CLOSED, NEW THREAD OPENED

[njavier03]

he deserves MVP too

 

[Deleted member 185039]

 

[just reason]

Didn't Jerry Jones support it? we should be gucci.. the mockups of what the stadium would look like is dope.

 

[raider5]

View media item 2306357
I know I mentioned this before, but don't believe everything that's being reported. Even this tweet should leave you skeptical

 

[raider5]

Schefter reporting that a lot of NFL owners are upset the Chargers left SD. Gotta wonder how they really feel about leaving Oakland too.

 

[kayzeezay]

^ Plus I wonder how many owners even take Mark serious

 

[HNL HI]

^ Plus I wonder how many owners even take Mark serious

dude showed up late for that meeting when they presented the LA plans

 

[monstar]

My boy who works in house said presentation went really well last week. Many of the people who work for the team are not down for the move and it could lead to openings on staff sounded to me like its just a formality at this point smh

 

[raider5]

I believe MD is all in on Vegas. Not sure if I believe all the reports that the owners are all in on Vegas with him though.

Just don't wanna follow the trail like Carson last year. We'll find out at the end of March how the rest of the league really does feel about MD

 

[pain]

Came across this article. Interesting to know that Davis supposedly didnt even attempt to stay in Oakland or put much effort, tho some of the ideas proposed towards the end are far fetched.

http://postnewsgroup.com/blog/2017/...oakland-raiders-partly-blame-stadium-problem/

Mark Davis is a joke. His heart's LONG been out of Oakland. He's had money sign gaga eyes about Vegas for a great many years.

Just to give you an idea how much he "cares" about his newly robust database of OAKLAND Raider season ticket holders, right before the Wild Card game we ticket holders got notice of our 2017 prices. EVERY area in the stadium was gouged with an AVERAGE total increase of 65%. My Black Hole tickets (3 rows from the field) went up 55%. But certain sections, such as 3rd deck 50 yard line behind the Raider bench (which are physically the farthest seats from the field) got hit with a WHOPPING 192% increase. I was HOT just with 55%, I can't imagine the sticker shock for those people. So I guess according to Mark Davis this is what a second place, sh***y 5 seed season dictates? After 13 straight seasons at .500 or less? Dude is a TOOL playing the Mr. Crabs role trying to milk Oakland for EVERY cent he can get before he bolts. God help us if they get to the Super Bowl in the next year or two.

And make no mistake, he WILL bolt if at all possible. I don't see the owner vote going Oakland's way because every one of Goodell's Good Old Boy Club is a greedy bastard, but hey, I HOPE I'm wrong. Living in LA, I STILL want them to stay in Oakland. It's where they belong.

And I agree that some of those statements in the article are far fetched. But one other thing I agree with? That fan Dr. Death actually IS a crazy person. LOL. Dude roams around the lower bowl to a bunch of sections that he doesn't belong in and generally just acts like an idiot. A few years ago when my girl was about 8 months pregnant with my daughter (visibly obvious), this toolbox was roaming up and down the aisle and pushed my pregnant gf out of the way so he could climb on MY seat to yell at a ref. I pulled him down and got in his face about it. He was like, "What, holmes?" I could see that the lights were on but clearly NOBODY was home inside his skull, so I shoved him back in the aisle at which point security warned me and escorted him back up the stairs.

Sorry for the mini rant. I'm still hot about those increases. LOL.

 

[raider5]

I'm biased, and I'm trying not to be...but I just don't see how longevity will last in Vegas. It's a short sided vision because of that $750M

 

[Johnny_Cakes]

I'm still stuck on the idea that the Vegas plan is counting on 20 THOUSAND people flying in to Vegas SPECIFICALLY to watch the game. That is not happening in Las Vegas, where tourists from all over the country and world have literally everything else they can do besides sit at a football stadium for three hours.

 

[The_Isomotion31]

I feel the allure will fade real fast. Even if they win like 5 superbowls straight. I mean flying to vegas and coming home that day? I got work the next day. Prime time game? Forget about it. MNF? I'm gonna get a fired on a Tuesday. lol. 

 

[raider5]

Might still be my bias, but I really think the NFL owners are still trying to play the leverage game against Oakland through the media...

Somehow Vegas is a great option with no particular site, no developer and using a third party to finance. But Oakland is unprepared because they are using a third party to finance and have designated Lott co. as the developer (when the term sheet I believe did say they can give it to the NFL as the developer). Also a site with the best transportation access of any site in the country

 

[Deleted member 185039]

Glad the players aren't playing in the Pro Bowl. What a waste of time. 

