With the Raiders new home in Las Vegas not scheduled to be completed until 2020, the team is looking at three lame-duck seasons in the Bay Area before making their move east.
The Raiders will be playing the 2017 and 2018 season in their current home at the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum as they hold a pair of one year options on their lease. After that, however, they may not be welcomed back according to one stadium executive.
“I would say to you with the highest level of confidence, my opinion and recommendation, and that of my board members — I don’t believe there is any appetite for a third season (in Oakland),” executive director of the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Authority Scott McKibben told USA Today Sports on Tuesday.
McKibben went so far as to say that the stadium would be better off if the Raiders never played there again.
“It’s actually financially to our benefit if they didn’t exercise the options and play here even in the two years they’ve got (in 2017 and 2018).”
The comments run contrary to Raiders owner Mark Davis’s desire to stay in the Coliseum for the next three seasons before moving.
“If they want us, we’d seriously consider it,” Davis said. “… We plan to play at the Coliseum in 2017 and 2018, and hope to stay there as the Oakland Raiders until the new stadium opens. We would love nothing more than to bring a championship back to the Bay Area.”
If the team is indeed not welcomed back, their most likely options in the Bay Area would include the 49ers’ home of Levi’s Stadium, Cal’s Memorial Stadium and (perhaps less likely) AT&T Park, which has hosted football games in the past.
The Raiders would be unable to head to Las Vegas in 2019, as the only potential football stadium in the area, UNLV’s 35,000 capacity Sam Boyd Stadium, has outdated locker rooms and lack of a proper security border around the facility.
