[majik]

Apparently said last night at the Raiders Town Hall that he wishes he had a deal in Oakland like the St. Louis offer to Kroenke.

Attempt to garner more owner support on why he and Deano should move?

DOUBLE EDGE: Stan to Davis: If you like the deal St. Louis is offering TAKE IT and move the Raiders to St. Louis. You profess to love Oakland so much, but you are willing to leave for LA, then why not leave for the "dream" public offer of St. Louis?

[BuiltRamTough]

Yes but on the flip side I think the Raiders aren't going to move to LA and they never really were. Mark Davis wants to salvage the relationship with Oakland after this season. They tried to get Oakland to bite and they didn't.

Oakland doesn't hate Mark Davis.
SD hates Fabani and sort of dislikes Spanos.
STL HATES Kroenke with a passion.

Very interesting.

[The Ripper]

Apparently said last night at the Raiders Town Hall that he wishes he had a deal in Oakland like the St. Louis offer to Kroenke.

Attempt to garner more owner support on why he and Deano should move?

DOUBLE EDGE: Stan to Davis: If you like the deal St. Louis is offering TAKE IT and move the Raiders to St. Louis. You profess to love Oakland so much, but you are willing to leave for LA, then why not leave for the "dream" public offer of St. Louis?

He wants the same deal in Oakland but he and many other owners wouldn't take it in St Louis.

[RedAlice]

Oakland is on the rise as a city, St. Louis is on the decline. If this comes down to potential profit over the next 20 years, then Oakland is much more beneficial than St. Louis.

The ugliest girl is offering up the most because she has to.

[TomSlick]

It is hard to see Oakland putting up money to keep the Raiders. I know most of you despise LA Raider fans, but Oakland fans are pretty cool. I've never met one who was a moron. If you want to find thug fans in the Bay Area then go to a 49er game.

Mark Davis is somewhat of a loveable doofus. Nice guy, but as the Chinese would say, "He's got plenty of knives but they're all dull."

I think the Raiders will move one day, only because the stadium situation is going nowhere in Oakland. The A's want to leave, and the Warriors are leaving in 2 or 3 years to SF.

[Elvis]

http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/14006 ... am-oakland

Mark Davis says he's committed to keeping Raiders in Oakland

Associated Press

OAKLAND, Calif. -- Raiders owner Mark Davis made a surprise appearance at an NFL-sponsored town hall meeting Thursday night and said he is still committed to keeping his team in Oakland.

Nearly 400 people filed into the downtown Paramount Theater for the scheduled three-hour event designed to give fans a chance to voice their opinions about the Raiders' potential move to Los Angeles.

Mayor Libby Schaaf and Eric Grubman, the NFL's point man on Los Angeles, also attended the meeting along with two other representatives from the league.

Davis received a standing ovation when he was introduced to the crowd. The owner initially said he wouldn't take questions but grabbed the microphone early to address questions about his desire to keep the team in Oakland.

Specifically, fans questioned Davis' desire to remain in Northern California while at the same time working on a joint deal with the San Diego Chargers to build a $1.7 billion stadium in Carson.

This was the third of three town hall meetings held in cities where teams are seeking new stadiums. The NFL met with fans in St. Louis on Tuesday and in San Diego on Wednesday.

Unlike the meeting in San Diego when a representative from the Chargers was greeted by thunderous boos, the crowd was civil yet enthusiastic as fans -- some of them wearing face paint and others in decorative outfits -- filed to a pair of podiums to speak.

A few hecklers yelled out but were quickly quieted as Davis spoke after sitting with team president Marc Badain and listening to the comments for nearly 30 minutes.

One man spoke calmly and passionately then brought the crowd to its feet again when he said, "Why can't we find the financing to keep them in the Bay Area?"

Davis, who has publicly stated his primary goal is to keep the team where it is, said the team has exhausted attempts to do just that.

"We need help from the community as well to get something that our fans in Oakland can be proud of," Davis said. "We don't have that right now and we want it. It can be done in Oakland. We've talked to three mega developers to get this going. We have been trying for at least the past six years, every day, hundreds of hours, to try to get something done here in Oakland."

