Las Vegas Sun

March 18, 2024

Raiders want to stay in Oakland for 2019 season

Davis

Eric Christian Smith / AP

Raiders owner Mark Davis watches teams warm up before the first half of an AFC Wild Card NFL game between the Houston Texans and the Oakland Raiders, Saturday, Jan. 7, 2017, in Houston.

The Raiders remain committed to finding a way to play in Oakland for the 2019 season despite word that the agency that oversees their Bay Area stadium will not extend the team’s lease.

Raiders owner Mark Davis said Wednesday that his first choice is to stay in Oakland for the year between the 2018 expiration of the current lease at the Oakland Coliseum and the 2020 opening of his $1.9 billion stadium in Las Vegas.

“Hopefully when the emotions die down a little bit, we can sit down and talk,” Davis said.

National Football League owners on Monday approved the Raiders application to relocate to Las Vegas by a 31-1 margin at their annual meeting in Phoenix. Construction on the team’s new stadium in Las Vegas likely will not begin until early 2018 and it will not be ready until months before the start of the 2020 season.

The Raiders exercised this week a one-year lease option to play in Oakland in 2017 and hold a similar option for the 2018 season. Scott McKibben, executive director of the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Authority, said Wednesday that he does not see a scenario in which his organization would agree to house the Raiders in 2019.

“I don’t believe so, no,” McKibben said. “More important than anything, we want to be able to move on and make plans with either the A’s on that property, or utilization of that building for other kinds of events or that land for some other kind of development.”

McKibben said the authority loses money on hosting Raiders games, generating roughly $7 million in annual revenue while incurring between $8 million and 8.5 million in expenses. The $7 million includes the team’s $3.5 million rent payment.

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