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Post by mikecubs on Feb 6, 2019 19:12:28 GMT -6
I heard london being thrown around as a one year option It was for a while then you don't hear anything about it anymore. They already set the London schedule for games next year so it's too late now. No way are they going to give London 12 games.
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Post by mikecubs on Feb 6, 2019 22:02:51 GMT -6
Nobody Wants The RaidersOf all the narratives (a word I fully intend to expunge from the language as soon as I am named Secretary of Taste in the Harris administration) that the National Football League has had to combat in the last five years, there has been none quite so surreptitiously corrosive as the story of The NIMBY Raiders. T hat, children and other reprobates, is an old acronym meaning “not in my backyard,” and is usually applied to prisons, nuclear plants and reality television shows that want to set up shop in a community that will go to any length to prevent their arrival. As it applies to the Raiders, well, put it this way: There has never been a sports franchise that has ever created such “Don’t even park the car; just keep driving” unanimity. Nobody wants this team in 2019 except for rent money, and in a business built entirely on the inherent desirability of having a franchise, to have one that is less desirable than leprosy must be quite the helmet-to-helmet shot for Roger Goodell and his 32 overlords. But let’s review: Las Vegas wants them, but not yet. Los Angeles might have wanted them once upon a time but now has more teams than it can stomach. Oakland wouldn’t mind keeping them one more year but is willing to forgo that as part of their nine-figure courtroom gamble that started this whole dysentery camp–level mess. San Diego was mentioned briefly, but neither of the two Los Angeles teams nor the league want them in the vicinity, and it isn’t really known how much the customer base wanted them either. The San Francisco Giants want them for the rent, but the rest of the city (starting with Mayor London Breed) responded to the idea with horror, even though San Francisco had no problem at all welcoming (or jacking, if you prefer) the Warriors. Most interestingly, the Santa Clara 49ers are expected to prevent the Raiders from playing in San Francisco but would grudgingly consider letting them be tenants if only to get the rent that Mark Davis might otherwise spend in Oakland or San Francisco, and Santa Clara remains the least appealing choice for Davis. In sum, Davis has a thing of allegedly great value that nobody else wants to have anywhere near them. It’s as though he had just cornered the market on plague and is baffled that the market for death in the streets just isn’t there. It’s probably not fair to completely gut the little fellow here, but this being Deadspin, fair ain’t got nothin’ to do with it. Even before his dad took the big walk in 2011, Mark and the entire league operated on the assumption that the Raiders were a desirable and iconic entity in American sport and culture, and nearly a quarter-century of losing three out of every five games has not shifted him from that notion. It was natural, then, for him to assume that the Raiders would be welcomed anywhere, for any amount of time, under any conditions. It must be a shock to his sensibilities to learn that instead, they are at best a very resistible luxury and at worst a civic nuisance. This all began when the team started stumping for a new stadium to replace the Dilapidate-o-dome and learned that neither the City of Oakland nor Alameda County had the cash or the will to build them one, a wise choice given the way cities routinely get worked in such deals. In fact, given the choice between making nice with the A’s and their 81 dates and the Raiders and their 10 dates, Mayor Libby Schaaf chose Option A, and doubled down by refusing to entertain selling the Coliseum land for a football-only stadium, the rare show of an elected official not wanting any part of the NFL and its long history of shaking the change out of your pocket by hiring a crane operator to hoist you by your ankles. The damage to her reputation was so complete that she easily won re-election and her approval rating rose. Thus, the half-hearted flirtations with San Antonio which were exposed as the bad bluff they were. Then, the deal Davis struck with Dean Spanos and the San Diego Chargers to move as a tandem to Los Angeles only to find out that their fellow owners decided to bait-and-switch them in favor of Stan Kroenke and the Rams, and then cut a side deal with Spanos for an option to move the Chargers that to their horror he accepted. The backup plan as of 2016 seemed to be to let the Raiders rot in Oakland until Davis ran out of money, will, or both, but instead he fooled everyone by cobbling the Las Vegas deal together (with much help from connected Nevada power brokers, if that isn’t a redundancy). The only hitch he still had to negotiate was 2019, the year after the expiration of the lease in Oakland and the expected completion of the Vegas stadium. That became the issue we have before us when the city decided to sue