 

[MajinZuub]

Vegas is going to do terrible as soon as this team isn't a playoff contender anymore (which obviously we're hoping won't be for a loooong time )

 

[HNL HI]

looks like we headed back to Mexico

Raiders and Patriots will play in Mexico City on Sunday Night Football

 

[raider5]

Brady don't want these ESO problems

Shame that they steal another home game from us. ******* MD being a **** boy and saying yes to everything

 

[Deleted member 185039]

 
looks like we headed back to Mexico

Musgrave's screens worked best close to the border anyways (San Diego and Mexico). Book it. 

 

[pain]

looks like we headed back to Mexico

Where did you hear this? According to the info sent 2 weeks ago from their customer service people, they're charging us for a full 10 home games at the Oakland Coliseum in 2017 (2 preseason and 8 regular season), so this can't be the case.

 

[HNL HI]

 

looks like we headed back to Mexico

Where did you hear this? According to the info sent 2 weeks ago from their customer service people, they're charging us for a full 10 home games at the Oakland Coliseum in 2017 (2 preseason and 8 regular season), so this can't be the case.

ESPN deportes reported it.

 

[raider5]

Great article on how Goodell saved the Pats from leaving Massachusetts. Crazy similarities between the two stories.

Spoiler: Warning: Spoiler!

[h1]  [/h1]

[h1]Roger Goodell once saved Boston from losing Patriots, could offer hope for Oakland to keep Raiders[/h1]
3
[h2]A recent account of what Roger Goodell did to keep the Patriots in Boston shows possibilities for Oakland to keep the Raiders.[/h2]
by Levi Damien@LeviDamien    Jan 23, 2017, 4:13pm PST

A fascinating story  came out on Sports Illustrated’s MMQB today. It tells of how then NFL executive Roger Goodell, was instrumental in saving Boston from losing the Patriots to Hartford Connecticut. And in the story, there are some striking similarities to the situation with the Raiders bid to leave Oakland for Las Vegas.

The year was 1998 and Patriots owner Robert Kraft wanted a new stadium. The stadium they had had been built in 1971 and was never considered to be the type of structure that would be a permanent home for the team.

Just like Oakland, the city of Boston would not budge on offering up money to help with construction. An extremely rich man, Kraft wasn’t asking for much. He was willing to build the stadium with his own money on his own land. All he wanted from the city was money for infrastructure costs. Some $70 million.

When the city balked on even that sum, Kraft felt forced to look elsewhere. He found a willing and eager city in the neighboring state. In this case it was Hartford Connecticut, which is still in the New England area and therefore prime Patriots fan territory. Just as Las Vegas is just across the border of California where there is a large Raiders fan presence.

Also, like Las Vegas and Nevada, the city of Hartford and state of Connecticut was selling the farm to bring the Patriots over. To the tune of $1 billion. That makes the $750 million in public funding in Nevada to lure the Raiders to town look like chump change; especially considering we’re talking nearly a 20-year difference in inflation.

It was a sweet deal and Kraft was not passing it up.

“This is the greatest deal I’ve ever seen,” one league official had said after reviewing it.

A few weeks after Kraft gave Hartford exclusive negotiating rights, the city threw the Patriots a pep rally at the Civic Center Mall. Kraft attended and brought his son, Jonathan, a team executive, and a handful of players, including the team’s most recent first-round pick, Tebucky Jones, who’d grown up in New Britain, about 15 minutes away.

They all sat on a stage and went through the usual pomp and circumstance. Kraft gave Hartford’s mayor, Michael Peters, a Patriots jersey, and Peters gave Kraft a golden key to the city. The crowd waved blue and white pom-poms. Loudspeakers blared the University of Connecticut fight song. There was no reason to believe the Patriots weren’t moving to Hartford.

Connecticut Governor John Rowland had also held a press conference announcing to the world that the Patriots were coming to Hartford.

Robert Kraft signed the memorandum giving Hartford the exclusive right to negotiate a deal for the Patriots’ next stadium, just as Mark Davis has done with Vegas the past few months. Every time there’s stadium news out of Oakland, Davis reaffirms his stance that he is committed to Vegas — a stance he said he would make should the funding be approved, which it was.

And what a deal it is; $750 million in public funding from a hotel tax increase along with Sheldon Adelson saying he would kick in as much as $650 million on the proposed $1.9 billion stadium plan. That leaves Mark Davis with the smallest share of the costs, kicking in $500 million combined between his own money ($300M) and the $200 million from the NFL G4 loan.

A pretty sweet deal. But not as sweet as Kraft was getting from Connecticut

Then there was the business of actually securing a location. In this case, it was the site of a steam plant near downtown. Upon further study, that site proved considerably problematic and time consuming.

There have been several sites in Vegas which have been proposed. None are free of issues, some simply won’t work. And there has yet to be an official site chosen, which would figure to cause delays in construction.

