Could Oakland Coliseum have new tenant in 2020?

While plenty of news has come out this week about the Raiders’ new digs in Las Vegas, the fact remains that even a best-case scenario sees the Raiders remaining in Oakland until 2020 when their Vegas home will finally be open.

So the Raiders prefer to stay in the Oakland Coliseum until such time as their palatial new stadium is ready, and to that end, on June 28 the Oakland-Alameda County Stadium Authority Board of Commissioners held a meeting to discuss an extended lease for the Raiders.

Item 4b on the evening’s agenda for the Closed Session involved negotiating price and payment for a license agreement extension with Mark Davis. Hopefully, that went well.

But Item 4c on the agenda is far, far more interesting. It involves negotiating a license agreement with one Howard Handler, Project Lead for the XFL, under Alpha Entertainment, which is fully owned and operated by Vincent Kennedy McMahon, owner of the WWE.

It’s no secret that McMahon is bringing back the XFL with a target date of January, 2020. What isn’t known (until now) is any of the cities McMahon would see fit to negotiate to put a team in. But this document implies- nay, proves- that Oakland is one of them.

Logic would dictate that cities whose football teams have recently left would be ideal sites for XFL teams. Oakland, San Diego and St. Louis immediately come to mind as potentially fruitful markets. McMahon insists that he won’t be bringing back the original eight XFL teams, but will have new teams with new identities and he won’t rely on the same “sports-entertainment” gimmickry which sank the fledgling league in the first place.

Play is tentatively scheduled to begin in January, 2020 and last for ten weeks, meaning it wouldn’t encroach on the Oakland A’s baseball season, assuming the A’s don’t find a new home between now and then. If this goes through, it doesn’t appear that the city of Oakland will be without football for any length of time whatsoever.