This season is going so poorly for the San Francisco 49ers, it’s getting quite cheap getting tickets to their remaining home games at Levi’s Stadium, while their Bay Area rivals, usually the joke of the NFL, are becoming a much more popular item.
A very good post by Niners Nation points out that when comparing the two teams next two home games, a 49ers ticket at the brand new Levi’s Stadium will cost four times less than the ticket at the ancient, crumbling coliseum, one of the oldest stadiums in the NFL, one which the Raiders can’t wait to get out of.
Obviously, this isn’t a money issue: The 49ers simply don’t put a very good product on the field, going along with the stadium being quite the drive or transit from the city itself. The 49ers are 2-6 so far this season and have recently benched Colin Kaepernick. Giving Blaine Gabbert the opportunity in the starting lineup doesn’t seem to be creating any sort of buzz among the fan base that’s been slowly alienated over the last two seasons.
The Raiders aren’t exactly a hot thing yet, but they’re not far from that. They’re 4-3 entering week 9, with a road game in Pittsburgh to try and overcome. They haven’t been to the playoffs since 2002 which was also the last time they finished with an above .500 record. They had two 8-8 seasons in 2010 and 2011, but that’s the peak of their performance in the last 13 years.
Suddenly looking good and promising after such a long time of trying to sort through a mess of draft picks and ownership decisions is even better when their rivals, the 49ers, are hitting what might be a very long period of terrible football.