Initially, Kraft had hoped to move into the new stadium by 2001—two full seasons and about 20 months away. Now, the state was indicating that 2002 seemed more likely. The longer the steam plant stayed open, the more likely things would be pushed into 2003. In that case, Kraft feared the Patriots would be stuck in Foxborough for four more years, playing in front of fans who knew they were leaving.

Does this ever sound familiar. Mark Davis has said he would like to play in Oakland during the construction of the new stadium in Vegas. As many as three years. That’s a tough sell. The Patriots weren’t even talking about moving very far away. And they wouldn’t even have to change ‘New England’. Hartford is about 100 miles away from Boston. Vegas is nearly 600 miles from Oakland. And the team would no longer identify with the city or region of it’s origin.

Also, there’s the issue of markets. Potentially losing the Boston market would have been a big deal, even for a team moving up the freeway a piece. The Bay Area market is 6th  in the nation and Las Vegas is 42nd.

In the efforts to keep from losing the market, Boston would find an unlikely ally.

In December 1998, Dan Rooney, the owner of the Steelers and an influential figure in league circles, bumped into Paul Kirk Jr., the former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, at a dinner in Washington, D.C. Kirk was a Boston power player, with deep ties to both the political and business scenes, and he also knew the league well. He was on the short list of candidates when the NFL last picked a commissioner.

“What can you do to help us keep the Patriots in Massachusetts?” Rooney asked. Like others around the league, Rooney was concerned about abandoning the Boston TV market.

That concern was a major one, perhaps more so than the Bay Area because at least in the Bay Area, they still have the 49ers and their shiny new empty stadium down in Santa Clara to try and fill.

To get something done with Kraft dealing exclusively with Hartford, the NFL stepped in. They built a team of civic leaders and commissioner Paul Tagliabue sent in a league executive by the name of Roger Goodell to try and facilitate things. To act as a ‘liason’ to negotiate things with the city on the NFL and the Patriots’ behalf.

Goodell traveled to Boston to meet with Kirk and his team. The team included the Rev. J. Donald Monan, the chancellor of Boston College; Jack Connors, the advertising executive; William Connell, the industrialist; and a few others. They called themselves Operation Team Back.

In that first meeting, Goodell laid out the gravity of the situation. He indicated that the league was taking the Hartford stadium deal seriously. The NFL would be voting on Kraft’s pitch to relocate at the league’s spring meeting in late May, and if Kraft’s only option was moving to Hartford, Goodell told the room, “then that’s the way the vote will go.”

These days, with Goodell as the commissioner, he has sent VP Eric Grubman to perform these functions on behalf of the NFL. Grubman last year met with officials from Oakland and local business leaders. It was the blueprint Goodell laid out in his attempts to get something done in Boston.

Boston had ‘Operation Team Back’ and Oakland has Oakland Pro Sports LLC which is the investment group headed up by former Raiders Hall of Fame safety Ronnie Lott and former NFL QB Rodney Peete. They are working to help Oakland put together a viable plan  that would convince the league and the Raiders to stay. The NFL has also met with the Lott group  to look over their plans to keep the Raiders

Thus far all we’ve heard from Grubman and Goodell is that what they’ve gotten back from Oakland has not been nearly satisfactory. That doesn’t mean it can’t improve quickly and it doesn’t mean there isn’t plenty happening between the league and Oakland behind closed doors. Goodell offered a lot of back channel assistance to get things moving in Boston.

Goodell also helped them map out a plan of action, to be carried out largely in private over the next few months. The group started by secretly meeting with key decision makers, including Boston Mayor Thomas Menino and the House Speaker Thomas Finneran, who had opposed Kraft’s failed stadium effort. “Some bridges had been burned on Beacon Hill,” Kirk said, referring to the state capital, “and they had to be re-constructed.” Then they started rallying leaders in the business community, the people who would be buying luxury boxes.

There is definitely a lot of bad blood  and at very least some damaged bridges in need of repair between the Raiders and Oakland these days. A lot of blaming going on as to whose fault it is that a new stadium has not been built with no one wanting to be the bad guy if the team leaves town.

The way the league went about ensuring the Patriots stayed in Boston should offer some hope that the same could be done in Oakland. But it would take earnest commitment from all parties involved in wanting it to happen. That means the team, the city, and the league. That’s what they had in Boston and it’s what they all say publicly about Oakland.

Oakland has until February 15 to put together their final proposal to convince the league they should keep the Raiders. The league’s 32 owners will then vote on March 26 as to whether to approve the Raiders to relocate to Las Vegas. It will take 24 of 32 votes to approve the move.

http://www.silverandblackpride.com/...-leaving-boston-hope-for-oakland-keep-raiders

 

[raider5]

Ex Chargers DC John Pagano joining Raiders as assistant head coach

 

[evilhag]

Chargers were ranked 16th in defense last year... we were 26th 

 

[laker4lifeman]

I would like an Al Saunders type to help Downing.