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OAKLAND RAIDERS
Oakland Raiders

Oakland Coliseum stadium authority doesn't want Raiders to return in 2019

Brent Schrotenboer
USA TODAY Sports
The Raiders have been tenants at the Oakland Coliseum since 1995.

The landlord of the Oakland Coliseum has been losing money on Raiders games and might force the team out of its current facility before its new, $1.9 billion Las Vegas stadium is ready in 2020.

Contractually, the Raiders only have options to stay at the Coliseum for the 2017 and 2018 seasons. But that leaves open the question of where they will play in 2019.

The answer — for now at least — is probably not in Oakland.

"I would say to you with the highest level of confidence, my opinion and recommendation and that of my board members — I don’t believe there is any appetite for a third season (in Oakland),” Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Authority executive director Scott McKibben told USA TODAY Sports on Tuesday.

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That could put a wrinkle in Raiders owner Mark Davis' hopeful message from Monday, when the NFL approved his franchise's eventual move to Vegas.

"We have two more years of lease options for Oakland right now," Davis said at the league's annual meeting. "If the fans would like us to stay there, we'd love to be there for that and possibly talk to them about extending it for maybe 2019 as well, and try to bring a championship back to Oakland."

It’s unclear where the Raiders would play otherwise.

Sam Boyd Stadium, home of the UNLV football team in Las Vegas, is an option but only has about 35,000 seats.

"It is possible and has been discussed as a potential solution," UNLV spokesman Mark Wallington told USA TODAY Sports.

McKibben said Coliseum generates about $7 million per year in revenue from Raiders games, including $3.5 million in rent. But it has more than $8 million a year in Raiders-related expenses, including security, sanitation, ushers and field conversions between baseball and football events. The 51-year-old Coliseum is the only stadium left in the U.S. that houses both an NFL team and Major League Baseball team. There are roughly three field conversions per year, at a cost of about $450,000 each. Without the Raiders, that headache goes away and so do the financial losses under the current arrangement.

“It’s actually financially to our benefit if they didn’t exercise the options and play here even in the two years they’ve got (in 2017 and 2018),” McKibben added.

The Raiders didn’t immediately return a message seeking comment.

If they really want to stay for the 2019 season, the Raiders conceivably could offer to pay more in rent.

Two other relocating teams — the Rams and Chargers — decided to move to temporary stadiums in Los Angeles instead of becoming lame ducks in their old markets of St. Louis and San Diego, respectively. While the Rams are playing in the L.A. Coliseum, the Chargers decided to spend the next two seasons in the 30,000-seat, suburban StubHub Center before their new shared stadium with the Rams opens in 2019.

The Raiders have a 44-year history in Oakland and have played there since 1995. But they didn’t see a certain path to a viable new stadium there after the city declined to offer public funding for a new building. In Las Vegas, by contrast, the team will take advantage of a record $750 million in public funding for stadium construction.

In addition to stadium expenses, McKibben said about $95 million in public debt remains on Coliseum bonds stemming from a massive renovation to lure the Raiders back in 1995 after 13 seasons in L.A.

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