaData.