An NFL owner is well and truly pissed off on the back of a development concerning a team in Major League Baseball.
The Oakland Athletics are set to share the same city with the Las Vegas Raiders, having signed a binding contract to purchase land near the Vegas Strip. They’re due to move in by 2027.
Raiders owner Mark Davis was not at all happy to learn this as there is still bad blood between the teams’ management structures dating back to when they shared the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum.
Speaking to Katsilometers, Davis revealed he has not moved past what the A’s did to his team in Oakland.
“I won’t forget what they did to us in Oakland,” he was quoted as saying. “They squatted on a lease for 10 years and made it impossible for us to build on that stadium… They were looking for a stadium. We were looking for a stadium. They didn’t want to build a stadium, and then went ahead and signed a 10-year lease with the city of Oakland and said, ‘We’re the base team.’”
The Raiders owner pointed out that the A’s paraded as the team “rooted in Oakland,” using catchphrases that essentially belittled the NFL team.
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“For them to leave Oakland without anything is pretty [screwed] up,” he added. “Because that site that the stadium was on was a good site. . . . We ended up in Las Vegas, which is absolutely fantastic and couldn’t be better. But the A’s never gave us a real good chance to stay up in Oakland.”
It appears the A’s aren’t as “base” as both teams thought because they’re now poised to leave Oakland.
Davis doesn’t seem like he will be around to welcome them to Vegas when they do arrive, with the 67-year-old reiterating his gripe with the Athletics’ front office.
“I just have, again, a lot of personal animosity toward the front office,” he offered. “But with a new management group? Absolutely.”
Fortunately for Davis, he won’t have to share a stadium with the A’s. He will be sharing a city, however.
