Oakland makes up with Raiders, rebuffs A's

Following up on a story that surfaced last month, Oakland City Council approved the settlement that will kill once and for all the Raiders' disastrous PSL system and hand full control of football ticket selling operations to the Raiders. Two articles have shown up so far on this:

• Oakland Tribune (Paul T. Rosynsky/Heather Macdonald)
• Contra Costa Times (Guy Ashley)
  

What wasn't known in November was the type of concessions the city and Coliseum Authority might need to make to get the A's to go along with the deal. That was finally revealed last night as A's officials and local pols said that the A's wanted a three-year extension on the existing lease. That request, along with a similar extension request by the Raiders, was denied.

In light of the difficulty seen in getting the Coliseum North project off the ground, one would think it would behoove Oakland/Alameda County to sign the A's for three more years. That time could be used to work on alternate sites or reshape Wolff's proposal into something more feasible.

The only thing I can see that may have made Oakland balk at the concession was if the lease terms were merely three additional one-year extensions with the same buyout terms the A's currently have in the 2008-10 years. That would not help Oakland in the least, since it would give the A's a longer safety net as they pursued other options out of town.

If the lease extension was a lock-in, where the end of the long-term lease agreement was pushed out from 2007 to 2010, it doesn't make much sense for Oakland to reject it. It's possible that Oakland is calling the A's bluff and holding a hard line so that the A's can be forced to make a decision by 2010. It might also net better lease terms for Oakland. Still, those are tenuous supporting arguments for a decision that can only be termed as baffling. More to come on this.