San Antonio Residents Being Surveyed on Raiders Support
A survey is being conducted of randomly selected San Antonio residents, asking them if they would support the move of the NFL's Oakland Raiders to San Antonio, Newsradio 1200 WOAI has learned.
The survey asks questions like 'would you support the Oakland Raiders if they moved to San Antonio,' 'Would you buy tickets to the game if the price were...and then listed several possible prices for game tickets,' and 'would you buy a lower level season ticket for $1500.'
The survey was sent out from an Alamodome e-mail address, but the Alamodome said it was not conducting the survey, simply providing mailings lists. San Antonio Sports, which is engaged in bringing events like the men's NCAA Final Four to San Antonio, said it knew nothing about the survey, and a city spokeswoman also said she was not familiar with it.
The name on the survey was Barrett Sports Group. Barrett Sports Group, which is headquartered in, interestingly, California, did not return a call seeking comment.
According to its web site, Barrett conducts 'stadium development,' 'economic and fiscal impact studies,' and 'transaction due diligence' to clients who are 'interested or buying or selling professional sports franchises.' The web site said Barrett has among its clients 'franchise owners,' but doesn't say if the Oakland Raiders are among them.
But Red McCombs, who is the former owner of the NFL's Minnesota Vikings and owned the San Antonio Spurs for many years, says
the fact that the survey is being conducted and somebody, presumably the Raiders, are circulating a survey about it, means the idea of moving the Raiders to San Antonio must be more serious than a lot of people have been willing to believe.
"That's just part of what you do when you have any kind of thought that there is going to be an opportunity," McCombs told Newsradio 1200 WOAI's Michael Board.
The survey also asks respondents if they think their business would be willing to buy a luxury box for NFL games in the dome.
"You never know what will really catch your attention," McCombs said. "You have to find out the mood of the market. I think that's a very good move for the city to send that out."
Talk of the Raiders moving to San Antonio started this spring with a chance meeting between Raiders owner Mark Davis and former San Antonio Mayor Henry Cisneros, who has always been an aggressive promoter of all things San Antonio. But Davis has never said that a move of the Raiders to San Antonio is a serious possibility, and most NFL watchers think if the Raiders would move out of Oakland, the team would move to Los Angeles, where it played from 1982-1995.
"This shows the Raiders that the city is pulling out all the stops to see if it can find a way to attract them here," McCombs said.
Just last week, San Antonio Chamber President Richard Perez told Newsradio 1200 WOAI that Raiders officials, after attending several UTSA home games, have determined that the Alamodome is a suitable short term home for the Raiders, and the team had moved to the 'economic analysis' phase. This survey could be a part of that economic analysis.
McCombs, who say his bid for an expansion NFL team during the 1993 expansion that brought Jacksonville and Carolina into the league due to a blackball from Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, says he doesn't think the Cowboys would damage an attempt by San Antonio, or potentially by San Antonio and Austin jointly, to attract an existing NFL: franchise.
http://www.woai.com/articles/woai-l...idents-being-surveyed-12836200/#ixzz3FVStu9th