The Raiders and Chargers have been taking preliminary steps in anticipation of getting approval to move to Los Angeles. They announced plans for a joint stadium in Carson in February in response to the stated desire of St. Louis Rams owner Stan Kroenke to build a new stadium in Inglewood.

The Raiders have already set up offices in Los Angeles and are looking for additional space should they receive permission by the rest of the NFL owners to move to Southern California for a second time. Davis' father, Hall of Famer Al Davis, moved the Raiders to Los Angeles following the 1981 season before moving them back to Oakland in 1995.

"We didn't come here to offer a solution," Grubman told the crowd. "We came here to listen to you. If this were a waste of time, we wouldn't be here."

A decision which team, or which two, will be permitted to move to Los Angeles could come as early as next year.

Fans in Oakland hope it doesn't come to that and are optimistic a deal can still be done to keep the Raiders where they are.

"We're not that far off here in Oakland," said Gary Dowell of nearby San Leandro. "We're one or two pieces away from making everything fall into place. We also want the NFL to realize that you've done this before. You tried to take them to L.A. and make it work, and it didn't."

Other fans said they're empathetic to the Raiders' desire to seek a new stadium. Their current stadium, the Oakland Coliseum, was built in 1966 and has been plagued by numerous plumbing and other problems over the past decade.

The Raiders are also the only NFL team currently sharing a field with a baseball team. The Oakland Athletics also play at the Coliseum.

"That whole, 'It's not viable in Oakland' makes no sense," said Justaval Mendoza, who lives in Santa Rosa about an hour north of the Coliseum. "I'm not from Oakland. I come up here, I spend my money here. If the Coliseum complex was actually fixed up and we had a place to eat, we'd waste our money there, too. But they don't, so we drive straight into games and drive straight back."

[willasdad]

Watching the town hall meeting yesterday reminded me of the ending scene in Jerry Maguire when that one athlete was asking Bob Sugar, the agent, why they didn't have the same type of relationship as Maguire and Rod Tidwell. This was not a normal owner-fan relationship. All of them seemed to have stories of personal encounters with Davis or his father. It seemed like they would run through a brick wall for him, and not because they want to keep the team, but because there's an actual bond that appears to be far deeper than I thought would be possible.

This meeting couldn't have gone better for Davis' rep. Grubman appeared to be annoyed after the meeting, as he answered the journalists' questions, that Davis showed up as it likely affects their leverage to getting a new stadium. Who in their right mind leave a situation like this? Did you guys see that one guy who said he was naming his first son Davis, speaking about how Davis was nodding at everything the fans were saying, not because he necessarily agrees, but because he was born a Raider, just like them, and that the understanding goes beyond just business.

Anyway, this gets said a lot as hyperbole but I got the sense that Davis really could own that city if he wanted.

[TSFH Fan]

It would be a low probability of success / high reward tactic, but the league has previously worked their collective butts off to get the Raiders a new stadium. Was Davis there addressing the fans or was it really, really a message to the league?

But (speaking from the speculative league POV), we're talking about the number 6 market, the other team there is about to slide off into oblivion (yay!!!), there is talk that many owners do not want Davis in LA, there is market research that many people/businesses don't want Davis in LA, and the tiny PR ding the league gets by letting the Rams return could be offset by helping the Raiders stay in Oakland. And, for better or worse, the image of goofy Raider fan in all the regalia is one of the defining images of the League -- you don't get that in baseball or basketball. Short version -- it might make financial sense and PR sense to the league to help the Raiders stay in Oakland (certainly more so than trying to keep the other teams in their markets) and sending that message could have been motivation for Davis to attend the meeting . . . or not.

Leveraging the City wasn't working, what about trying to leverage the league . . . nah, that's crazy/silly nonsense.

[Elvis]

The Bay Area is one of the biggest TV Markets and possibly the wealthiest part of the country. The Niners have moved South and are heading South as a team.

The opportunity for the Raiders in the Bay Area is huge. If they don't take it, somebody else well may.

So in short, totally agree with TSFH...