The Future of the Oakland Raiders: Los Angeles or Oakland?
Every Oakland Raiders fan across the globe has had the same debate for the last 10 years. What city should the Raiders’ stadium be in for the foreseeable future: Oakland or Los Angeles? The question itself has so many answers, yet all of those answers are so brilliantly dumb that no one can come up with an easy solution.
Since 1995, Oakland has had the opportunity to come up with a better solution than agreeing to the renovation monstrosity known as Mount Davis. Still to this day, the city hasn’t done anything to keep the Raiders and the Davis family happy.
Such a great and historic franchise should not be playing in a dump with disgusting bathrooms, outdated locker rooms and on dirt when the Oakland Athletics reach the MLB Playoffs. Being the only NFL team sharing a stadium with a baseball team is an embarrassment to the Raiders and the league itself.
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The city of Oakland isn’t a Hollywood, movie star type of city like Los Angeles, but the Raiders aren’t a team made for that anyway. They’re a dark, gloomy, hard-nose, bad ass team that fits the city of Oakland. The culture, people, and city of Oakland are the perfect match to keep the mystique that Al Davis envisioned and created.
So why has the city of Oakland been sitting on their butts and waiting for a miracle fourth quarter, two-minute drill to finally make a spectacular play for the Raiders to stay?
Besides politics, the city of Oakland has been too complacent, and it’s only because the Raiders have let them be. As much as we know the Davis family has been pushing for a new stadium, we all know and the Davis family knows, that there’s a whole lot of money to be made in Los Angeles.
The Raiders going back to Los Angeles makes too much sense. For both business and football reasons, the Raiders would be better off moving back to beautiful Southern California.
Football-wise, it would be easier to attract better talent playing in Los Angeles with a brand new shiny stadium and updated facility. It takes away the term “go to Oakland if you want your career to die,” because living in Los Angeles and playing for the city of L.A. can actually help your career and bring in new money. For any NFL player, playing with better talent or better endorsements, due to playing for the city of Los Angeles, makes playing for the Raiders more attractive.
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Los Angeles could take the Raiders, who were listed as the 28th most valuable NFL team (according to Forbes), and easily make them a top -10 valued team. Los Angeles is one of the biggest markets to play any sport in, and having the Raiders, who are already beloved in SoCal, would bring the team into some new money that it desperately needs.
Every Raiders fan says the same thing. “The Raiders belong in Oakland but would make more money in Los Angeles,” and it’s true. They do belong in Oakland, but “belonging” somewhere isn’t always the best idea.
The Raiders need to move into a new age of profit. You may say to yourself “as long as the Raiders get a new stadium in any city, they will get more money” and again that’s also true, but the Raiders would make so much more in Los Angeles.
There’s no easy solution, obviously, and everyone can agree it would be great if the Raiders could get their own brand new stadium in Oakland. That being said, no one should shed a tear if they decide to move to Los Angeles, because it makes the team better. New money, better attraction to bring in talent, and the market size of Los Angeles is something to be very happy about if you’re a Raiders fan.
So if you claim to be a “diehard Raiders fan,” the team should be able to move to Mars and you should still be ok with rooting for them. Either city at this point can drastically help the Raiders, but playing in their current situation makes the Raiders a team that sits at the bottom of the pack in football and value standings.