With the 2026 season home opener at Angel Stadium on Friday, April 3, the Angels are celebrating 60 years of calling Anaheim home.
The Major League Baseball team has a lease to play up to 12 more years in the city-owned stadium, but multiple rounds of negotiations for the team to secure a longer stay have stumbled in recent years.
While earlier councils talked with the Angels in fits and starts, it wasn’t until then-Mayor Harry Sidhu came into City Hall in 2018 vowing to keep the team in Anaheim that movement really got made and a deal for selling the stadium and its surrounding parking lots to a business partnership of team owner Arte Moreno was struck.
Then the FBI revealed it was investigating Sidhu, partly in relation to his negotiations for a deal, leading the council to kill in 2022 that $320 million agreement. But even before that, a state law prioritizing affordable housing, the Surplus Land Act, had threatened the deal’s success.
The city’s a long way out from making any new big decisions on the stadium’s future. But recent moves could hint at what’s in store.
In a step forward, city leaders recently jump-started early conversations with state officials on how to successfully navigate, this time, future development of the stadium property. In a step back, Anaheim’s mayor is supporting recently proposed state legislation that would bring back up the issue of having “Anaheim” in the team name.
So, as the team takes the field — with a new incoming team president in Molly Jolly — we take a look at how key off-the-field topics could be part of the 2026 season story.
Q. What’s the relationship between the city and the team looking like nowadays?
A. “I’m really excited to see Molly Jolly take the helm of the organization,” Anaheim Mayor Ashleigh Aitken said.
Rising from senior vice president of finance and administration, Jolly becomes the team’s ninth president as she succeeds the retiring John Carpino, who has been running the show since 2009 and will throw out the ceremonial first pitch Friday.
“I’ve known her for years, and I think she’s gonna bring a fair and measured leadership as the first female president,” Aitken said. “And I think as a local volunteer, she understands Anaheim, she understands its residents, and she might bring a new perspective on the need for stronger community partnerships between the Angels and Anaheim residents.”
Jolly will start her new role on April 6.
“We are excited to celebrate our 60th anniversary at The Big A and proud to call Angel Stadium of Anaheim our home,” Jolly said in a statement. “It stands as a place rich with baseball history and unforgettable moments.”
Ahead of last year’s season home opener, Aitken, in an open letter to Moreno, outlined her starting points for a future stadium deal, including needing to navigate the Surplus Land Act from the get-go, wanting commitments to having a community workforce agreement and full city access to the stadium for inspections and acknowledgement of Anaheim as the team’s location and partner.
“I never received a response from Mr. Moreno,” Aitken said.
“I’m not planning on sending another letter again, but my position remains unchanged,” she said. “I still have an open-door policy for anyone that wants to come forward with ideas that are great for the residents of Anaheim.”
As landlord and tenant, the city and the Angels are in conversations every day. But it’s unclear whether the team would make a first move to re-engage after the city killed the last deal.
Visitors to Angel Stadium buy tickets for Angels Baseball in Anaheim, CA, on Thursday, April 2, 2026. (Photo by Jeff Gritchen, Orange County Register/SCNG)
Q. The city is taking another swing at navigating the Surplus Land Act. How is it going about it this time around?
A. State law requires local governments selling “surplus” property to prioritize affordable housing, including giving such developers first crack at negotiating for the land.
The city and Moreno were well into planning development of the parking lots around the stadium with housing and retail, offices and park space when the state said the deal was in violation of the Surplus Land Act. The city argued it was an “economic opportunity” deal, which another state law allows, and that’s why the Surplus Land Act wouldn’t apply.
Ultimately, city officials negotiated a settlement with the state to spend a $96 million chunk of the sale’s proceeds on affordable housing elsewhere in the city to keep the stadium deal moving forward. But then the FBI probe into Sidhu surfaced, and the council decided to kill it. Sidhu later pleaded guilty in an agreement with federal officials.
This time around, the city officials say they are talking with state partners on how to best navigate the Surplus Land Act. Those conversations are preliminary, and city officials are expecting to weave through a complex process — this is a baseball stadium, after all — before another sale of the property could even be considered.
The sheer size of the 150-acre stadium, Aitken said, as well as the baseball team’s running lease on the property, could make those conversations tricky.
“So it is unique, the stadium, under the Surplus Land Act and how we value the land both under the lease or if it was free and clear of the lease is complicated,” Aitken said, adding down the line, the city could hire “real estate professionals to assess the value of the lease of the land, both encumbered and unencumbered.”
Q. Angel Stadium is the fourth-oldest MLB ballpark in the country. As it continues to age, will it need more work soon?
A. The previous sales deal didn’t dictate whether the stadium would be renovated or built new. That question never got answered.
City leaders are awaiting the results of an assessment on the 60-year-old stadium’s condition — now expected in late summer or early fall — which could need hundreds of millions in maintenance and repairs.
“I think once we get the stadium assessment back and analyze what each side’s rules and responsibilities are under the lease, we’ll have to open up those conversations (with the team),” Aitken said. “That won’t violate the Surplus Land Act because we wouldn’t be in negotiations to sell the property.”
Those future conversations, Aitken said, will be about “making sure that everybody, making sure the Angels, have honored their obligations under the current lease. And then we can look at next steps.”
“On the city side, at least, the door is open,” Aitken said, “and we’d like baseball to stay.”
Q. What’s the “Home Run for Anaheim” bill proposed?
If the team is staying, Aitken would like to see “Anaheim” legislated back into the Angels’ name.
Assemblymember Avelino Valencia introduced last week the “Home Run for Anaheim Act,” which would make an exemption under the Surplus Land Act — if one were sought for a development of the property — contingent on “Anaheim” being added back into the team’s name.
Anaheim Mayor Ashleigh Aitken gives an upbeat State of the City address on Tuesday, April 29, 2025 in Anaheim. (Photo by Mindy Schauer, Orange County Register/SCNG)
“I believe that’s a fair tradeoff,” Aitken said. “If you’re going to be asking for leniency as to the number of units you’re required to build, I think an appropriate give back to the city and to the fans as recognition of that leniency is to honor the town that built the stadium in the first place.”
Moreno changed the team’s name from the Anaheim Angels to the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim in 2005, shortly after purchasing the team. The city sued, arguing the Angels were violating the lease, but a jury sided with the baseball team. By the 2016 season, the team was going by the Los Angeles Angels.
Aitken, last week, asked the city attorney to look into whether dropping the hometown name puts the baseball team in violation of its current lease through 2038 to play in the stadium.
The city has yet to receive a response from the Angels. The team has said the name’s been settled in court.
Q. What can fans expect this year?
A. New food and merchandise, and $5 million in stadium improvements, including to the Diamond Club seat areas and the parking.
And adding onto the stadium’s Level Up PAC-MAN arcade area that has free games for fans and families, there’s a new “PAC-MAN Chomp Stop” offering unique PAC-MAN inspired desserts and treats.
Angel Stadium is “where our community comes together, and we are fortunate to have shared that experience with generations of devoted Angels fans,” Jolly said.
For Aitken, a lifelong Angels fan, opening day “signals the beginning of summer, something that brings people from different neighborhoods and different backgrounds and ages all together to celebrate their love of the Angels.”
Hot dogs and heaping ice cream helmets are on the mind, too, for Anaheim’s mayor, but first and foremost, “I want to watch some good baseball.”
