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Oakland Raiders owner Mark Davis blames baseball's Oakland Athletics for holding up progress on a new stadium. In the short term, the Raiders announced Thursday the signing of a one-year lease to remain in Oakland and play 2016 games at O.co Coliseum, the team's home since it moved back from Los Angeles in 1995.
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The A's signed a 10-year lease on the old stadium in 2014.
"There's an elephant in the room, and that's the Oakland A's," Davis told CSNBayArea.com after Thursday's news conference. "They have to make a commitment to what they want to do.
"That's the problem. They signed a 10-year lease while we were negotiating with Oakland officials, and it kind of put somebody right in the middle of things. There isn't much you can do. They've tied our hands behind our back. Now it's up to the A's to make a declaration of what they want to do. If they don't do that, I don't see how we can make a deal."
While Davis said his long-term plan is for each team to have a new stadium on the current site, the Athletics prefer to play at O.co Coliseum and build a ballpark next to it.
"We like the game day experience of tailgating on that parking lot. We don't want to give that up," Davis said. "People have not listened when I've said that I don't mind building two stadiums on that site. The A's stadium would take about 12 acres, and a Raiders stadium would take 15-17 acres. That's fine with me, but I don't want to give up the parking.
"What I do not want to do is build a football stadium in a corner of a parking lot while the Oakland Coliseum is still standing and, once we have a brand new venue, we begin to tear down the old stadium and build a new ballpark, disrupting the ingress, egress, parking and tailgating experience for Raiders fans on game day."
The St. Louis Rams were approved to move to Los Angeles in January and the San Diego Chargers have an option to join the Rams at their yet-to-be-built stadium in Inglewood, Calif.
The Raiders might move after next season but must wait until after the Chargers make a decision on whether they want to join the Rams.
The A's responded to Davis' comments with a statement later Thursday:
"Today's announcement by the JPA (Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Joint Powers Authority) regarding the Oakland Raiders does not change the Oakland A's goal of securing a baseball-only facility. We are aggressively working with the City of Oakland and relevant stakeholders to evaluate venue sites."