Davis, the Raiders, and the league for multiple forms of weaselry in much the same way that St. Louis is suing Kroenke, the Rams, and the league for being similarly abandoned. Properly besnitted, Davis announced he would not play in Oakland again—of course, he announced this without having an alternate site already picked and approved. And now, all his choices are bad—again, and all because he forgot the first rule of shelter management. Get the place you’re going to before you leave the place you’ve been. Unlike most college students worth the tuition, he can’t move back to Mom and Dad’s. Most folks are guessing he will crawl back to Oakland, shamed and embittered, but two days ago San Francisco was the sure thing and a day ago it was Santa Clara. By Friday, it could be Fresno State. All said, who realized that the idea of the NFL as an extravagance any city would be proud to be exploited by had finally reached the event horizon? Vegas isn’t ready for the Raiders, Oakland can take them or leave them, San Francisco can’t have them and Santa Clara will only take them for a quick buck, and can live without them. Barring a Washington Generals–style solution in which they become the first all-road NFL team since the 1920s, the Raiders have become the thing the NFL overlords never conceived. The team everyone has agreed to be someone else’s problem. deadspin.com/nobody-wants-the-raiders-1832398283?utm_medium=sharefromsite&utm_source=deadspin_twitter&utm_campaign=sharebar
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Post by ekjet72 on Feb 7, 2019 0:02:18 GMT -6
Even as a life long Raider fan you got to laugh at the sheer audacity of the NFL owner's hubris and the plight of the team. To some extent you see some of the same chest beating and bleating from the Flames owners in Calgary. Who believe the city owes them or more correctly, that they, the Flames, own the city. They say misery loves company, well next year the NFL, Oakland, St. Louis, San Diego, L.A., Kroenke, Spanos and Davis will all be miserable and in court with only the lawyers smiling. They deserve each other. And then there's Chuckee cynically smiling away as he slinks away with $100M of Davis's money. It maybe a few years before the LV Raiders become a going concern, from a team POV, whenever it is that they get there.
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Post by mikecubs on Mar 19, 2019 2:33:11 GMT -6
Raiders to play at Coliseum in '19, maybe '20The Raiders will play at the Oakland Coliseum this season, and possibly in 2020, after acrimonious negotiations finally led to vote by the Coliseum Commission and an agreement on a lease Friday. The deal has been approved unanimously by the Oakland Alameda County Coliseum Stadium Authority board but still needs approval from the Oakland City Council and the Alameda County Board of Supervisors, which is considered a formality. As part of the agreement, the Raiders will pay $7.5 million in rent for the upcoming season, and should the team's $1.9 billion, 65,000-seat domed stadium in Las Vegas not be ready in time, they have the option to pay $10.5 million to return in 2020. The Raiders expect to be in Southern Nevada by then, though.The Coliseum Authority will also receive 100 percent of any money for naming rights after having split it 50-50 with the Raiders in the past. RingCentral had reportedly been in talks to name the Coliseum in January. A potential snag to the agreement arose late in the process, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, with an issue over the Raiders' Alameda practice facility and team headquarters, which had been deeded to the team as part of the $200 million stadium renovation when the team returned from a 13-season run in Los Angeles in 1995. " The Raiders were responsible for the estimated $525,000 in operating costs, taxes and debt payment on the facility," the Chronicle reported. "The Raiders had wanted the Coliseum to take back the facility now and assume its costs. The Coliseum Authority wanted the Raiders to cover the facility costs until the end of the new lease."A ccording to the Chronicle, the Raiders have to pay an owed $750,000 in parking fees.Coliseum Authority executive director Scott McKibben told the Chronicle: "It's been agreed that the property comes back to us when the Raiders leave town and stop playing football at the Coliseum." The Raiders, who had their rent tripled after losing a vote to move to Los Angeles in 2016, initially took their one-year, $7.5 million lease offer off the table in December after the city of Oakland filed a federal lawsuit against the Raiders and the NFL over the team's move to Las Vegas. Raiders owner Mark Davis called the suit "meritless and malicious" at the time and said the team would keep all options open. But after considering joining the San Francisco 49ers at Levi's Stadium in Santa Clara and being blocked from playing in San Francisco at Oracle Park, the Giants' waterfront baseball park, all roads led back to Oakland and the Coliseum. The Raiders have called the Coliseum home from 1966 through 1981 and again since 1995. They played in 1960 and '61 at San Francisco's Kezar Stadium and Candlestick Park