The attempt to build a new stadium for the Raiders in Oakland has become almost comical at this point. When details of developer Floyd Kephart’s plan for Coliseum City were leaked, they were almost unanimously panned by the media. In fact, it seems like there has been nothing but negative reviews of anything having to do with Coliseum City in recent months and this week has been no different.
Sam Farmer of the Los Angeles Times has been reporting for a while now that the City of Oakland would likely not be invited to the NFL meeting where St. Louis and San Diego will present their plans to keep their teams. Now, another reporter, Vincent Bonsignore of the Los Angeles Daily News and ESPN Radio, backed that report up this week.
#NFL anticipates St. Louis/San Diego officially presenting stadium plans at next owners meeting. It doesn’t appear Oakland will be present
— Vincent Bonsignore (@DailyNewsVinny) August 25, 2015
At the same time Bonsignore was discussing this on Twitter, Kephart had a breakfast event at Jack London Square to discuss his plan. Unfortunately for Kephart, the event was not attended by many people who actually matter in the process of getting the project done.
According to @Matthew_Artz, 1 city councilman, that’s it. Nobody from mayor’s office, county, or any of the teams. https://t.co/HnIoPWi9c3 — Tim Kawakami (@timkawakami) August 25, 2015
As if that wasn’t bad enough, Vic Tafur of the San Francisco Chronicle reported that the Raiders have not even seen Kephart’s plan for a stadium.
Raiders did not attend. City has never showed them anything Kephart has proposed. https://t.co/WkvzogRz1b
— Vic Tafur (@VicTafur) August 25, 2015
That just goes to show how bad things are with regards to the Coliseum City plan. Oakland has so little faith in the plan, they have not even taken it to the Raiders. Now that Kephart has provided his response to questions about his original plan, the city of Oakland is supposed to vote on whether or not to move forward with Kephart. If they vote against moving forward, theoretically they could put together another plan and try to convince the NFL it’s worth considering.
But with the way things are going, it would appear Oakland’s best hope of keeping the Raiders is if the Carson project falls through and the Rams end up in Los Angeles. Assuming the NFL does not want three teams in Southern California, that would leave the Raiders in an Oakland A’s-style holding pattern.
