Raiders To Play 2019 Season In Oakland

The NFL team known as the Raiders found themselves in an awkward situation after the 2018 season. They didn’t have any place to play. At some point, the team will be moving to a brand new stadium in Las Vegas. Unfortunately, that venue won’t be ready until 2020 at the earliest. They had been playing in Oakland but due to a dust up with the city over stadium rental it appeared that they were no longer welcome there. They considered several other options–the San Francisco 49ers home field (Levi’s Stadium) and the San Francisco Giants home field (Oracle Park) but no one really wanted them there either.

That means that all of a sudden Oakland has become their best option. The Raiders will play at Oakland Coliseum during the 2019 season and possibly the 2020 season should their new home in Las Vegas not be ready in time. It’s still a bizarre situation and no one really appears happy that the Raiders will continue to be the OAKLAND Raiders for at least another year.

You can make a pretty compelling case that no NFL team has existed with as much volatility and chaos both on and off the field than the Raiders. They came into existence in the early 1960’s more to placate Los Angeles Chargers’ owner Barron Hilton who threatened to abandon the franchise unless there was another team on the West Coast. The team ran a ‘name the team’ contest and the winner was the dubious moniker ‘Señors‘ aka ‘men’ in Spanish. The team was actually known as the ‘Oakland Señors‘ for nine days–the explanation for the name was that one of the owners–a guy named Y. Charles (Chet) Soda–was known among the city’s business community for addressing his friends as ‘Señor‘.

The Raiders came into being when the humor surrounding the Señors ‘bit’ died down. ‘Raiders’ had actually finished third in the naming contest with other possible choices including Mavericks, Diablos, Redwoods and Grandees. The Raiders would call Oakland home for the next 20+ years enjoying considerable success including winning two Super Bowl championships.

In 1982, following a failed attempt to get Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum upgraded the Raiders moved to Los Angeles. The team didn’t have the same level of success they had in Oakland though they did win a Super Bowl (and lost another one) while playing in LA. The team moved back to Oakland for the same reasons they left–owner Al Davis couldn’t get a new stadium built in Los Angeles. After briefly considering a move to Sacramento, the Raiders returned to Oakland. For the past decade, the team made an effort to get a new venue to replace the decrepit Oakland Coliseum but to no avail. In 2017, the NFL gave the Raiders permission to relocate 558 miles to the Southwest and make a new home in the booming metropolis of Las Vegas, Nevada.

For the 2019 season, the Raiders will pay $7.5 million in rent for the privilege of playing in Oakland Coliseum. They’ve got an option to pay $10.5 million to play there in 2020 but indications are that their $1.9 billion US, 65,000 seat domed stadium West of the Las Vegas Strip will be ready by that time.