The Oakland Raiders stadium situation for 2019 has gone from messy to a downright disaster. The team has been negotiating with the San Francisco Giants to use their stadium, but that is running into various problems.
Although the San Francisco 49ers play their games further away from the city of San Francisco than the Raiders did when in Oakland, they still hold territorial rights over the city. That gives them the right to say the Raiders are not allowed to play there. There have been reports the team is leaning against providing permission, and NFL Network reporter Ian Rapoport tweeted that it remains expected the 49ers will not provide the requisite permission.
This comes the same day San Francisco mayor London Breed said she thinks the Raiders should stay out of the city.
“We don’t need another layer to add to what we already have -- and that’s an area that’s really congested filled with construction and will host a number of basketball and baseball games over the coming months,” she said.
The Giants own their own stadium, but at one point they were getting tax breaks on the land. I don’t know what kind of leverage the city has over the Giants at this point, so Breed could just be getting her comments on record.
If the Raiders cannot work something out with the Giants, that leaves them with playing in Oakland, sub-leasing at Levi’s Stadium, or some unknown third option in another city — some have mentioned San Diego or San Antonio as options.
Chris Biderman reported the 49ers are willing to share Levi’s Stadium for a year, and while fans are not interested, that might end up making the most sense. Mark Davis seems firmly against it, but at some point he might have no other choice. It makes sense for the 49ers for additional revenue at the facility, so it is not surprising they might be interested.
If that’s going to happen, we’ll know an answer before mid-April given the need to get the schedule together. For now though, the situation remains a mess.