The Raiders are back in the Bay Area on Sunday, and the old pull is still there - just not in the same way it used to be.
When Las Vegas visits the 49ers at Levi’s Stadium, it will be the Raiders’ first regular-season game in the region since Dec. 15, 2019, when they lost 20-16 to the Jacksonville Jaguars in their final home game at the Coliseum. The franchise still has a footprint in Northern California, but after the move to Las Vegas, the numbers around that old-school fan base have thinned out.
The team has leaned into the moment on social media, calling it a “Return of the Battle of the Bay.” But that label doesn’t really fit anymore. The rivalry has lost some of its edge, and for a younger generation of NFL fans, the 49ers are the only Bay Area presence that has truly remained.
“I know booster clubs are not doing well in the Bay Area,” said Eliseo Zepeda, chairman of the steering committee for Booster Clubs of the Raiders. “I know they’re suffering because of the move.”
There are still more than 50 Raiders booster clubs, and they continue to handle events, watch parties, travel coordination, community activities and team traditions. But the emotional and practical fallout from the move to Las Vegas has been real, even as the franchise’s financial profile has exploded. Under owner Mark Davis, the team’s value has climbed from $2.9 billion in 2019 to $10.3 billion in 2026, according to Forbes.
On the field, though, the story has been much less glamorous. The Raiders are 43-66 since the move, with one winning season in 2021, when they went 10-7 and lost in the wild card round.
In that span, they’ve had six head coaches and six general managers. That kind of churn doesn’t look all that different from their 25-year second run in Oakland, when they cycled through 12 head coaches, including Jon Gruden twice, and finished above .500 only four times.
The organization itself has also changed. Marc Badain and Dan Ventrelle, both central figures in the relocation to Las Vegas, are gone.
Sandra Douglass Morgan is now president, bringing Las Vegas ties and gaming experience. Davis still controls the franchise, though he has sold stakes to new owners, including former Patriots and Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady.
Davis said in an interview last May that he had “failed” when it came to building a winning team, and the results have backed that up. The Raiders are 4-4 in their seventh season in Las Vegas, and the on-field progress has been uneven.
Still, not everyone around the team has lost faith. Jenny Hamilton, a Livermore resident and steering committee member who helps with the club’s annual “Commitment to Excellence” function, still remembers the emotional wreckage of that final game against Jacksonville.
“There are days when you love them and days when they break your heart,” Hamilton said. “That was a very rough time, watching people pull up their seats and take them away when they left.”
Hamilton grew up in Santa Rosa, near the Raiders’ old training camp site at the El Rancho Tropicana from 1963-84, and worked for the organization from 2003 through 2011 in Oakland. She likes what she’s seeing from Klint Kubiak, the latest coach trying to steady the franchise.
The Raiders started this season 3-0, then dropped three straight before beating the New York Jets on the road last week.
“I’m beyond impressed with the camaraderie and the coaching,” Hamilton said.
Wayne Deboe, of Castro Valley, has been around the franchise since the beginning. He was a season-ticket holder in 1966, the first year at the Coliseum, and also went to games at Frank Youell Field, the old, rickety setup on the site that is now Laney College. He has led the Oakland Raiders Booster Club for the past 18 years, and his loyalty hasn’t budged.
“It remains to be seen because we’ve gone through so many changes,” Deboe said. “I’m with them all the way, but we’ve been through so many coaches and general managers you just hope for the best.”
Gilbert Morin, CEO of the Raider Drive Booster Club in San Jose, sees the rivalry with the 49ers as something that has faded with time.
“It doesn’t have the same feel. The older folks would still love to have bragging rights because they live here and have to deal with Niner fans, but it’s not what it used to be,” Morin said.
None of the booster club members contacted planned to go to the game, mostly because of ticket prices. StubHub showed seats in the outer reaches going for more than $350, while lower-bowl tickets were listed above $1,000.
That doesn’t mean Raiders fans won’t show up anyway. They were a visible force at Candlestick Park in 1982, when the Raiders won 23-17 in their first game as the Los Angeles Raiders and Marcus Allen made his debut. They were there again in 1988, when the Raiders beat the 49ers 9-3 with Mike Shanahan, Kyle Shanahan’s father, coaching the team.
The Raiders’ only regular-season game at Levi’s Stadium came in 2018, when they were beaten 34-3 and fell to 1-7 under Jon Gruden during a roster rebuild. That Thursday night ended badly in more ways than one, with postgame fights leading to 32 arrests.
The preseason series was later suspended after fan violence at Candlestick in 2011, though it returned in 2021 without major issues.
Morin is hoping Sunday stays calm, and he blames much of the trouble on younger “power drinkers” for whom the football itself takes a back seat.
What he says can’t be recreated is the old game-day atmosphere at the Coliseum.
“In Oakland, it wasn’t manufactured,” Morin said. “It just happened.
The A’s are gone, the Warriors went across the Bay. But I can’t stay mad at the Raiders.”
Zepeda isn’t asking for much right now. After all the upheaval, he’d settle for steady progress.
“If you’d have told us we’d be 4-4 after eight games, we’d be happy,” Zepeda said. “But we won three in a row and hopes got sky-high.
But this is an actual rebuild, and it’s going to take a few years. It’s not going to happen overnight.”
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