The silver and black mixed with a litle crimson and gold?

By Jeff Dickinson  |   Tuesday, January 27, 2009  |  Comments( 1 )

San Francisco 49ers
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Home-field advantage is more prominent in football than it is in almost any other professional sport. Certainly, traveling to a hostile stadium with vocal fans wearing the colors of their favorite team can create challenges for the visitors.

Images of excited fans drenched in the black and silver of the Raider Nation in Oakland are well known across the NFL. Fans in Cleveland have helped their stadium become known as the Dawg Pound because of their animated behavior during games.

So how must fans of the San Francisco 49ers and the Raiders be feeling now that the NFL is “urging” both teams to explore the option of sharing a stadium in the Bay Area?

Hold on a Raider Nation minute! You’re not serious, right? The Raiders are rough and tough. They are blood and guts and everything hard-nosed. The 49ers are Joe Montana and finesse. These two franchises are like oil and water, and we all know that those two substances don’t mix well.

Why in the world is the idea of the Raiders and the 49ers sharing a stadium even being considered? Welcome to today’s world of economic instability. San Francisco and Oakland have two of the NFL’s oldest stadiums. There is no question that these franchises need new digs.

The problem lies in the fact that it is virtually impossible for one metropolitan area to be able to finance two new stadiums that will each bring price tags approaching $1 billion. Sharing a stadium will allow the Raiders and 49ers to save on construction costs and to receive financial backing from the NFL and the city in which the stadium will be built. It will also increase ad revenue possibilities.

The model that the NFL is using to promote this venture is in New Jersey, where the New York Jets and the Giants will share a $1.6 billion stadium. Jets and Giants fans aren’t exactly prone to sitting down over tea and praising one another's teams. In Jersey, you’re for one or the other; there’s no pulling for both the Jets and Giants.

Of course, if a shared stadium can work in New Jersey, then why can’t it work in Santa Clara? It might not be the preferred option for fans of the 49ers and Raiders. There’s something special about a team’s home being just that – its home.

However, if that is the only way Oakland and San Francisco are going to get a new stadium, then it might be best to take the bad with the good. Having a new stadium with all of the latest technological advances, ample parking and transit accessibility isn’t a bad thing for fans of the Raider Nation and the crimson and gold of the 49ers.

In the NBA, the Los Angeles Lakers and Clippers share Staples Center and have managed to coexist for several years now. The teams have also done this while playing games at Staples Center against each other.

Will it be strange if the Raiders and 49ers square off at their shared stadium in Santa Clara? Probably. But it should just make the rivalry even more special between these two teams situated just across the Bay from each other.

San Francisco and Oakland fans should curb their opposition to this proposal and prepare to share the Bay Area stadium love. That is, unless someone tries to change the names of the two teams. This shared stadium idea should be put to an early death if some Einstein tries to rename Montana’s old team the “Santa Clara 49ers of San Francisco.”
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About Jeff Dickinson

I have been writing and editing professionally for 18 years. I spent the first three years of my career as a sportswriter for a daily newspaper in Alabama and got to cover sports and get paid for it! It was great until I got married and then it wasn't too much fun being away from my wife every ...
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