London? Raiders say why not?

The 2018 NFL schedule isn’t out yet, but one Oakland Raiders game has already been scheduled.

The NFL announced Thursday that the Raiders will be hosting the Seattle Seahawks in London at the new stadium for Tottenham Hotspur of the English Premier League on Oct. 14.

The Raiders spun Thursday’s news as a positive, expressing how exciting it is to host one of the first games at the new stadium, which is set to open this summer.

The key word in all of this is “host.” The Raiders, who will play the next two seasons in Oakland before moving to Las Vegas, are sacrificing a home game in California to play it in London. Why?

The Tottenham game will mark the third consecutive season and the fourth time in the past five years that the Raiders have played a “home” game outside of the United States.

The Raiders are the only team the NFL asks to sacrifice home games on an annual basis — the Jaguars, who play a home game in London every year, do so by choice — but it makes sense why that’s the case: no other team owes the league as much as the Raiders.

“If the NFL says the Raiders need to host a home game in Siberia, Mark Davis might mutter something bad under his breath, but then he’s going to buy a parka,” wrote Dieter Kurtenbach of the Bay Area News Group. “After all, the Raiders owner has taken out hundreds of millions of dollars loans and received more than a bit of help from the NFL to help build his new stadium in Las Vegas.

“Davis took a $200 million loan from the NFL as a repayment for the Raiders being passed over for relocation to Los Angeles twice. … They are no doubt favorable terms to the team, but it also provides the NFL incredible leverage over Davis. Leverage that can be used to force the team to give up a home game every year.”