Photo of rowdy Oakland Raiders fans at Oakland Coliseum.

Image Credit: Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)

The Oakland Raiders will be relocating to Las Vegas, Nevada in 2020. Despite the move, the Raiders organization has sold all of it’s season tickets for the 2017 NFL season. Many of you readers will assume that the move is a desperate last second attempt to keep the team in Oakland. Others probably think this is just a way for fans to create a few final memories at Oakland Coliseum before the team leaves Oakland in the rear view mirror. However, the true answer could be that the Oakland Raiders don’t suck anymore and a playoff appearance this season is highly likely assuming the team resembles last year’s team. The team has also added Marshawn Lynch, an Oakland native who is coming out of retirement.

Photo of a sold out Oakland Raiders game at Oakland Coliseum.

Image Credit: Chris Yunker (CC BY 2.0)

The stadium holds just over 56,000 for football games; that capacity is shrunk to 47,000 for Oakland Athletics game who also play their home games at Oakland Coliseum. So in actuality, it's one of the smaller stadiums in the National Football League. Both AT&T Stadium in Dallas and Metlife Stadium in New Jersey have more than 80,000 seats. The Raiders lease with Oakland Coliseum will expire in 2018 and the team may stay a year longer until their stadium in Las Vegas is complete. The Raiders are expected to host the Super Bowl at their Las Vegas home in either 2023 or 2024. The Raiders organization are no strangers to the relocation process. They relocated to Oakland from Los Angeles in 1994 despite winning Super Bowls in 1977, 1981 and 1984.

 

The Golden State Warriors will also be relocating to downtown San Francisco in coming years. The Oakland Athletics are considering three potential sites for their new ballpark; Lake Merritt (Laney College), Brooklyn Basin and Howard Terminal. There is a small chance that the team could also option to build the new ballpark near their current site off Coliseum Way. The Raiders organization made several efforts to build a new stadium in Oakland or the surrounding area. No deal came to fruition thanks in part to the sky-high construction costs in the Bay area and a lack of taxpayer funds in Alameda County.

 

Reference:

CBSSports.com 

  

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