before moving to Frank Youell Field in Oakland in 1962. They played from 1982 to '94 at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. The NFL had originally hoped to have an answer on the Raiders' home for 2019 by early February for scheduling purposes. The schedule is generally announced in mid-to-late April, before the draft. The Raiders will share the Coliseum again with baseball's Athletics. Open Sundays in September for potential Raiders games on the baseball dirt infield are on the 15th (the A's play a night game on Sept. 16) and the 29th (the regular-season home finale for the A's is the 22nd), with open Mondays on Sept. 9 (when the A's begin a seven-game road trip) and Sept. 23. The Raiders will again lose a home game to international play, as they will "host" Khalil Mack and the Chicago Bears in London. The team is also reportedly considering playing host to a preseason game at the home of the CFL's Saskatchewan Roughriders. Davis told ESPN.com in October that he wanted to play in Oakland one last season, even with the threat of a lawsuit looming. "Emotionally, I would say, why would I give them $3 [million], $4 [million], $5 million in rent that they're going to turn around and use to sue me?" Davis said at the time. "But at the same time, if they'll have us, I can't turn on the fans. I can't do it. And this is terrible negotiating I'm doing now. I'm going to get killed. But that's just the way I am. But if in fact it does get ugly and can't be bridged, we do have options." Raiders coach Jon Gruden made a point to celebrate the team's Christmas Eve win over the Denver Broncos last season with fans sitting in the Black Hole in the southern end zone. Raiders quarterback Derek Carr took a victory lap, slapping hands with fans. At the time, it was thought to be the last Raiders game at the Coliseum. "It's a real football stadium -- it's dirt, grass, it has tradition," Gruden said the week of 2018 season finale. "It's where some of the best games in the history of football have been played. It's where some of the best players in the history of the world played football games at. You're walking around before the Steeler game and you see Franco Harris and Lester Hayes and you think about some of the battles that they had at that place. "There's a lot of things that happened in that stadium. Next question; I don't want to start crying about a stadium." Carr, meanwhile, said he "loved" Oakland and spoke of "six dudes" who jumped the barrier in an effort to join him on his lap, before being tackled by security. "It is hard that it might be the last time, but if it is, it will always be there like, 'Man, what a time we have had there,'" he said then. Carr, who suffered a season-ending broken right ankle in 2016 at the Coliseum, added: "We have had some tears of pain, joy and all those things ... we have the best fans in the world, the most loyal. "They were on fire. It's not the professional football atmosphere where everyone is in a tie and doing their thing. It is football, it is a rough and gritty place." And the Raiders' home for one last ride. www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/26273688/raiders-play-coliseum-19-maybe-20
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Post by mikecubs on Aug 4, 2019 22:18:40 GMT -6
Raiders, builders set topping out ceremony at Las Vegas StadiumIn the figurative sense, Las Vegas is reaching new heights with the move of the NFL’s Raiders from Oakland, California, to Southern Nevada for the 2020 season. In the literal sense, team officials will mark the $1.9 billion stadium’s height on Monday morning with a topping out ceremony. Dignitaries are scheduled to sign the last beam for the 65,000-seat stadium at 8 a.m., followed by the lifting to the top at 9 a.m. The stadium remains on target to open in July 2020 www.reviewjournal.com/business/stadium/raiders-builders-set-topping-out-ceremony-at-las-vegas-stadium-1814937/
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Post by mikecubs on Aug 4, 2019 22:22:15 GMT -6
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Post by mikecubs on Aug 5, 2019 22:06:45 GMT -6
‘Allegiant Stadium’ official name for Raiders’ Las Vegas stadium“When does a topping-off ceremony turn into a naming-rights celebration? Only in Las Vegas,” Raiders owner Mark Davis said Monday at Allegiant Stadium topping-out ceremony. “Here we are. Allegiant Stadium.” Las Vegas-based Allegiant Travel Co., parent company to Allegiant Air, had been speculated to be the name sponsor for the stadium since May when the company sought a trademark on “Allegiant Stadium” with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Terms of the naming rights deal were not disclosed, but experts with experience on similar deals say Allegiant is likely paying between $20 million and $25 million in cash and in-kind services a year to put its name on the building. Representatives of Allegiant and the Raiders declined to say the duration of the naming rights deal, but speaking at an event at Allegiant headquarters in Summerlin Monday, he said, “I look forward to learning a lot more about the Allegiant brand. We’ve got 30 years ahead of us, so let’s make