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Related: About this forumPossible Raiders move to Los Angeles is gathering steam
cbssports.com
OXNARD, Calif. -- Perhaps it was all mere coincidence. It was just quirky timing that, with his franchise again a free agent after the season, and his efforts to get a stadium in Los Angeles taking on a more fevered pitch, and with him openly flirting with San Antonio to up the relocation ante, now, of all times, Mark Davis's Oakland Raiders happened to travel to Southern California for two days of practices with the Cowboys.
But, as they stood on a field at a training complex roughly 60 miles from downtown LA, it was surely no coincidence that as soon as practice was over Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, as slick of a media maven as they come, sought out a robust gathering of reporters, and threw his arm around Davis and Hollywood mogul Michael Ovitz. Then he launched into a soliloquy about his deep relationship with Davis, and his high esteem for an LA stadium model that Ovitz conducted and its viability to house an NFL franchise (or two, ultimately, if the NFL gets its way with this market).
This seemed like anything other than an improv act nothing from the Actor's Studio but rather more akin to in-your-face performance art, as the overtones of Raiders-back-to-LA were impossible to miss. Oh, and Magic Johnson (who knows a thing or two about ownership and was once represented by Ovitz) happened to be standing a few yards away, and Tommy Lasorda was sitting at a sideline-chair in a VIP area off to the side. Jones was all smiles, and the vocal and borderline manic Raiders fans who outnumbered Cowboys fans here and screamed as the team busses pulled up and chanting "Cowboys suck" for a good part of the afternoon made for quite the sonic backdrop to a fairly surreal scene that at times seemed like an infomercial for the NFL in LA.
Jones waxed nostalgic about Ovitz's stadium model, which cost "seven figures" to produce. He and Ovitz joked that model remains "the only stadium anyone is playing (football) in," while Davis stood on the opposite side of Jones, somewhat awkwardly. Taking the bait after the line of questioning turned to the Cowboys' recent minor transactions and Orlando Scandrick's drug suspension, I asked Jones, "Could that model still serve as a viable option for an NFL team in LA?"
MORE: http://www.cbssports.com/nfl/writer/jason-la-canfora/24658264/a-possible-raiders-move-to-la-gathering-steam-and-jerry-jones-might-be-on-board
All signs point to L.A. It would take a miracle to keep them in Oakland.
KamaAina
(78,249 posts)at Levi's Stadium.
Auggie
(31,207 posts)One of the objections I've heard is that the stadium is too 49ers branded, but that's bullshit IMO since the Raiders were asked about this very topic way back in the planning stages. Maybe it was Al Davis being too big a dick. Maybe he always had his sites set on returning south. Maybe Mark does too and all this posturing is just bullshit. I'll tell you one thing, the ownership group stands to make a ton more money in L.A. through luxury suites and merchandising that it ever could in Oakland.
KamaAina
(78,249 posts)The stadium in East Rutherford was known until recently as Giants Stadium.
Auggie
(31,207 posts)The seats are red, for example.
It would be a big expense to "neutralize" it now.
KamaAina
(78,249 posts)Yavin4
(35,450 posts)Jets have suffered playing in the Giants' shadow. It's like living on your friend's sofa. It's not a good look.
madinmaryland
(64,933 posts)to piss of Jerrah Jones!!
http://www.democraticunderground.com/120445909
El Supremo
(20,365 posts)They don't care at all about the Texans.
But I'd much rather see a major league baseball team move there. The San Antonio Athletics?
madinmaryland
(64,933 posts)The San Antonio Rangers or the San Antonio Rockies???
I course I would not want to wish a shitty team on San Antonio!!
Yavin4
(35,450 posts)And the folks are risin' for another day
'Round about their homes
The people of the town are strange
And they're proud of where they came
KamaAina
(78,249 posts)KamaAina
(78,249 posts)rather than the usual Napa.
That was where the L.A. Raiders trained.
Auggie
(31,207 posts)Most the time has been in Napa. However, there were far more Raiders fans in Oxnard than Cowboys fans.
joeybee12
(56,177 posts)Now they'll do it twice.
Yavin4
(35,450 posts)The money in the bay area is in the South bay and then the city. Oakland has better uses for public money than supporting sports teams.
joeybee12
(56,177 posts)You'd think Al Davis were still alive.
KamaAina
(78,249 posts)as people priced out of SF head across the bay. And Oakland always has had a fair number of million-dollar homes, up in the hills.
Elsewhere in the East Bay, there is plenty of $$$ around Lafayette and Danville.
Auggie
(31,207 posts)or are reluctant for any variety of reasons. And taxpayers, for the most part, are too smart to be conned into funding their stadiums.
It's the leagues that really want new stadiums in larger metro areas. That benefits all owners.
Iggo
(47,578 posts)They don't do it because they can't afford it, they don't do it because they don't have to.
Jamaal510
(10,893 posts)I'm sure that I heard him say before that he wants to stay here. Now all of a sudden, he's pulling this?
He's going to mess around and piss off the Raider fans here in the East Bay, and watch home game attendance dwindle just like what happened with the A's when Lew Wolff started acting like he's too good for Oakland.
If the Raiders do move out of town, it won't be much skin off our nose, anyway. Even as a life-long fan, I have to say that they're an incompetent organization now and have been nothing short of an embarrassment to the city for the past decade.
hughee99
(16,113 posts)to inflict themselves on LA?