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Network Associates Coliseum
Address- 7000 Coliseum Way
Oakland, CA 94621
Team- Oakland Raiders
Year Opened- 1966
Capacity- 63,146
Surface- Grass
The Coliseum opened on September 18, 1966 with the Raiders hosting the Kansas City Chiefs. The Coliseum, located three miles from Oakland International Airport, was built by the City of Oakland and the County of Alameda.
The all-time Coliseum record for football attendance is 61, 656 fans on November 4, 1996, when the Raiders hosted the Denver Broncos in a Monday Night Football contest.
To satisfy a provision in the 1995 agreement to bring the Raiders back to Oakland, after a 12-year stint in Los Angeles, a Coliseum renovation project began in November 1995 and proceeded through the 1996 baseball season. Although the renovations were projected to cost $100 million, the cost eventually ballooned to $200 million.
The A's played their first few home games of the 1996 season in Las Vegas while work crews installed new seats in the Coliseum. The project has removed the outfield bleachers but added two 40,000-square-foot clubs, 22,000 seats, 125 luxury suites, a 9000-square-foot kitchen, two new color video boards and two matrix scoreboards.
In September 1997 UMAX Technologies, a tiny Bay Area subsidiary of a Taiwanese computer hardware maker, bought the naming rights to the Coliseum. The deal would have given Oakland, Alameda County and the Raiders NFL franchise more than $17 million over 10 years.
However, a dispute arose and a 1998 court decision reinstated the stadium's original name, the Oakland-Alameda County Stadium. It was renamed Network Associates Coliseum in October, 1998, when the company agreed to pay $5.8 million to put their name on the stadium for 5 years.
Oakland Raiders
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