Oakland doesn’t deserve this. Neither do Oakland Raiders fans.
Period.
There’s no sugarcoating this, no parsing words, no searching for loopholes, no windows for misunderstandings or misinterpretations.
MORE: NFL's post-merger franchise moves
The owner of the Raiders is telling Oakland and its fans: This is my team, I got a better offer, you can either match it or say bye-bye … but keep laying out your time, money and emotions for us for the next two years, because you’re loyal fans and we’re entitled to your support until it’s for someone else to give it to us.
Mark Davis said it a few days ago, and he said it again Wednesday at the owners’ meeting in Houston. The city is the problem, he’s been insisting. The politicians, the money people, the ones who are either going to build him a stadium there and give him a deal worthy of him that would keep him from going to Vegas … or else.
The fans, though? He loves them, and they love his team.
IYER: Vegas is desperate for Raiders
“I don't think we used the scorched-earth policy," Davis told reporters at the meetings. “Raiders fans are some of the best in the world. I know there are some that are hurt right now and that are angry, but there's a lot of them that know we've tried everything we could to get something done there.”
Yes, that’s Davis’s ploy. Pit the citizens of Oakland, the fans of the Bay Area, the ones who buy the tickets and suites and gear — and who gritted their teeth 20 years ago and welcomed the Raiders back from Los Angeles — against the suits who aren’t playing ball with Davis and sacrificing everything to satisfy him. The same fans that are going to bear witness to the Golden State Warriors leaving for San Francisco, despite building a reputation — and home — in Oracle Arena.
Davis is right in a way. There are fans who will take his bait and blame the city for not saving their Raiders. They won’t care that Oakland can’t afford to give billionaires new stadiums in order to win an arms race with another city. They won’t care that this is not what American cities should be doing in the first place, and they never should have been. Of all the terrible cases of stadium roulette ever seen, this is one of the worst, if not the worst.
MORE: Raiders move comes with transparency
But it’s not fair to pit fans and cities against each other. It’s not fair to make the fans make that choice.
And what’s the least fair of all, is telling them: We’re leaving, period, but we can’t do it right away, so love us as long as we’re here.
Keep showing up at that decrepit Coliseum, the one that flooded just last week for the Chiefs game. The one that has sewage leaks all the time. The one the Raiders share with the A’s, the one where they have to play on the dirt infield early in the season, as late as the middle of the season if the A’s make a playoff run. The one where the A's might not even be playing in the near future — if their dreams of relocation are realized, too.
MORE: Top Raiders of all time
We’ll dangle your loyalty in front of you, and no matter what promises we make about not scorching the earth, we’ll reserve the right to hold it against you when you stop showing up because you feel jilted, betrayed, abandoned.
What choice do you have? We’re leaving anyway. Unless we change our minds. We did it before. There’s no stadium in Irwindale, as we once said there would be decades ago. Los Angeles is still dangling out there, after the St. Louis Rams bolted there last year, and with the Chargers playing them against San Diego for their services.
St. Louis fans spent the last few years angry at owner Stan Kroenke just for thinking he’d move the team some day. At least they didn’t get two years as lame ducks.
St. Louis fans deserved better. What Oakland fans are in line to get, nobody deserves.