Oakland-Alameda Coliseum
The Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum is one of the oldest sports venues in the United States. The Coliseum opened in 1966 and it is currently the home of the Oakland Athletics of Major League Baseball and the Oakland Raiders of the National Football League. The A’s have played there since 1968 when they moved from Kansas City. The Raiders began playing at the Coliseum in 1966 and they played there until 1981 when they moved to Los Angeles which was their home until they moved back to Oakland in 1995. Since 2000, 14 of the 32 National Football League teams have received new stadiums with several more coming down the pike in the next few years. The Raiders want in on the stadium gravy train and they may not get one in Oakland.
Former longtime Raiders owner Al Davis was a shrewd businessman. Davis was also the former commissioner of the American Football League and he was vehemently against their merger with the NFL in 1970. In 1982, Davis moved his Raiders to Los Angeles after a long fight with the NFL. Davis’s move to L.A. was due to the fact he was unable to secure improvements to the Oakland Coliseum. While in Los Angeles, the Raiders played at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum which had a seating capacity near 100,000. With the NFL’s blackout rules stipulating that a home team’s games would get blacked out in their local area if they were unable to have a sellout, the Raiders and Davis were in a tough spot. Davis was never able to secure a new stadium in Hollywood Park, California and in 1995 he and his Raiders got back on Interstate-5 en route to Oakland. Davis passed away in 2011, but his son Mark Davis is now the principal owner of the Raiders and he is following in his father’s footsteps.
The younger Davis is desperately seeking a new stadium. Davis is hopeful that the City of Oakland will give him a new venue. If not Davis is open to moving the Raiders back to Los Angeles. The San Francisco 49ers are set to begin playing at the state-of-the-art Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California in September and the Raiders along with the National Football League have thrown around the idea of the silver and black sharing the Bay Area spot with the Niners. But this week a new kid on the block appeared when Davis threw around the notion of the Raiders moving to San Antonio, Texas.
Davis was recently in San Antonio and met with city officials there about a potential move. The Alamodome in San Antonio has a seating capacity of 65,000 for football and it would be the home of the Raiders in San Antonio until they would be able to get a new stadium. With damage to the Mercedes-Benz Superdome in 2005 as the result of Hurricane Katrina, the New Orleans Saints played three games at the Alamodome and they were received well there. Davis like most NFL owners wants a new stadium and he is willing to go to any length possible to get his way. Any move to San Antonio would have to also come with a guarantee that upgrades would be made to the Alamodome until the Raiders would get a brand new stadium. But the caveat in this is that San Antonio is one of the smaller media markets in the United States and a Raiders move there would mean that there would be three NFL teams in the State of Texas as the Dallas Cowboys and Houston Texans are already residents there.
Los Angeles could be more feasible as opposed to San Antonio due to the fact that L.A. is the second largest media market in America trailing only New York City. Davis and the Raiders would not want to move back into the L.A. Coliseum unless the National Football League gave them so relief in regards to home blackouts and there was also a guarantee of a new stadium which could be easier than it was when the silver and black left town in 1994 as there is a proposed 75,000 seat stadium on the board as Tinseltown is desperate for a football team. If the Raiders were to return to L.A. they would once again share the Los Angeles Coliseum with the University of Southern California Trojans who are now in charge of the upkeep to the venue.
Then there is good-old Oakland. The City of Oakland welcomed the Raiders back with open arms in 1995 and they cannot afford to get burned once again by the silver and black. Oakland mayor Jean Quan and the city council are looking into building a new stadium for the Raiders on the site of the Oakland Coliseum, but the time for them to act is now due to the fact that the city cannot afford to lose the Raiders twice in the span of 33 years. Not to mention that the City of Oakland will also be losing the Golden State Warriors of the NBA who will be moving across the bay into San Francisco in a few years.
Davis knows exactly what he is doing as he is keeping his options open. Oakland cannot afford to lose the Raiders while Los Angeles is desperate to get back onto the National Football League scene while San Antonio is looking for another silver and black clad sports franchise to go with the five-time NBA Champion San Antonio Spurs. The ultimate winner in this will be Davis who will get what he wants from the highest bidder. If the Raiders do leave Oakland it would be the end of an era as we would be farewell to “The Black Hole”.
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