Raiders owner Mark Davis said a lot of the things you’d expect him to say in his first extended local interview yesterday. But he also dropped a bit of news into the talk about leaving for Las Vegas.
During the interview on 97.5 The Game, Davis said that in trying to keep the Raiders in Oakland, he offered a 20 percent stake in the team to Oakland A’s then-managing partner Lew Wolff during discussions of a plan that would see the Coliseum torn down and a pair of sport-specific stadiums built on the site.
“We offered them the opportunity to purchase 20 percent of the Raiders and to do what I said about building two stadiums on that site,” Davis said, via Daniel Brown of the East Bay Times. “And the message from them was, . . . that they did not want to remain on that site, especially if we were to build there. But they would love to buy 20 percent of the Raiders. And that was really the last time we talked to the A’s about it.”
Wolff confirmed the meeting but didn’t indicate that it was a plan that was taken very seriously, because of issues with leases and a lack of particulars.
“Mark did mention something to the effect that he had a passive interest that might be for sale. My recall was that I was clear that were not passive buyers,” Wolff wrote. “No terms, price, details were discussed as best I can recall. Our goal then was to remain in our market as it is today.”
Of course, unable to reach any kind of deal locally, he found the money he was looking for in the desert, leaving his former co-tenants in the Coliseum looking for their own stadium deal.