My writer-partner and I were freelancing all over the place in San Francisco doing a LOT of tech stuff for Dell, Nortel, Sun Microsystems and the like, when we somehow got called in to Hoffman-Lewis to work on a campaign welcoming the Oakland Raiders back to town. Al Davis punished Oakland by moving the Raiders to Los Angeles in 1982 because they wouldn’t pay to install luxury boxes at the Coliseum. Then in 1995, Oakland finally agreed to invest in an upgrade, so Al brought the Raiders back. Andrew and I were assigned to creating the campaign that would welcome the team home. I don’t know if you know much about football. I don’t. I mean, I know what’s going on and enjoy a good game, but I’m no expert on the subject. But here’s what I do know. Raiders fans ARE FUCKING INSANE. Seriously. God help you if you’re not wearing the silver and black in that stadium. Heck, you’d feel uncomfortable if you didn’t have your shirt off and your chest painted with the Raiders logo. You could straight-up be murdered. Raiders fans have a super unhealthy love for their team. So we used that. Not the murder part, the rabid fanatic part. Well, almost the murder part. I’ll get to that later.

It felt to us like the Raiders coming back was cool enough, but to the fans it was freaking bananas. THEY WERE SO EXCITED. Because being a Raiders fan was so much a part of their lifestyle. These fans dedicated a LOT of their energy (and disposable income) to being super scary fans at those games. Then we were like, wait…why? Why so over-the-line extreme? Did they think that level of fandom actually affected the game or something? The answer was yes. So we pitched full newspaper pages with beautifully rich, black and white sports photography of gripping Raiders action. You could see the sea of fans blurred out in the background. All blurred out but one. The fan who’s crazy antics actually caused the pictured play to succeed. It was a graphic celebration of the beauty and brutality of the Raiders as a team, AND a recognition of the beautiful mess of their fan base. Basically we made the fans part of the team. And the tagline, “Make It Happen” said so much. I explained the concept, but it was also a great rally cry that got you jacked to go to a game, so you could do crazy you.

Left: Full-page newspaper ad. Right: Detail from that ad. — **Left:** Full-page newspaper ad. Right: Detail from that ad.

This is the murder part. My favorite part of this assignment was choosing a theme song for the Raiders return. What would blast through the Coliseum when the Raiders hit the field for the first time? What would we play under radio spots? To Andrew and I it was a flat-out no-brainer. AC/DC’s Back in Black! It was aggressive enough and, you know, one of the team colors was in it. Hahaha. Everyone at the agency was super stoked about it and when they pitched it to the Raiders, (as freelancers Andrew and I weren’t invited to the meeting, thank goodness) someone on the client side asked, “Did they just say they were in a bang with a gang!?” Hahaha. We totally forgot that was in the second verse. Oakland. Gangs. Nope.

True to the freelance advertising lifestyle, none of this work ended up running. And I can’t even remember why. I think the Raiders were set to come back but then something delayed them, so they just shelved the work. I also remember that the Raiders planned on introducing Personal Seat Licenses (PSL’s) on their return. They would charge you a huge fee for the privilege of being able to buy season tickets for your seat. How’s that for welcoming your fans back? Super unpopular. So that might have been why they decided to just play it quiet. Because when they DID play again there wasn’t a special campaign or fanfare like we were planning.