Raiders-49ers "Battle Of The Bay" Becomes Bloody

As the Las Vegas Raiders prepared to face the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday, it was fair to wonder if the game remained a rivalry that befitted the historic "Battle of the Bay" nickname.

After all, with the 49ers based in Santa Clara, CA, since 2014 and the Raiders becoming full-time residents of Las Vegas prior to the 2020 season, Sunday's contest would be the first between the teams in Santa Clara in which neither was physically located in Oakland or San Francisco.

The rivalry on the field remained somewhat of a damp squib, with the 49ers' 38-17 pasting of the Raiders giving them their seventh victory in the teams' past nine meetings dating back to 1994 when the Raiders were still hunkered down in Los Angeles.

Off the field, however, it was a different story - a disturbing, nauseating story.

Take a look at the photo at the top of this article. This was definitely not the mood at times during the game as several skirmishes broke out in the stands.

But that was just the opener for an exhibition of fan violence that never should have occurred and hopefully will eventually result in outright banishment from attending any future NFL games for the perpetrators, if not the handing out of actual jail time.

The conclusion of the game saw numerous multi-person brawls that had some ostensible Las Vegas and San Francisco "fans" knocking each other unconscious in the parking lot. We must warn you that the videos linked here are very unsettling and dismaying and should be viewed with caution.

A report written by Gabe Fernandez of SFGATE that was posted on msn.com on Monday afternoon indicated that 11 arrests had been made in conjunction with the brawls and that 45 people had been ejected from Levi's Stadium during the course of the game.

According to Fernandez, the Santa Clara police's arrest log noted that seven of the 11 people who were arrested were cited for disorderly conduct. The other four arrests were for fighting in a public place, with Santa Clara Police Department spokesperson Lt. Eric Lagergen noting that several fights remained under investigation with additional arrests still possible.

So, after this excessively bloody Battle of the Bay, when might the next round occur if Raiders and 49ers fans choose to again take the word "rivalry" to its darkest and most disturbing extreme?

The game in Santa Clara was part of the NFL's regular schedule rotation in which NFC and AFC teams play all of the teams from a division in the opposing conference once every four years. Under that rule, the Raiders and 49ers will next meet in Las Vegas during the 2030 season.

Additionally, if both teams finish in the same position in their divisions in 2027 (first-first, second-second, etc.) they will hook up again in Santa Clara in 2028.

And, with expansion to an 18-game NFL schedule almost certain, one of the proposals to fill that 18th game slot is having traditional geographic rivals play each other every season, with an annual Raiders-49ers game a likelihood if that scenario does indeed play out, though it's highly unlikely that the NFL would look kindly on highlighting a rivalry that could easily devolve into a fan-induced bloodbath.

With all of that being said, whenever and however often the Raiders and 49ers meet on the field in the future, further instances of barbaric behavior amongst the fans like what occurred on Sunday will not be welcome or tolerated and hopefully will never happen again.