Raiders owner Mark Davis goes nuclear on Oakland A’s relocation to Las Vegas -“A slap to the face”
Mark Davis and his Las Vegas Raiders may soon be getting some familiar neighbors and he's not exactly thrilled about it. The Oakland A's announced on Thursday that they have purchased land in Las Vegas, Nevada, where they intend to build a baseball stadium on and move the team to Sin City.
This comes after years of contentious debate between the A's and the local government on who would fund a new stadium and where it would be located. In a phone interview with John Katsilometes of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Davis recanted the relationship that existed between his Raiders and the A's when they shared the Oakland Coliseum. Both teams shared the Coliseum from 1995 until 2020.
Davis said that when he was trying to get a new stadium for the Raiders, the A's held up the process and campaigned themselves as being 'rooted in Oakland'. The Raiders also went into depth that he believes that the A's most recent development is a 'slap in the face' due to the issues they faced when he moved his football team to Las Vegas.
“They marketed the team as ‘Rooted in Oakland,’ that’s been their mantra through the whole thing. The slogans they’ve been using have been a slap to the face of the Raiders, and they were trying to win over that type of mentality in the Bay Area. Well all they did was f—- the Bay Area.”
Mark Davis says he doesn’t want to sound negative. But he also says he has a long memory. Ten years long, as it pertains to the Oakland Athletics’ potential move to Las Vegas. reviewjournal.com/entertainment/…
Mark Davis also said that the land that the Oakland Coliseum is located on, which will soon be empty, was a prime location for a stadium. Now, neither team will get to utilize that land.
The main theme of Davis' interview was that he felt that the Oakland A's essentially pushed him and the Raiders out of the area so that they could control the entire fan base in the area. He decided to move and now the A's will do the same.
How long has Mark Davis owned the Raiders?
Mark Davis didn't take over as owner of the then-Oakland Raiders until his father Al's passing in 2011. It was then that Mark and his mother Carol inherited the team. They own around 50% stake in the team and are the controlling owners. Mark is the operations manager of the franchise and controls the day-to-day operations of the team.
Raiders owner Mark Davis ripped the Athletics over their Las Vegas plans trib.al/Z9b9EjE
His father, Al, became the general partner and controlling operator in 1972 when he signed an agreement with then-owner Wayne Valley, despite the fact that he only owned 10% of the team.
It wasn't until 2005, that Al became a majority owner of the Raiders when he purchased the remaining stake in the team. The minority owners of team, to this day, still have very little involvement in the team's operations.