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June 21 has been a date Oakland Raiders fans have anxiously awaited and dreaded simultaneously for several months. It came and went over the weekend and, although Floyd Kephart delivered a plan by the deadline, there’s not a lot to suggest the Raiders will stay in Oakland for the long-term.
Raiders owner Mark Davis has proposed a new $900+ million stadium with $550 million to spend, which means he needs roughly $400 million from the city of Oakland and/or Alameda County to make it happen. Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf has made it clear that ain’t happening.
Kephart’s plan reportedly proposes variables of up to three venues built at the current site of O.co stadium along with other hotel, office, residential and retail developments. The problem is his plan concludes with a new Raiders stadium being built in 2020 at the earliest. It’s a plan similar to that proposed by the city and county of San Diego for a San Diego Chargers new stadium, albeit that one would be ready to go long before 2020. The other primary differences are the Chargers are rejecting theirs for ill-advised reasons and they’re not competing with an MLB team for room.
The Oakland A’s, who currently share O.co Stadium with the Raiders, have made it clear they don’t want to be roommates anymore and they don’t want a new stadium next door to a new Raiders home either. That means the city and county may have to pick which of the two teams to keep if they decide to help finance any sort of new development for either team to stay in Oakland at all.
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The Raiders have a backup plan in their proposed $1.7 billion stadium in Carson, just outside of Los Angeles, which would be shared with the Chargers. They could develop a different backup plan if the NFL chooses the St Louis Rams’ relocation proposal for a $1.8 billion stadium in nearby Inglewood – share that stadium with the Rams. That’s the most likely scenario at this point with the Chargers unlikely to convince the NFL they need to leave San Diego and things now looking bleak in Oakland.
This has been the speculation for NFL relocation to Los Angeles for the past several weeks and now it seems imminent. Rams owner Stan Kroenke’s stadium project is shovel ready and he’s made it clear from the beginning that the new arena will be able to house two teams, which is a mandate by the league in this relocation process.
In addition, the league has already begun the process of securing temporary homes for two teams for the 2016 season and it’s long been known the Raiders will most likely be out of O.co Stadium after the 2015 campaign, one way or another.
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