the best of it.” Naming deals usually give the sponsor exclusive access to customers of the venue at various events. “This is the world’s leisure destination,” Allegiant Chairman and CEO Maury Gallagher said at the ceremony. “This is where people come to have fun. This stadium you are building is going to be one of the premiere facilities in the world. We couldn’t be more proud and honored to be a part of that whole picture and to be a part of Las Vegas. What Mr. Davis (former owner Al Davis) said all the time, ‘Just win, baby’: That’s what we’re all about.” When the naming rights process began the Raiders hoped to net a company with Las Vegas ties, according to Raiders president Marc Badain. After months of talks with various companies, including resort companies that Badain would not name, Allegiant landed the coveted deal. “Allegiant stepped up a while ago and expressed interest,” Badain said. “We were really excited about them being a partner. We’ve been at it for eight or nine months trying to put a deal together and like any negotiation it goes up and down.” Construction crews placed one of the last steel beams connecting a ring of 26 roof trusses Monday on the newly named project, marking completion of the highest point of the $1.9 billion, 65,000-seat indoor stadium that will be the home of the Las Vegas Raiders in less than a year. Gallagher and Davis were among the dignitaries and construction workers who signed the ceremonial last steel beam in a brief topping-out ceremony. As the signed beam was lifted before a crowd of well-wishers and construction workers, flags representing the United States, the state of Nevada and the Raiders unfurled beneath the beam labeled “Las Vegas Raiders” as it was raised about 150 feet to its final location. A pine tree — a topping-off ceremony tradition, representing that a building has reached its final top height — was mounted atop the beam. Davis likened Monday’s Allegiant Stadium topping-out ceremony to a football halftime score. “My philosophy is that the least important thing in life is the score at halftime,” he told several hundred people attending the sweltering event at the stadium site at Interstate 15 and Russell Road. “Today is a magnificent milestone, putting up the last piece of steel, but we’ve got one year to finish it.” Gallagher, Davis, Badain, and Rep. Dina Titus, D-Nev., whose congressional district includes the stadium site, spoke briefly before the beam was lifted into place. Titus noted that many of the more than 450 flight routes served by Allegiant involve NFL cities. “They will be bringing folks here, whether they love the Raiders or whether they love to hate the Raiders, we don’t care as long as they come,” Titus said. “I’ve been a Raiders fan for a long time, going back to the days of (defensive lineman) Otis Sistrunk and (wide receiver) ‘Boom Boom Freddie’ Biletnikoff, so that ages me, but you can tell that I’m a fan,” she said. “This is just so exciting, it’s going to change the face of Las Vegas. We’re known for entertainment, known for good food, known for gaming and now we’re going to be known for sports.” www.reviewjournal.com/business/stadium/allegiant-stadium-official-name-for-raiders-las-vegas-stadium-1819259/
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Post by mikecubs on Aug 10, 2019 11:21:12 GMT -6
Raiders' Davis: Sorry for way I spoke about A's Oakland Raiders owner Mark Davis, who unleashed on his RingCentral Coliseum co-tenants, MLB's Oakland Athletics, in a Thursday afternoon story in The Athletic, clarified his statements to ESPN late Thursday night. "I am not sorry for the things I said," Davis said in a phone call. "But I am sorry for the way I said them." Davis had told The Athletic that the Raiders loved the A's as players and as a team, but that "the front office has been real p---ks."
"They've been really f---ing around with us up there, taking advantage of the situation," Davis was quoted in the story. "Which, it is their right to do it, but it makes it hard. Again, though, we love the players, we love the A's."The cause of Davis' ire? The Raiders, entering what is supposed to be their final season in Oakland, open exhibition play Saturday against the Los Angeles Rams, and they are angered over a new Coliseum configuration created by the A's last winter that displaced 2,500 Raiders season-ticket holders. The Raiders' Coliseum lease had expired with the end of the 2018 season and the team was exploring playing in other stadiums, including the San Francisco Giants' Oracle Park and the 49ers' Levi's Stadium, in 2019. With the Raiders having no legal right to the Coliseum, and the A's in a 10-year lease extension signed in 2014, the baseball team tore out several sections of seats around the Coliseum to make the areas more spacious for its fans, complete with drink rails that created 250 obstructed view seats for football. So by the time the Raiders had come to an agreement to return to the Coliseum for 2019 on a $7.5 million lease -- and possibly 2020 for $10.5 million, should the $1.9 billion, 65,000-seat Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas not be ready -- the A's renovation had already occurred.
