Tight Deadline Today for the Conversion Crew at the O.co Coliseum

Crews have been working all night at the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum and are by now deep into the intensive process of converting the home of the Raiders… into the home of the A’s.

The Raiders kicked off their preseason last night, and the A’s play this evening, which is creating an unusually tight turnaround.

This morning, KQED producer Molly Samuel spoke with Ron Little, the Interim General Manager for the O.co Coliseum and the Oracle Arena.

“This is probably the tightest we’ve ever had to go,” he said. “We don’t like doing it,” he said. “Anything that gets in the way of progress could cause a delay, and that’s something that would not be good.”

Little said it’s only once every couple of years that the crew needs to flip the space from football-ready to baseball-ready (or vice versa) within 24 hours. He said he expects to complete today’s conversion in just 16 hours.

“We have to take possession of the field immediately after the game. That’s really important for us,” he said. “Then we immediately get to work.”

Between 50 and 100 people have been working since around 10 p.m. last night when the Raiders left the field. Little said they hope to turn the field over the A’s between 4 p.m. and 5 p.m. this afternoon.

The first pitch is 7:05 p.m.

This YouTube video offers snapshot of what it takes to convert the field.

Little said that it’s such a “unique” process, he’s thinking of making a time lapse video of the next conversion, scheduled for August 28th.