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Raiders fans in Las Vegas better than advertised, especially compared to team's latest stint in Oakland

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The Raiders like to say that their greatness lies in its future, not in its past. That’s especially true if you take the franchise’s recent past at the Oakland Coliseum into account.

And it’s also true regarding the Raiders’ future at Allegiant Stadium, despite complaints from some Raiders fans and observers, disturbed by too many visiting jerseys in the Las Vegas crowd.

But let’s get back to Oakland for a moment. I’m not talking about the Raiders’ first stint in the Bay Area — that would be blasphemous and downright insane. That era was glorious. John Madden, Daryle Lamonica, Ken Stabler, Art Shell, Fred Biletnikoff, Cliff Branch and a host of others, literally too many to list, took pro football by storm, raiding opponents with a vengeance that personified the team’s late owner, Al Davis.

I’m talking about the Raiders’ second stint in Oakland. The hastily arranged move to an ancient baseball stadium way past its prime, spiffed up with some sort of half-baked renovation that was supposed to bring Bay Area Raiders fans back to the East Bay in droves.

That vision never quite materialized. Not until the NFL suspended its TV blackout policy in 2014, at the very least. That archaic rule stated that unless the Raiders sold 85 percent of its seats 72 hours before kickoff, the game would be blacked out on local television.

The number of games blacked out in the Bay Area was staggering, even during some of the Raiders’ best years back in their original home. Local Raiders fans were either non-existent or didn’t bother to show up at all upon the franchise’s supposedly-triumphant return.

The Raiders’ early run in Las Vegas puts that woebegone era to shame. The team sold all of its pricy personal seat licenses — PSLs were a hard sell in Oakland — and every game was a near-sellout. Even if the NFL’s TV blackout rule still existed, it would be a non-factor.

Though some games at Allegiant were indeed marred by an abundance of foreign jerseys and some empty seats, the pandemic was undoubtedly a factor to some degree. And by season’s end, it appeared that most Raiders fans gave the lucrative resale ticket market the stiff-arm.

Take a look at the crowd on hand at Allegiant for the Raiders’ season finale against the Chargers. The game was a memorable one, ranking No. 2 on the NFL’s list of 2021’s top games. Las Vegas and all of Raider Nation added to the mystique by packing the seats.

 

Need more proof? Listen to the roar of the Raiders’ home crowd after Las Vegas stopped the Chargers cold on a crucial fourth-down play.

So while the Raiders’ first season with fans at Allegiant Stadium was a bit rocky (as was Las Vegas’ season), the building was packed with Raiders fans by the season’s end. Every seat sold, and hardly a Chargers fan in sight.

In contrast, the Raiders got off to a bad start during their second stint in Oakland, failing to reach the 85-percent threshold for at least one home game during their first year back in 1995, according to the Stockton Record. That team was competitive, too, finishing 8-8 (despite an 8-2 start, but let’s not go down that road any further).

And ticket-sale issues didn’t stop there. From 1995 to 2012, more Raiders games were blacked out than were televised, with 80 games played in studio silence compared to 64 local broadcasts.

In response, the Raiders covered roughly 11,000 seats with a tarp in 2013 to alleviate the problem, reducing capacity at the Oakland Coliseum to a measly 53,250, making it easier to reach the elusive 85-percent threshold.

And it’s true, many of those Raiders teams were awful. But during a resurgence in 2010, linebacker Rolando McClain (who definitely had his own issues) told reporters he wouldn’t talk to them until the Coliseum was packed. According to CBS Sports, he proclaimed, “If the fans come out and we can sell out a damn game, I’ll talk to the media. Until then … I need full fan support.”

Even the Raiders’ great 2002 team lacked support from the Oakland market, as the team’s Week 4 rout of the Titans was blacked out locally. The Raiders’ Jerry Rice and Rod Woodson set NFL records that day, adding insult to injury.

Need I say more? Las Vegas Raiders fans are doing just fine. The seats are sold, personal licenses and all. Despite incredibly-high demand from visiting fans, thanks to the Raiders’ new location in the Entertainment Capital of the World, Raider Nation is holding the line as best they can, especially in an uncertain economy due to the pandemic.

As long as the Raiders win, that is. And isn’t that more than fair? During the franchise’s second Oakland stint, even a Super Bowl contender failed to sell out each game at the venerable, historic first home of the Raiders. To be honest (taking a common refrain from Raiders QB Derek Carr) it was pathetic.

In Las Vegas, however, the future of home games at Allegiant appears bright. Fanatics are ready for any greatness new coach Josh McDaniels can provide. And it’s clear that Mark Davis doesn’t need a tarp to cover a lack of demand for Raiders football — not now, and not ever, as the franchise enters a new prosperous era in Las Vegas while fans from across the country clamor for a piece of the action.