Mount Davis (Oakland)

Mount Davis, or Mt. Davis, is a section of 20,000 capacity seating at the Oakland–Alameda County Coliseum in Oakland, California, United States. It was built in 1995 at the behest of Oakland City Council with the intent of bringing the Los Angeles Raiders American football team back to Oakland and is named after former Oakland Raiders owner Al Davis. Since 2006, the top-tier seating of Mount Davis has been covered by tarpaulin during all Oakland Athletics baseball games. Since 2013, the top-tier seating has also been covered by tarp during all Oakland Raiders games.

In 1982 the Oakland Raiders left Oakland because of the city's refusal to upgrade the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum, leaving the Oakland Athletics baseball team as the sole tenants. In 1995, the city made an agreement with Raiders owner Al Davis that they would increase the capacity of the County Coliseum in exchange for him bringing the Raiders back to Oakland. The result was a structure that became known as Mount Davis after Davis. There was criticism when Mount Davis was built as it obstructed views of the Oakland Hills. It was completed in 1996 but was criticized for being too steep and taking spectators too far away from the field of play. It had been noted to negatively affect baseball as while it provided a shield against the sun for outfielders chasing fly balls, it was an enclosed concrete stadium and had lost capacity for the Athletics.

Mount Davis cost approximately $500 million to build, with the cost shared by Alameda County and the city of Oakland. From then it cost the county and the city a shared $20 million a year in debt repayments, which had the side effect of the city having to lay off police officers. In 2015, Alameda County paid off the remaining $100 million of debt from its own surplus reserves, arranging for the city to continue annual payments to the county on its share of the $100 million.

Owing to low attendance, in 2006 the Oakland Athletics installed a layer of tarpaulin (tarp) covering all top-tier seating areas of the Coliseum, including the top level of Mount Davis. As the Athletics could not sell advertising space on the tarp due to city regulations, various Athletics-related messages were printed instead on the tarp; the Mount Davis sections of tarp display the team's logo. The covered seats numbered 20,878, representing approximately 37% of seating capacity in the Coliseum.

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