Kurtenbach: Raiders owner Mark Davis tried to pull the same trick
The Raiders’ dreams of a San Francisco sojourn appear dead.
The only question now is if team owner Mark Davis swallows his pride and has his team play the 2019 season at Levi’s Stadium – home of the 49ers _ or the Oakland-alameda County Coliseum, or if he abruptly pulls his team out of the region altogether.
Amid public opposition from prominent San Francisco politicians – including Mayor London Breed – and behind-the-scenes opposition from the Golden State Warriors – who will move to San Francisco’s Mission Bay neighborhood in fall 2019 – the NFL is not expected to greenlight a move for the Raiders to play a final Bay Area season at Oracle Park, home of the Giants.
It was also reported by NFL Network that the 49ers – who have territorial rights to the city of San Francisco – planned on blocking the move.
The Raiders and the Giants had been in closeddoor negotiations about the NFL team playing a seven-game regular-season home schedule at the stadium, formerly known as AT&T Park.
But with that deal falling through, the Raiders currently have no home stadium for their 2019 season. The team – whose practice facility and business offices are in Alameda – had been aiming to stay in the Bay Area for one final season before moving to Las Vegas in 2020.
Complicating matters is the fact that the two available Bay Area stadium options – the Coliseum and Levi’s – are unsavory to Davis.
The Raiders opted to be a stadium free agent after the city of Oakland sued the team and the NFL in December over what they claimed were antitrust violations and a breach of contract. The Raiders subsequently pulled out of negotiations to play one more year at the Coliseum, setting the Oracle Park plan in motion. Oakland officials remain open to the Raiders playing another year at the Coliseum.
“Emotionally, I don’t want to pay for my own lawsuit,” Davis said in December.
Moving to Santa Clara would prove logistically trickier than a final season in Oakland. Davis has a well-established position of not liking Levi’s Stadium as a home field for the Raiders. He’s publicly cited the tailgate scene as his main problem, but being a subletter in the Niners’ stadium likely looms as a much larger factor.
Santa Clara Mayor Lisa Gillmor told the Bay Area News Group on Tuesday that neither the Raiders or 49ers had contacted her or Santa Clara City Manager Deanna Santana about the possibility of the Raiders playing at Levi’s in 2019.
“It’s the 49ers’ call. The second team is already prescribed in the (Levi’s Stadium) lease agreement,” she said. “In preparation ... our city staff is analyzing the extra costs for security and public services to be paid by the teams. I am told the costs will be high.”
The city is also looking at costs of last year’s Thursday-night 49ers-raiders game at Levi’s Stadium in an effort to estimate the costs of the Raiders moving to the South Bay.
Davis is hellbent on not moving the Raiders to Vegas until their new facilities – a $1.8 billion stadium south of The Strip and a 323,000 square-foot practice facility in nearby Henderson – are ready. But if Davis really wants to keep his team in the Bay Area and avoid having his franchise play 16 road games or practice out of a temporary facility in Fresno, Ariz., or San Antonio, he’s going to have to swallow his pride in one way or another.
The path of least resistance is, without a doubt, going back to Oakland. How strong are those emotions Davis is fighting when it comes to that lawsuit?
Are they stronger than renting the world’s most complicated Airbnb?
Davis was effecting a move to Oracle Park because it wouldn’t require him to swallow that pride or feel like a second-class citizen.
He tried to railroad a final year in San Francisco into existence. It failed. Spectacularly. It’s no surprise that Davis tried the tactic _ that’s how he relocated the Raiders (in theory, anyway) to Las Vegas in the first place.
The Raiders are moving to Las Vegas because Davis didn’t ask for permission – he only needed forgiveness.
After the Raiders and Chargers’ joint Los Angeles stadium venture was shot down by NFL owners in January 2016, the Raiders’ owner took full advantage of the NFL and his fellow owners’ low expectations, operating behind the scenes to make a deal that would take his team to Sin City.
That original deal _ cut with casino magnate Sheldon Adelson and Goldman Sachs – fell apart in spectacular fashion, but by then, it was so far down the line that the NFL felt it would be easier to help than to abandon it and start over.
Davis failed his way into the biggest win of his life.
So, of course, he tried the same trick again.
The NFL wanted to know where the Raiders were playing their 2019 home games yesterday – they have a schedule to put out by April, and contrary to popular belief, that’s not as easy as sending evites to 32 teams.
But while the NFL was busy worrying about the Super Bowl, Davis and his team were negotiating with the Giants behind the scenes. The league wasn’t involved. San Francisco politicians weren’t involved. Neighbors – including the Warriors – weren’t involved. The 49ers – who could torpedo the deal with a simple “no” – weren’t involved.