When Vince McMahon made an announcement earlier this year that The XFL will be coming back in 2020, fans and media alike were very much excited to find out which teams will be competing in the new XFL. Vince McMahon claimed that there were several cities who were interested in having their own XFL team for the relaunched football league, but it has now been reported that Oakland, California and their Raiders Team is no longer interested in being part of the new XFL.
Oakland is said to be a market that makes a lot of sense for The XFL. The Raiders are headed for Las Vegas, with a new stadium expected to be ready by 2020. That is when the rival league is expected to debut as well and the first version of the XFL played well in the area. The San Francisco Demons led The XFL’s attendance marks in 2001, putting an average of around 35000 people at The AT&T Park.
But according to The Mercury News, the startup league has struck out twice when trying to find a venue in the bay area. Oakland’s Coliseum officials were concerned about growing grass for baseball, apparently, putting the tenant that is actually expected to be in the stadium — The Athletics — before potential new business.
Scott McKibben, executive director of the stadium authority, said that The XFL’s schedule conflicts with getting the Coliseum ready for the Oakland Athletics Opening Day in 2020.
“There just isn’t any way we are going to be an impediment or obstacle to the A’s,” said McKibben, head of the authority that manages the Coliseum and Oracle Arena.
A UC Berkeley athletics spokesman also said that the university refused The XFL’s proposal to play at Memorial Stadium.
The article then said that details of the contract The Raiders have with the city are not final, but there is expected to be an option for The Raiders to play one more season in Oakland if their stadium in Vegas isn’t ready yet. That could be another reason Coliseum officials were wary of making a deal as they didn’t want to say no to a lucrative deal from The NFL should stadium construction lag behind.
