Larry Brown Sports

Linebacker Philip Wheeler agreed to a contract with the Raiders last Friday, a day after visiting them in free agency. He said all the love the fan base showed him on Twitter helped him make his decision.

“It was cool, that kind of helped me and my decision, because it showed me how big of a football city (Oakland) is,” Wheeler told the media Monday, per CSN Bay Area. “I mean, Indianapolis was a pretty good football city, but they didn’t get involved in the media or show us how much they care about the game. I’ve always wanted to play in a football city for a legendary team.”

Wheeler, who has just over 11,000 followers on Twitter, said he added about 2,000 followers since becoming a Raider. Even when he was making his visit to Oakland he was soliciting fan influence. He even tweeted about the love he was feeling last week:

Read The Rest of the Story…

Raider fanatics have never experienced an identity crisis. They’ve always been the bad guys. With their painted faces, spikes, masks, tattoos and other scary paraphernalia, Oakland fans have never exuded anything but fear and nastiness. It has come to the point where the rest of the football world looks at them as a bunch of rowdy and rough scofflaws who love to start fights.

The Black Hole fan club is tired of that image. In the wake of Al Davis’ passing and the team’s resurgence, the fans have also taken a different tone. They’re trying to be the good guys for a change.

“We are tired of being the whipping boy of the Bay Area and people thinking we are a bunch of criminals,” Rob Rivera, the president of the Black Hole fan club, said according to The Post game. “We are not.”

Read The Rest of the Story…

A Venice, Ca. sports bar has decided to stop showing Raiders games on TV because Raiders fans were causing too many problems at the venue.

Deadspin brought our attention to the story when they posted the picture shown above (taken by a customer). LBS called Cabo Cantina and spoke with the bar’s manager who confirmed the story.

The bar’s manager, a man named Wayne, told LBS that there are two particular large groups of Raiders fans who were creating the problems. He says the fans began coming in last season without causing problems. There weren’t any issues for the first three or four games this year. But then the groups of fans started to bring in some friends who were causing problems.

“They were taunting, insulting, rude, loud, and making people feel uncomfortable,” Wayne told us. “People were leaving the bar, so we had to do something.”

Read The Rest of the Story…

It seems to be somewhat of a tattoo week here at LBS, but most of it can be attributed to Jimmy Traina’s Hot Clicks. Things started when we posted this ridiculous tattoo the loser of a fantasy football league had to get. Then through Hot Clicks we were exposed to the San Diego Padres fan who inked friar tuck all over his noggen. But the worst of all was this Raiders fan to whom I was introduced on Wednesday:

So Raiders fans are so hard they can tattoo their entire mugs, but they can’t afford tickets to the game? Maybe if he saved the cash from the eye black tattoo he could have managed a few ducats. Oh wait, forgot tattoos only cost a few packs of smokes in jail. Honestly though, Al Davis should consider something similar. It has to be better than what he’s got going on now.

Share

Google+

When you think of some of the most passionate, hardcore, dedicated fans in sports, Raiders fans inevitably come to mind. They were the pioneers of the ___ Nation term, originating the “Raider Nation,” which has since been mimicked by several other fan bases. They have one of the most intimidating fan areas around – the Black Hole – located in one of the end zones. You dare wear a jersey of another team into the Black Hole, you risk not coming out. Being a Raiders fan is not merely a whimsical choice; it’s a culture and way of life.

But as intimidating and strong of a fan base as the Raiders have, their attendance record in Oakland does not correspond. Their Sunday game against the Colts – with the team at 7-7 and still in the playoff hunt no less – is being blacked out because the game did not sell out. That marks the 7th time in eight games that the Raiders failed to sell out a game, resulting in a local blackout.

I ask, how can that be the case?

If Raiders fans are as badass, faithful, and intimidating as they’d like you to believe, you figure the least they’d be able to do is sell out a home game, especially when the team is pretty good, right? That’s not too much to ask, is it Raiders fans?

Man, if the powder blue and gold Chargers are managing to sell out games, how are you not? Poor form Raiders fans, poor form, and I don’t want to hear another thing about how strong the Raider Nation is until they sell out a game.