Contrary to reports of “uncertainty” regarding the future of the Oakland Raiders at the Oakland Alameda County Coliseum Complex, the NFL team will be in the City they were born in until at least 2020. After that, the Raiders are expected to occupy Las Vegas Stadium through the foreceable future, barring any negative circumstances. This comes from a well-placed Oakland City Official source.
UPDATE NOTE: At the time of the post you’re ready here, in 2018, the Oakland Raiders were considering a lease extension that would take them to 2020 at the Oakland Coliseum. Now, as of December 13th, 2019, the Raiders have said they will play in Las Vegas Stadium by the 2020 NFL Season, but have not given formal notice to the Oakland Alameda County Coliseum Joint Powers Authority. The deadline for that is April 1, 2019. Read: Hold On: Oakland Raiders May Be Back At Coliseum, Not Las Vegas Stadium, For 2020
This vlogger was told that the talks to extend the Raiders lease at the are in the “final states” and conclution will come “soon”, but that they are “progressing very well.” This means the continuation of the objective I was told the Raiders seek: the delivery of a Super Bowl win to the City of Oakland before leaving for Sin City. But what are the terms of the lease extension deal?
As of now, that’s not exactly known, but from past information presented in this space, it’s possible to make some inferences.
For this year, 2018, the Oakland Raiders pay $3.5 million in rent, as was done in 2017, and that’s up from the 2015 rent payment of $925,000. Over the last few months of gathering background information on the lease extention deal proposals, it can be reported that the original idea was to have a lease extension deal that featured rent that doubled each year. So, the deal looked something like this at first: $3.5 million in 2018, $7 million in 2019, then $14 million in 2020.
That lease deal proposal sparked an internal debate on the Oakland Coliseum Joint-Powers Authority Board of Directors. The Coliseum JPA Board was split into two camps: what this space will call “The Angry Camp”, which is one that wanted to drown the Raiders in rent debt for working a back-room deal to move the team to Las Vegas, and the other group this space will call the “Let’s Be Friends” camp, that wanted to maintain the Raiders in Oakland under terms more favorable to the NFL organization. After some months, the “Let’s Be Friends” camp won out, and for good reason.
For much of its history since the Raiders returned to Oakland, the Colisuem JPA has been mismanaged. The executive directors have been people who had no background in sports facilility management or large-scale sports rights dealmaking. Because of that problem, in one reported-to-this-vlogger case, the Coliseum JPA accidentally did not collect Raiders rent on one occasion in the past, this space was told.
Now, all of that is history: the relationship between the Raiders and the Coliseum JPA as a whole is much better and there is a mutual desire to work out problems and find solutions.
More information will come to Oakland News Now as more details unfold, but any news report of “uncertainty” about the future of the Raiders should be ignored: the Oakland Raiders will be in Oakland, at the Coliseum, through 2020. And on that, there’s mutual agreement that the Las Vegas Stadium will not be finished in time to play the entire 2020 NFL Season in Las Vegas. Moreover, the NFL has not issued a Super Bowl Game to Las Vegas – a sure indication that, as of now, no one knows exactly when the domed-stadium facility will be ready.
Stay tuned.