Raiders owner Mark Davis knows a thing or two about moving a team from Oakland to Las Vegas.
He also knows a thing or two about the Athletics, the MLB franchise that the Raiders shared the Oakland Coliseum with for 25 years.
Earlier this week, the A’s announced that the groundwork has been laid for the franchise to relocate to Las Vegas. The A’s have until January of 2024 to get a stadium deal done just west of the Las Vegas strip where the franchise has entered a purchase agreement for land.
Davis isn’t fond of the move by the A’s, and there’s one particular reason why.
“I won’t forget what they did to us in Oakland,” Davis told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “They squatted on a lease for 10 years and made it impossible for us to build on that stadium. They were looking for a stadium. We were looking for a stadium. They didn’t want to build a stadium, and then went ahead and signed a 10-year lease with the city of Oakland and said, ‘We’re the base team.’”
Because of the lease the A’s had, the Raiders were unable to make improvements to Oakland Coliseum, which ultimately led to the the NFL franchise relocating to Las Vegas in 2020.
“They marketed the team as ‘Rooted in Oakland.’ That’s been their mantra through the whole thing,” Davis continued. “The slogans they’ve been using have been a slap to the face of the Raiders, and they were trying to win over that type of mentality in the Bay Area. Well all they did was f— the Bay Area. For them to leave Oakland without anything is pretty screwed up because that site that the stadium was on was a good site. We ended up in Las Vegas, which is absolutely fantastic and couldn’t be better, but the A’s never gave us a real good chance to stay up in Oakland.”
There’s clearly no love lost between the Raiders and A’s franchises, who won’t be sharing a stadium in Las Vegas, but will once again be sharing a city as two professional franchises if the A’s make their move official.
