Explaining the unresolved foundational issues of Oakland’s stadium proposal to NFL

I’ve been getting a lot of questions asking to explain the what the key issues the NFL has with the Raiders stadium plan Oakland mayor Libby Schaaf presented to the NFL.

In lay men’s terms, this explains the unresolved issues the league is continues to cite.

1. With no guarantees Oakland would exercise the termination clause with A’s it could take years before construction could actually begin. The NFL needs assurance the A’s long-term lease won’t impede any project moving forward.

2. None of what Oakland proposed is guaranteed to be acceptable to the County Alameda, which is another unresolved contingency issue
that could delay the project moving forward. In addition, there is no blanket approval by the Oakland City Council. The proposal, therefore, is an ENA, not a binding agreement.

3. The partial land being proposed doesn’t work for Raiders as, with the Raiders paying the entire bill for the stadium, it’s not
sufficient enough for development around stadium to create revenue streams to help offset construction cost.

4. None of which even gets into the third party presence of Fortress, and the terms that would be required to pay back the $600m loan being proposed to the Raiders.