JUST LEAVE, BABY
Mark Davis, NFL show their disregard for Raiders fans.
SAN FRANCISCO — See you, Mark Davis. Don’t let the door to our legendary, beautiful, thriving market hit you in the butt on the way out. Take the Raiders to Vegas right now and spend a couple of years there, playing outdoors in the heat in some fourth-rate stadium. Pocket your cash. Don’t coast into the desert on the love of your loyal fans. You don’t deserve them. There are a lot of villains here, but none more than Davis, who has been angling to leave Oakland ever since he took over the organization after his father’s death in 2011.
He probably thinks he’s simply following family tradition: Al Davis invariably was ready to move and to play one market against an other. Now, the Davis family will have abandoned the Oakland market twice, giving the city a sad distinction in NFL history along with twice-ditched St. Louis.
Mark Davis had other options, but because of hubris and self-importance, he didn’t follow those options. The logical choice was to partner with the 49ers on a stadium, on which construction hadn’t even started when Al Davis died. The NFL wanted it. It’s the only thing that makes logical sense in a two-team market. (See: New York, Los Angeles.)
Instead, he wanted his own palace. So what if that “palace” will be in the nation’s 42nd-biggest market? So what if he’s abandoning one of the finest traditions in the NFL?
This is a man who thinks P.F. Chang’s and Hooters are the finest dining experiences available. This is a man who clings to that haircut. We can’t really expect him to do the right thing.
And blame the NFL, whose owners confirmed this move by a 31-1 vote (Miami’s Stephen Ross was the only holdout). The league could be at a tipping point, because the owners just don’t give a damn about the consumer or history. They make billions while ignoring their fans, so why not abandon markets like San Diego and Oakland? Why not move teams to markets that don’t really want them? Why not flip off your loyal fans and any semblance of tradition?
The Raiders would be the Jaguars if it weren’t for their fans and the city of Oakland. The Raiders are riding high now, but the reason they got through the dark years was because of their loyal fans, who kept coming to the Coliseum despite the garbage product on the field. The Raiders were the worst team in the league for many years, an
utter embarrassment. But there was a tradition and loyalty that fueled people through the darkness.
And now that the team is good? Slam the door on those fans.
Davis often has said that Oakland didn’t do enough. Didn’t do enough? The debt service on the Coliseum renovation still amounts to $20 million a year. The city is thriving now, but ain recent lean times, it still had to pay millions and millions for the original deal to bring back the Raiders in 1995.
The Raiders were determined to leave because Oakland wouldn’t kick out the A’s, as The Chronicle’s Matier & Ross reported Monday. The A’s have been here — continuously — since 1968. They were here when the Raiders moved back in 1995 and ruined the Coliseum for baseball with their renovations. The A’s have 81 home dates a year, not eight. The A’s should get a nice stadium and eventually will have the city of Oakland to themselves.
Some want to lay the blame on Mayor Libby Schaaf, but she took the job in 2015 after Davis had been angling for years to leave. I don’t blame her for not getting a deal done when Davis barely would give her the time of day, and she has a city to run.
There’s a new tradition in California: Owners of professional sports teams and leagues worth billions pay for their stadiums. Not the taxpayers. Only duped cities, like Las Vegas, will offer up insane amounts of tax money — $750 million in this case, which could grow to $950 million — to build professional sports palaces. Californians have learned the hard way: That’s a fool’s errand, and we’re not fools. So good for Schaaf for making it clear from the outset that no public money was available.
The Raiders are a good team right now, but they’ll have another downturn. Will they be supported? Will they attract the same type of loyalty and love?
It’s unlikely. What happened in Oakland between the Raiders and their fans was a rare thing. The type of thing you don’t just throw away.
Davis is throwing it away. He said his team still will play in Oakland under the Oakland Raiders name for at least the next two years. He said he will offer refunds to season-ticket buyers who want them. The whole lame-duck arrangement is going to be awkward, sad and terrible. It shouldn’t happen.
Mark Davis didn’t deserve the fans he had. He should pack his bags right now.