With team owners voting 30-2 in favor of the St. Louis Rams moving back to Los Angeles and granting the San Diego Chargers the option of joining them in Inglewood, the Oakland Raiders appear to have abandoned their bid to make the move as well.

That being said, the Raiders are currently without lease for the Coliseum, Oakland’s Coliseum City plans haven’t progressed, and Raiders’ owner Mark Davis hasn’t budged on his demand to be granted the land upon which a new stadium would be built in order to commit to a future in Oakland, at least not publicly.

27 thoughts on “Raiders Abandon Bid for Los Angeles Move”
  1. I’m too lazy to go check, but aren’t these the three worst teams in the NFL? With a combined way-below-.500 winning average this season? And some of the worst attendance figures as well? Who would want these jokers?

    1. 7-9 Raiders!

      Seriously with the salary cap in the NFL there is now more parity and teams can be rebuilt quickly with the right ownership and management

  2. Davis needs to take the $500 million that he would have paid the NFL for the rights to move to L.A. and use it for a down payment on a new stadium. Then take the money he would have had to contribute to a new stadium in L.A. and use it to pay for the rest of the stadium. Shouldn’t cost him a dime more than he already planned to spend.

  3. This is a great deal for the people of LA (Carson to be more specific), though they are about to foot the bill for the Rams / Chargers. They avoid having the Raiders (win), and they avoid wasting a billion plus on a stadium that isn’t worth it (win). Building these stadiums for professional teams is basically an economic lose-lose scenario for cities.

    1. That was my first reaction. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that the project is privately financed. The stadium is just a part of a large redevelopment of a former racetrack, so there’s plenty of money to be made with commercial, residential, and office buildings. I guess the developer thinks using the profit from that to help cover the cost of the stadium makes sense.

    1. Indeed. The Inglewood site would be the one where the public is on the hook for $100 million in public financing of the stadium in the form of tax rebates.

      Why am I not surprised that the NFL choose the site offering the payola?

  4. So if the Rams and Chargers can share a new stadium in the middle of nowhere LA…why couldn’t the Raiders and 49’ers just share Levi stadium in the heart of the Bay Area? Sure, it’s a 30 mile drive south from Oakland…but you’re talking about 8 home games/Sundays per year. Easy enough to swing it. And sure, you might have to step up security at the stadium during Raiders games…but why would the owners ever balk at selling more seats/boxes/concessions? Help them amortize their $1B+ investment even faster.

    1. Indeed; but my question is when – if? – they end up there are we going to hear endlessly how San Francisco “kept” the ‘Niners but the Raider’s “left” Oakland?

      1. ha! you’re so right. I for one am curious about who the Raiders will use as blackmail to (fruitlessly I hope) try to get Oakland to subsidize them.

    2. Could have and should have but I don’t think Al Davis would be the second fiddle in that arrangement. I am sure the 49ers would still love to lease the stadium to the Raiders for 8 home games a year but the Raiders gain nothing

      Regarding security this it is largely false that the Raiders fans are worse than the 49ers. 49ers games are totally gang infested and awful this last decade or so and there has been a lot more violence than I recall any recent Raiders games

    3. Levi stadium is not in heart of Bay Area. ITs in the middle of nowhere. SF is the heart of Bay Area. It takes 2 hrs door to door from my home in SF to get in levis during a good game.

      1. This says as much about the geography of the Bay Area and our poor regional transit. I agree the location sucks and I personally think they lost a lot of soul with the move

        I am thinking most rational would have been a football stadium at the Coliseum site for both teams

        A’s then get ballpark somewhere accessible in downtown Oakland or downtown San Jose

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