“I am proud that we stood firm in refusing to use public money to subsidize stadium construction and that we did not capitulate to their unreasonable and unnecessary demand that we choose between our football and baseball franchises”. Davis insisted the club his father, Hall of Fame owner Al Davis, built into a champion – in Oakland and Los Angeles – should still be considered a part of the Bay Area community.
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“Our goal is to have 32 stable franchises for each of those teams and the league”, commissioner Roger Goodell said during a short news conference during the annual owners meetings at the luxurious Biltmore Hotel in Phoenix.
The Raiders needed just 24 votes to make the move happen and easily surpassed that mark, ultimately falling one vote shy of a league-wide consensus. “We also recognize and thank the numerous stakeholders – including the Adelson family – who invested their time and energy toward this vision”. Who are you going to negotiate with? For instance, the Buccaneers and their NFC South brethren played all the teams in the NFC West past year, in the NFC East in 2015 and in the NFC North in 2014. The older Raiders fans, you lost them forever.
Bay Area fans, she said, “deserved better”.
At the same time, on the off chance the JPA is able to evict the Raiders from the Coliseum, it opens up an interesting scenario.
“They claimed that they would wait for us to lose the vote and then come back and then they’d have all the leverage”. “We believe we went the extra mile to find that solution in Oakland”. For the team now to turn the corner and look to skip town, it’s just devastating.
Consider that it was Jones who pushed the deal through for St. Louis Rams to relocate to Los Angeles roughly 15 months ago. But then, the National Football League has approved moving three teams (Rams, Chargers, and now Raiders) out of their markets in as many years.
However, one possibility would be to have them play at Levi’s Stadium. “We’re done. We’re done”. So Las Vegas, you can count on us bringing a piece of Oakland with us and you are getting a tough, loyal, and competitive fan base and team. This is it. You guys did us dirty on this one. In January, the Chargers moved from San Diego to L.A.
Not all fans are ready to give up on the team.
Davis said he had “mixed feelings” about the move, weighing the excitement about moving to the “entertainment capital of the world” against the disappointment and perhaps even anger felt by Raiders fans in Oakland.
“So I think there will be some discussion, but I anticipate it will pass”, Murphy said. “I could cry right now”. At least $750 million in public funds was set aside in a city in which we don’t even know if they will support the Raiders. On Monday, NFL owners approved the franchise’s eventual move from Oakland to Las Vegas.
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The Raiders will remain in Oakland playing in the dilapidated Oakland Coliseum for the next two seasons. “But it will continue in Las Vegas”. Owners got to vote on the potential move of the Oakland Raiders to Las Vegas and it concluded with a 31-1 approval. He said they refused to sit down with the city, choosing instead to break fans’ hearts.
