With the Oakland Raiders long gone and the Oakland A’s having one foot out the door, the deficit-strapped City of Oakland just struck a deal to sell their 50% stake in the Oakland Coliseum to the African American Sports & Entertainment Group for more than $100 million.

The dilapidated Oakland Coliseum has long been a running joke on this website, with its feral cats, possums, and recurring raw sewage problems. And there is increasingly little use for the 63,000-seat concrete colossus, with the Oakland Raiders having left town in 2019, and the Oakland A’s now stumbling through their final season there.

But the City of Oakland has turned the Coliseum’s impending irrelevance into a win. The Chronicle reports that on Wednesday, the city will announce that they’re selling their 50% share of Oakland Coliseum ownership to the somewhat new African American Sports & Entertainment Group. The Chronicle describes the sale price as "a minimum of $105 million," which indicates the final price could be higher.

Of course, the bad news is that the Oakland A’s baseball team still owns the other 50% of the Coliseum, despite the fact the A’s will only be playing there for about four more months. That theoretically gives A’s owner John Fisher veto power over any possible redevelopment of the outdated facility.

Alameda County sold their 50% share to the A’s for $85 million back in 2019. Technically, that sale is still in progress, and the A’s wouldn’t take full ownership of that half-stake until 2026 (at which point, the team will have already moved to their rinky-dink temporary home in Sacramento at a minor-league ballpark). But there is also a lawsuit that could upend the sale, which is expected to begin proceedings in September.  

But for the City of Oakland, this $105 million sale comes in quite handy, considering that the city is running a $177 million deficit. The Chronicle notes that the city was planning on “closing four fire stations, reducing the staff of the police department into the 600s and laying off between 50 and 90 city workers in other departments,” but this infusion of new money allows them to keep all of those positions and services in effect.

The Oakland-based African American Sports & Entertainment Group (AASEG) has also negotiated with the A’s to buy their half of the Coliseum site. Last we heard, the A’s had rejected a $115 million offer for that stake last September, but those talks may still be ongoing.

Meanwhile, the AASEG is also in negotiations with the City of Oakland on a $5 billion Coliseum site overhaul that could potentially add housing, restaurants, and a new convention center to the site. The group is also hoping to attract a WNBA team to the city, as well as a potential NFL expansion team in the future.

Related: Oakland A’s Are Officially Moving to Sacramento for the Next Three Seasons [SFist]

Image: Oakland Arena

Oakland is at least getting one piece of good news as the A’s prepare to bolt for Las Vegas, with the team agreeing to pay Alameda County $45 million of the unpaid balance on their Oakland Coliseum deal.

The Oakland A’s may be headed to Las Vegas. But Alameda County just executed quite a squeeze play on them. Shortly after Major League Baseball owners unanimously approved the A’s to move to Las Vegas inn November, Bay Area News Group columnist Daniel Borenstein dug through the A’s $85 million, seven-year coliseum contract with Alameda County. And he found that the A’s owed the county $45 million “within one hundred eighty (180) days of the Athletics’ announcement of their relocation out of Oakland.” Alameda County Board of Supervisors president Nate Miley must have read that article, because he promptly demanded the $45 million in a December 7 letter.

It worked. The Chronicle reported Thursday that the A’s have caved and agreed to pay the $45 million, through their LLC called Coliseum Way Partners (CWP).

“CWP agrees that the acceleration of the Annual Purchase Price Components was triggered on November 16, 2023, and that any outstanding Annual Purchase Price Components are due and payable by May 14, 2024,” CWP chief legal officer D’Lonra C. Ellis said in a letter obtained by the Chronicle. “We will continue to satisfy our obligations under the Agreement, including the obligations set forth in Section 3.6 (of the deposition agreement).”

The Coliseum was originally owned half by the City of Oakland, and half by Alameda County (Hence the name Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum). But in 2019, Alameda sold its share to A’s owner John Fisher in that $85 million, seven-year deal (Ironically claiming it was to keep the A’s in Oakland in case their Howard Terminal stadium plan fell apart, though the A’s themselves walked away from that deal).

That $45 million is a nice payday, but the downside is that A’s owner John Fisher remains half-owner of the Coliseum, and therefore could block any potential redevelopment of the stadium site. And since the A’s lease at the Coliseum expires after this coming season, it could lead to the tragic but hilarious result that John Fisher’s baseball team cannot even play in the stadium where John Fisher holds a 50% ownership stake.

