Oakland residents say keeping sports teams is a low priority

The O.co Coliseum is a much criticized venue, especially when the Raiders' and A's seasons overlap. The O.co Coliseum is a much criticized venue, especially when the Raiders' and A's seasons overlap. Photo: Scott Strazzante / The Chronicle Buy photo Photo: Scott Strazzante / The Chronicle Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Oakland residents say keeping sports teams is a low priority 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

Keeping the Raiders in town ranked last on a list of 16 priorities while supporting public schools came in first, according to a poll released Friday by the Oakland Chamber of Commerce that asked residents what’s most important to them.

Even the A’s and Warriors got higher marks than the Raiders — who are threatening to leave town. The 600 residents surveyed decided that after schools, the most significant issues in the city are creating jobs and clamping down on crime, followed by clean parks, preservation of the arts, road maintenance, balancing the budget, cleaning up blight, building more housing, improving public transit, protecting residents from tax hikes, marketing Oakland as a place to visit and creating tech jobs.

Holding on to the three professional sports teams ranked last, with the A’s topping the Warriors and the Raiders.

The poll was conducted by EMC Research Oct. 20-25 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.8 percentage points. In the same poll, voters gave Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf an approval rating of 68 percent, the highest for any mayor since Jerry Brown.

EMC chief Alex Evans presented the firm’s results Friday at the Waterfront Hotel in Jack London Square. Preventing the exodus of the three sports teams is a wedge issue for a small but vocal minority, he pointed out.

“The bottom third of voters — very concerned, fanatic fans — think it’s extremely important to keep the teams,” Evans said, over chuckles from audience members who evidently didn’t consider themselves part of that bottom third.

The other two-thirds of voters seem to feel lukewarm about the sports teams, with a small minority — some 20 percent of respondents — adamantly opposed to building sports stadiums at the Coliseum site.

The poll results came just as Schaaf gears up for a highly publicized trip to speak to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and several league committees in New York, to demonstrate that Oakland is still the best home for the Raiders.

Schaaf said Friday that the purpose of her trip is to sell Oakland and prove it’s a tremendous market with a die-hard fan base.

Members of that fan base flocked to a recent NFL town hall at the Paramount Theatre to beg Raiders owner Mark Davis to stay in Oakland. Some fans said they were born in Oakland, but later got priced out and had to resettle in the cheaper Central Valley.

Apparently, they don’t speak for the current supermajority of Oakland voters.

While most respondents to the chamber poll said they at least “somewhat” favored building new sports stadiums to placate the A’s and the Raiders, only 31 percent said keeping the Raiders is “extremely important.”

Fifty-five percent strongly favored developing a retail corridor around the now-barren Coliseum site, though not necessarily with new sports facilities.

That doesn’t mean Oakland wants its teams to leave, said Barbara Leslie, president of the Oakland Chamber of Commerce. But it does suggest voters would rather spend their tax dollars on other priorities.

“From what the survey says, Oaklanders do care about their sports teams,” Leslie said. “But to a greater extent, they care about schools, jobs and a safe community.”

Rachel Swan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: rswan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @rachelswan