Raiders Closing In On Stadium Deal To Keep Team In Oakland

It looks like Oakland Raiders owner Mark Davis got exactly what he wanted out of all of those fancy steak dinners in San Antonio and all that public kissy-face with Los Angeles. According to the , the city of Oakland has cobbled together a deal for a new stadium that would keep the Raiders in town and leave taxpayers on the hook for $120 million.

The new stadium would be built within a massive housing and retail development and would reportedly carry a price tag of somewhere between $900 million and $1.2 billion. The good news is that the proposed deal would not require public funds for construction costs, although taxpayers would have to foot the bill for "land and infrastructure improvements."

The bad news is that the city would be gifting the land that the stadium would be built on to the Raiders. Oakland would also have to raise $120 million to pay off the debt from the original expansion of the Raiders' current stadium, which would be torn down.

Where would the $120 million come from? "That's a great question that we will probably not say anything about," [Oakland Mayor Jean] Quan spokesman Sean Maher told us Tuesday.

County officials, who share oversight of the Coliseum, say Quan has kept them in the dark about the city's plan.

So that's just a teensy obstacle that needs to be overcome. I mean, what city doesn't just have $120 million lying around? There is also this complication:

Another big question is how the Oakland A's — who just signed a 10-year lease extension at the stadium that would be demolished — fit into the picture.

Sources close to the Coliseum City negotiations tell us that if the A's won't play ball with the project's backers, part of the land could be turned over to team owners Lew Wolff and John Fisher for their own privately developed ballpark.

Who cares about a 10-year lease? New stadiums for everyone!

[ SF Gate]