Related: The A's Could End Up Sharing Oracle Park With the Giants In 2025 [SFist]

Image: OAKLAND, CALIFORNIA - MAY 26: Fans watch the Oakland Athletics play the Texas Rangers at RingCentral Coliseum on May 26, 2022 in Oakland, California. Attendance at Oakland Athletics baseball games have dwindled to historic lows as the team has traded away fan favorite players and continues to explore moving the team to Las Vegas if they can't reach a deal to build a new stadium near the Port of Oakland. The Athletics have the lowest attendance of all 30 Major League Baseball (MLB) as well as the league's lowest single game attendance for a May 2nd game that only drew 2,488 fans. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

The Falcons had the Raiders fans fighting each other today. 😂 pic.twitter.com/QQnSVFfw68

— Everything Georgia (@GAFollowers) September 19, 2016

Raiders fans are not a typically quiet bunch, and today we can add one more criticism to the list: terrible karate moves. Video from Sunday's home game against the Falcons shows what has to be one of the most interesting fights to grace the Coliseum in years.

Two men, both wearing Raiders jerseys, face off in the video. In it, one stands in a calm and unthreatening manner, while the other squats and moves his arms as if he's attempting to channel his inner warrior. After the significantly shorter of the two knocks the sunglasses off the calm man's face, he retracts into his crouched pose — perhaps waiting for a retaliatory strike.

And retaliate the aggrieved and shade-less man does — with a quick left-swing followed by a right. A bystander throws himself into the mix, and sucker-punches the dazed karate enthusiast, who quickly collapses on the stairs.

"He deserved it," says someone near by.

It should, of course, be noted that sports fan-on-fan violence is a very serious thing and should be treated as such — a fact we're sure the aspiring karate master is now pondering while holding an ice pack to his head.

If he's not in jail, that is.

Related: Video: Teen Who Ran On Field During 49ers Game Raises Stadium Security Concerns

Have a cool few million floating around and interested in seeing your name printed in really big letters on the side of something large? Well, here's your chance: Overstock.com exited its naming-rights agreement with the Oakland Coliseum on Saturday, meaning the home of the Oakland Raiders and Athletics is no longer officially known as "O.co." (Thank god.) The Chronicle reports that the online retailer still had a year left on the six-year contract, but apparently decided its money would be better spent elsewhere.

“They’ve always been able to terminate the contract if they wanted,” Scott McKibben of the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Authority told the paper. “Like a lot of corporations, they sit back and look at their sponsorships and marketing efforts and came to the conclusion they wanted to go in another direction."

According to the San Jose Mercury News, the deal, signed in 2011, was worth $7.2 million.

The 63,132 seat stadium has had a host of names over the years, including the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum, the Network Associates Coliseum, and the McAfee Coliseum. At present, there appears to be no replacement naming-agreement on deck — so you can go back to just calling it "the Oakland Coliseum," at least for the time being.

What's that you say? You always have and always will just called it "the Coliseum"? Yeah, me too. Well, until an East Bay giant like Uber buys the naming rights, that is.

Related: New Plan For Oakland's Coliseum Area Includes 5,750 Housing Units, New Venues For Football, Baseball, and Basketball

Fans attending today's Raiders game will catch a glimpse of a colorful piece of art celebrating Oakland and its sports teams.

The 150-foot "yarn bomb" is strung on the chain-link fence on the pedestrian walkway between the BART station and the Coliseum and features colorful yarn strung in the shape of the Bay Bridge's eastern span. The black, silver, green, yellow, and blue threads pay tribute to Oakland's teams: the Warriors, Athletics, and Raiders.

"Oakland is a creative community, so we wanted to use art to show our team spirit and support for all of our sports teams and show how proud we are to have them in our great city," says Alison Best, CEO and President of Visit Oakland in a press release. "Whether you're a visitor, sports fan, or a commuter driving underneath the overpass, this art installation will welcome you!"

The artwork was designed and installed by Lorna and Jill Watt from Knits For Life, "two yarn artists who bring imaginations to life with yarn."

The yarn bomb was installed over the weekend to coincide with the kickoff of the Raiders' season.

(via Visit Oakland)

(via Visit Oakland)

After yesterday's Raiders game in the McAfee Coliseum parking lot, a man was shot in the leg and groin (ye-ouch!) after a non-football related argument," according Alameda County Sheriff Dept. Sgt. J.D. Nelson.

Read more about stupid footballian fan behavior here.

(Okay, we only brought this up because we rarely have the chance to talk about football, or more to our point, the stellar show that is 49ers Press Pass With Mike Nolan. It is SO good! We started watching it because it takes over CW's Monday midnight time slot -- a spot our beloved King of Queens normally holds -- and now find ourselves totally impressed by this Mr. Nolan guy.

The show goes like this: each week the 49ers lose their ball matches, or whatever, and he has to stand before a gaggle of journos, explaining to them why the 49ers lost. Ugh, right? But he's really impressive at it. And we think he might punch someone real soon. Eeeps!

Also, associating with any journalist in a sober state is a harrowing and difficult experience, indeed. Here's to you, Mr. Nolan coach guy!)

