After months of determining if the City of Anaheim will return to the Angels’ name, it appears that the “Home Run for Anaheim” act is rounding the bases and heading toward home plate after passing through the California State Senate and Assembly.
The bill, Assembly Bill 2512, authored by Avelino Valencia (D-Anaheim), gives the City of Anaheim an exemption to require the MLB franchise, Los Angeles Angels, to revert the name of the team to the Anaheim Angels, as a stipulation to the sale or new lease of the stadium property.
Notably, this bill does not immediately require the Angels to revert their name to the Anaheim Angels, but only if the parties reach a sale or lease of the stadium. This exemption would also not apply if the City of Anaheim and the Los Angeles Angels come to an agreement on their own.
Angel Stadium has been home to the Angels since 1966.
After passing both California chambers with relative ease, the bill will head to Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk to be signed into law within the next two months.
“The city of Anaheim has also been home to this franchise for 60 proud years, yet the team’s name, for whatever reason, does not reflect that history or our community,” Valencia said in April when introducing the bill to the Assembly Standing Committee on local government.
“As someone who grew up in the city of Anaheim, who wore an Anaheim jersey, I can tell you that names really do matter. Pride in place and purpose really does mean something, and erasing Anaheim from the name diminishes not only my community, but what this fan base stands for.”
Although the franchise was founded in Los Angeles in 1961, the team later moved to Anaheim in 1966, where the team has been based for 60 years. However, the team didn’t adopt its host city name until 1997, when they went from the California Angels to the Anaheim Angels.
The team was known as the Anaheim Angels from 1997 to 2004, including during its championship season in 2002.
However, from 2005 to 2015, the MLB franchise changed its name to Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim to meet the requirements of a lease agreement with the city.
Anaheim wasn’t officially dropped from the name until 2016, which has since been a point of contention between the city of Anaheim and the MLB franchise.
When the city of Anaheim agreed to sell the team to a company controlled by Los Angeles Angels owner Arte Moreno in 2019, many in the community were upset that the city did not request the team to return to the Anaheim Angels, according to the L.A. Times. However, the city council ultimately canceled the $320 million sale in 2022, in response to an FBI investigation into corruption in Anaheim.
The team’s current stadium lease extends through 2032, according to Sports Business Journal. The Angels have the option to consider extending the lease through 2038.
Anaheim Mayor Ashleigh Aitken has reportedly asked the city attorney to also explore the possibility that the MLB franchise may have violated its current lease by dropping the name from legal documents.
Additionally, Valencia argued in committee that the current deal with the MLB franchise hasn’t been beneficial to the city of Anaheim due to the team’s consistent underperformance and lack of in-person viewership.
“The city is also tied to unfair conditions due to the lease that they are under,” Valencia said in April.
“They actually only get revenue from the team if more than 2,600,000 tickets are sold. And unfortunately, we haven’t made the playoffs in over 10 years, so that threshold has not been met. In addition to that, the city makes $1 off of leasing the entire baseball stadium and 152 acres of parking surface.”
USA TODAY reporter James Williams contributed to this article.
Noe Padilla is a Northern California Reporter for USA Today. Contact him at npadilla@usatodayco.com, follow him on X @1NoePadilla or on Bluesky @noepadilla.bsky.social. Sign up for the TODAY Californian newsletter or follow us on Facebook at TODAY Californian.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: The ‘Anaheim Angels’ bill passes 3rd base and heads to Newsom’s desk