Raiders hope to build $800 million stadium

In Oakland, the Raiders play in one of the worst stadiums in major professional sports. The O.co Coliseum has a terrible seating structure. Simply put, it's the worst stadium in the NFL.\

Across the bay, the San Francisco 49ers are getting ready for their last season in the equally terrible Candlestick Park. The difference here is the 49ers will be moving to Levi's Stadium, a brand new facility that cost about $1.2 billion to build.

Now, the Raiders are interested in finally moving on from the Coliseum, says Matthew Artz of the Oakland Tribune. According to his report, the Raiders are interested in building a 50,000 seat stadium in Alameda Country, carrying an estimated cost of $800 million, cheap by today's NFL standards. The stadium would be the smallest in the league.

Still, there are many hurdles for the Raiders to get by before their stadium gets the green light, most notably, money. According to Artz, the Raiders would pay $300 million out of pocket, borrow $200 million from the NFL and leave $300 million for taxpayers. That latter part of the plan will no doubt be the tough sell in the matter.

The Raiders are one of the few teams in the league that can now legitimately use the "pay or we'll leave" line. The Raiders could very realistically get into talks with developers in Los Angeles. The Raiders spent much of their history in L.A., and moving to a major market would make the franchise far, far more valuable than it is today. It's the type of leverage the Raiders could use to get themselves a new stadium.

About Shane Clemons

Shane Clemons came from humble beginnings creating his own Jaguars blog before moving on to SBNation as a featured writer for the Jaguars. He then moved to Bloguin where he briefly covered the AFC South before taking over Bloguin's Jaguars blog. Since the inception of This Given Sunday, Shane has served as an editor for the site, doing his best not to mess up a good thing.

Quantcast