--A source passes along these pictures of Gavin Newsom and Carole Migden at a Pride event some time back. We saw Mommy kissing Santa Claus!

--Steve Jobs speaks at the Apple Conference today.

--They say the real estate market's cooling off -- but the average single-family home in Noe Valley went for $1.4 million in April. Curbed SF gives you the analysis.

--There's a new Tales of the City book coming out tomorrow.

--The Police are playing the Oakland Coliseum on Wednesday. Meanwhile, the SF Weekly went to BFD.

--No 99 cent stores in Pac Heights!

--SF Metblogs has a cool picture of a huge building tag at Haight and Ashbury.

--John Curley's Flickr resignation from the Chron. We know, we're late putting up the link.

--And a source tells us that Josh Wolf is tomorrow's guest on the Colbert Report.

There was an evacuation of trains on the Fremont and Dublin-Pleasanton BART lines after a fire at a substation knocked out power to part of the system. The fire started at about 10:15 this morning near the Coliseum stop, eventually knocking out power between the Fruitvale and San Leandro stations.

From reports, it sounds like around 11:30 or so, the power went out completely and people had to be evacuated from their trains. Now that sounds like fun. Details are still sketchy so we don’t know exactly how this was all done as it doesn’t sound like that easy to do.

The BART lines are still running, it's just that you have to get off at a station closest to the mess (that being between the San Leandro and Fruitvale stops) and hop on a BART shuttle to take you to all the stops in between and the next closest station that's running. From there, everything is normal. Or as normal as normal could be considering there was a fire.

Update: Everything is up and running right now so things won't be screwed up in time for the commute. Also, it turns out that there was only train that had to be evacuated, which is good news as we had visions of trains getting screwed up all up and down the line. More than 200 passengers had to get out and walk all the way to the Coliseum stop. The Chron has some photos, one of which we posted above.

The easiest way of getting to the Oakland airport is AirBart. AirBart is a bus service that runs from the Oakland Coliseum BART station to the airport. It's only two bucks (plus whatever the BART fare comes to) and is fairly quick and reliable. But like other transit agencies, it's a little short on cash these days. So say hello to a fare increase, that being of $1 meaning, the total fare now is…let's see…one plus two equals...ummm…three bucks. But because it's the holiday season and because everyone is trying to get out of here, they're going to wait next year to raise the fees. The money, actually, is supposed to the purchase of some new two new natural-gas-powered buses and to maintain them. Also to pay for the Port Commission's new executive director's raise.

It was also decided to give out $10 coupons for the Oakland airport parking lots. The problem here is that there's so many cheaper lots around the airport that people aren't using the airport lots. That means less money to the airport. So if you go to the web site or call, you can get a coupon mailed to you.

Plenty of tickets still available for the game. Well, there must be, since the NFL is blacking the game out on TV.

* St. Louis vs. Oakland
Sunday, December 17, 2006. 1:00 PM, PST.
Week 15
The Unseen Battle

The Rams still have a rather capable offense what with QB Mike Bulger, WR Torry "Big Game" Holt, trusty veteran WR Isaac Bruce, and the beast of a player that is RB Steven Alexander.

Of course, all the so-called "skill position" players in the world won't help when you're playing behind a dinged-up offensive line and are in the first year of using a brand new offensive system under rookie Head Coach Scott Linehan.

The Rams can be hot, the Rams can be cold -- there's no telling which team will show up on Sunday. Two weeks ago they lost to the Arizona Cardinals, one of the absolute worst teams in the league as they play out the rest of their schedule waiting to fire Head Coach Dennis Green. One week ago the Rams traded blows with the Chicago Bears' taut defense before succumbing to a couple of special teams touchdowns, and failing to adjust to how the Bears had adjusted their D to STL's strategy.

The Rams are potentially a mid-range team even as they rebuild. The remnants of a proud offense saddled with a useless defense. This week is going to be a meeting of two teams with nothing but next year to play for.

If the Raiders do beat St. Louis this Sunday, it could be considered a mistake for the franchise, and here's why:

Basically, the Coliseum doesn't work anymore because it's seen better days-- it, in fact, has that "first apartment you lived in when you moved here and shared a two-bedroom apartment with five people" feel to it. Building a new place in Oakland is difficult for the usual reasons associated with building anything in the area except more so because Oakland officials are afraid of pulling the trigger on another stadium deal in light of Al taking them to the cleaners. San Jose, the ideal place for the A's ain't happening because the Giants "own territorial rights," which means whenever the A's even jot down the words "San Jose" on a cocktail napkin, the Giants threaten to sue. Of course, MLB does what MLB does and could tell the Giants to put a sock in it, just like they did to Peter Angelos and his "territorial rights" issue with D.C., but so far A's owner Lew Wolff's frat buddy doesn't sound eager to do it.