As such, the Raiders moved those 2,500 season-ticket holders to seats of equal or better value, Davis said, as the team took premium seats from employees and gave them to the displaced fans.A year earlier, when the Raiders did have a lease with the Coliseum, the football team said it lost about 300 permanent seats (which were replaced by 200 folding chairs) when the A's built their fan-centric "Treehouse" attraction above what is left field for baseball, the north end zone corner for football, without the Raiders' permission.And while the Raiders are moving to Las Vegas, the A's have their sights set on building a waterfront stadium in downtown Oakland's Jack London Square. The Raiders and the NFL were hit with a federal lawsuit by the city of Oakland in December in reaction to the team's pending move. And when asked by The Athletic about a conflict between the city of Oakland and Alameda County selling the land on which the Coliseum sits to the A's, Davis unloaded. "They're f---ing totally dysfunctional," Davis told The Athletic. "It's that f---ing bad over there." The Raiders, who formerly received funds from stadium naming rights in Oakland, and thus paid minimal rent, had their rent more than tripled in 2016, from $925,000 to $3.5 million, after the team lost a vote to move to Los Angeles. A year later, the Raiders won the right to move to Las Vegas. www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/27353127/sorry-way-spoke-as
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Post by mikecubs on Oct 8, 2019 16:04:33 GMT -6
Raiders seat licenses for Allegiant Stadium nearly sold outBefore Raiders players step foot in Allegiant Stadium to play their first NFL game in Las Vegas next year, it is clear the team is already a big hit in their soon-to-be home. About 96 percent of the personal seat licenses for the $2 billion 65,000 fan-capacity domed stadium already have been sold, with the sales process expected to wrap up by Thanksgiving, according to Raiders’ President Marc Badain.
The surge of buying has surpassed the team’s original goal set about three years ago when the Las Vegas relocation became a reality. “ They’ve certainly outpaced initial projections,” Badain said. “But once we had the deposit list and we knew what the demand was we realized demand was a lot stronger than we initially projected and the sales have backed that up.”
All premium seating is accounted for, with some reserved seats available in the first and third decks of the stadium, Badain said.
A PSL gives the person who purchases a specific seat in the stadium exclusive rights to buy Raiders home game season tickets thereafter. The PSL fee is due only once, but holders are required to purchase seats each season. If a person fails to maintain season tickets, his or her PSL can be revoked and sold to someone else. PSL holders can transfer their seats or sell them to another party, but they are non-refundable by the Raiders. The Raiders’ PSLs range from $500-$75,000. That compares to the Los Angeles Rams whose PSLs for their new 70,000-seat SoFi Stadium cost between $1,000-$80,000. Rams spokeswoman Joanna Hunter said the team does not provide sales updates on its seat license program. T he Raiders robust PSL sales have afforded the team to add $130 million in upgrades before Allegiant Stadium even opens, which helped push the construction budget from around $1.8 billion to almost $2 billion. The stadium’s design-build aspect of the construction process allowed for modifications to stadium plans to occur, even after construction was well underway.“ The sales response for Allegiant Stadium has been phenomenal,” said Don Webb, Las Vega Stadium Company chief operating officer. “We’ve been able to bring on additional scope and facility enhancements that weren’t originally in the budget. All of those enhancements are being paid by the Raiders… as a benefit of that really robust sales program.”
Construction of the stadium is due to be complete by the end of July 2020, and Webb said the work is proceeding on schedule. With tens of thousands of fans plunking down the $100 deposit for a chance at purchasing a PSL and season tickets for Raiders games, the wait list for PSLs in the future is expected to be large, Badain said. “Of the deposit campaign there should be 15,000-20,000 that we unfortunately wouldn’t have a chance to get to,” he said. “We’re getting deposits everyday. We’ll create a different list, probably a ticket waiting list for single tickets or things of that nature.” www.reviewjournal.com/business/stadium/raiders-seat-licenses-for-allegiant-stadium-nearly-sold-out-1863726/
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Post by mikecubs on Oct 21, 2019 15:16:15 GMT -6
Rams/Chargers
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Post by mikecubs on Dec 15, 2019 11:38:46 GMT -6
Today is the Raiders last home game vs. Jacksonville.
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Post by ekjet72 on Dec 15, 2019 12:16:32 GMT -6
Last chance for the denizens of the BLACK HOLE. A scarier bunch of fans you'd be hard pressed to find in the NFL. The dog pound comes to mind. I am sure they don't sing Neil Diamond's Sweet Caroline. Correct me if I am wrong. LOL. Anyway it will be hard for Vegas to follow up on that aspect of the Oakland Raiders. Those are black and blue collar fans. Vegas fans they will be too cool to do the Darth Raider, Elvis maybe.....
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Post by mikecubs on Dec 15, 2019 18:57:50 GMT -6
An absolutely pathetic ending by the Raiders. They are eliminated from the playoffs officially. They allow 2 late TD's and lose 20-16. Gruden calls a pass with 1:45 left, the Jags had no time outs. The kicker misses a field goal, Jags march down and score a TD.
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Post by ekjet72 on Dec 15, 2019 19:06:08 GMT -6
Refs stopping time at 2:05 didnt help. That saved a time out for the Jags and possibly 40 seconds
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Post by mikecubs on Dec 15, 2019 19:07:04 GMT -6
Fans throw trash on the field
Derek Carr booed off the field
They've turned off the Al Davis eternal flame
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