The Oakland Raiders have another chance in staying in their home town instead of relocating like the news has been reporting lately. The Raiders have been struggling for a new stadium in the last few years, and the City of Oakland has failed to come up with a viable plan. In the last year or so, the organization has been talking to the gambling city from Nevada for a possible new and state of the art stadium due to Oakland’s failure in providing a future home.
It has reported that Ronnie Lott’s group, Fortress Investment Group, which has put a bid to keep the Raider’s in Oakland, has been bought out by Softbank, a Japanese-based company, for $3.3 billion.
With Softbank owning Fortress Investments, the question of the interest of keeping the Raiders in Oakland has been pondered.
According to Fortress Investments spokesman Sam Sieger, things have not changed with the bid for giving the Raiders a new stadium in Oakland. In other words, Softbank has not changed anything that was going on with Fortress Investments Group.
The bid is still alive but there has been no resolution yet for the problem. The City of Oakland has failed with a viable plan to build a new stadium, but managed to keep the Raiders for two more years on a lease in the current Coliseum, which is heavily dilapidated and shared with professional baseball team the Oakland A’s.
In Las Vegas
In the meantime, owner Mark Davis is trying to move the Raiders to Las Vegas with a chance to get a state of the art stadium. However, financing has been an issue despite the city of Las Vegas approving the possible move.
Owner of Sands Corporation Sheldon Adelson, who was one of the main investors for the new stadium in Las Vegas, backed out of the deal.
It is believed that Adelson wanted control of the team as well, but Davis put a halt to that. So, the deal did not go through. Now, the Raiders are having problems finding new investors for the new stadium in Las Vegas.
For now the Oakland Raiders, stay in Northern California and with no future home. On the other hand, the Japanese-based company Soft bank could change everything. As for the team itself, they have improving and are currently playoff team. Their future playing in the league is not a problem, it is finding a nice stadium to play in.
