So the Oakland Raiders may not be moving anywhere, and owner Mark Davis may be stuck trying to negotiate a one-year lease with Oakland so that he can have somewhere to play in 2015 but still threaten to move in 2016. But in the spirit of the season, people are trying to help Davis with his problem:
- Newballpark.org suggests a renovation of the Coliseum along the lines of what was done to Orlando’s Citrus Bowl for $200 million.
- SFGate’s Scott Ostler thinks the Raiders should build a temporary stadium for $500 million that would last ten years, which would be fine because “their fans are not martini-sippers or canape-nibblers.” (Or poodle owners!)
Neither of these is a remotely fleshed out idea, but then, neither is building a billion-dollar stadium with no idea of how to pay for it. So here’s an idea: If you want to do something nice for one of everybody’s least favorite NFL owners this season, send him an idea for how to get the new stadium he wants without having to break anybody’s budget. Maybe something he can build with cinnamon sticks and a hot glue gun. Remember, it’s the thought that counts. Happy Saturnalia, everybody!
How about the NFL buys the Raiders, then contracts them, then puts an expansion team in L.A.
If L.A. I’d dead for 2015, then why won’t any NFL execs go on record confirming it? Honestly, what would be the drawback? I have a feeling that the AEG plan is still on the table for next season, and that the leak about 2015 was a negotiating ploy.
As far as the Citrus Bowl (site of “The Nature Boy” Ric Flair’s “retirement” match in 2008), it’s been upgraded from the level of a decent high school football stadium in Texas to a decent college football stadium in West Virginia. In other words, it’s still far from being NFL-level.
How would leaking that L.A. is off the table be a negotiating ploy? It only hurts Davis and the other owners who are trying to get stadium deals in their current cities, and it’s not like it’s going to light a fire under anyone in L.A., either.
Oakland needs to assert its civic pride and tell Mark Davis to either sign a 30 year extension with all stadium improvements or building of a new stadium on his dime, or come clean out his lockers today since the Raiders are done with home games for the 2014 NFL season and never come back.
Poor Mark, he’s stuck in California, the land of no public stadium cash. A truly horrible place if you ask me!
Everyone there knows that L.A. is a mirage, so he doesn’t have the leverage that guys like me have out here in flyover boondock land, where you can move the rubes off of their “heck no” stance on ponying up just by bringing the commish to town and talking about SoCal like it was something real, hehe.
It’s also too bad Mark doesn’t know a good hairstylist or have a platinum membership in the Hair Club for Men, it might help his cause.
Here’s how the Raiders get a new stadium:
– let another team take the lead on building one in LA and then become the second team there
– let the NFL build a stadium in LA and be the team/one of the teams that leases it
That’s pretty much it.
Sell to Donald Sterling and his wife. They have tons of cash.
I have a better idea. Get those California taxpayers on board with giving us NFL owners lots of money like every other place does. Buncha pikers… hmphf!
I would think the 30/31 NFL owners would rather have expansion team(s) in LA so they could all benefit from it rather than letting an existing team move there.
The fundamental problem with LA is that no owner – present or potential – can get there without paying the other owners for the privilege.
The stadium is obviously a major issue as well, particularly given that – as Piggy has pointed out – few states are less interested in building a factory for the NFL to make money out of and then not charging them anything for it than California is. And rightly so.
Even if the stadium/funding/cost issue is solved tomorrow (it won’t be…), however, the cost to move to LA remains a massive stumbling block. McNair paid $700m for an expansion team for Houston (!) more than a decade ago… so do the math on what LA would be worth to any potential owner today (and don’t forget the sad sack Clippers are apparently “worth” $2bn in the sports marketplace of today).
Discounting they ever present “bigger idiot” business plan for a moment…. if the Dodgers were sold today instead of a year+ ago, what would they go for?
mp34: Among the many problems with this proposal – the NFL would never want to do something that would draw comparisons to MLS.
MLS just did this a few weeks ago to one of its clubs, Chivas USA.
… no answers to the question yet…
So let’s throw this out: If the NFL set the price of an LA expansion team at $3Bn (see the Clippers/Dodgers valuations above), and a relocation fee of $2Bn for that market (if you already happen to have a billion dollar team in your back pocket)…
Just who would be in the lineup to buy?
Can you think of anyone?
I think you’re overvaluing the L.A. market for football, John. I know that Forbes’ valuation figures aren’t that accurate, but they have the average NFL franchise worth $1.4 billion, and the Giants, in the nation’s biggest market, worth $2.1 billion (Jets are $1.8 billion). I’d be surprised to see the value of being in L.A. vs another market be much over $500 million.
I almost certainly am overvaluing what LA is actually worth. But then… what things are actually worth in the RSN-rights fueled sports franchise auction house of today doesn’t seem to mean anything.
Just months before Donald Sterling’s disgraceful comments (planned or otherwise), we were all talking about a sale price for the Clippers in the $600-650m range, and thinking that might be a bit high given that the Warriors had recently sold for $450m.
Ballmer’s offer? $2Bn.
Similarly, when MLB was busy pushing McCourt out the door (sort of), many thought the Dodgers would be the first $1Bn MLB franchise sale (Cubs were close…).
Selling price? $2.1Bn, as I recall.
When MLSe was put on the market, Forbes had most recently valued the Leafs alone at $448m. After MLSe was purchased by two sports networks for $1.5Bn, Forbes valuation for the Leafs jumped to about $1Bn.
The two NYC (ok, NJ…) teams are together worth $4bn. Is the LA market really worth only an eighth of New York (at $500m… LA would apparently be worth about half what Houston was in 2016 dollars)? I can see it being worth half of NY’s value, given that it is still a smaller market and only one $1bn generic franchise figures to be put there… but I just don’t see any way the league sells LA for less than $2Bn.
Do you still disagree?
Yes, I disagree, for two reasons:
1) You mention the “RSN-rights-fueled” franchise market, but RSNs aren’t a factor in te NFL, which is virtually all on national TV contracts.
2) Yes, the two NY teams may be worth $2 billion apiece, but that doesn’t mean the NY *market* is worth $2 billion — most of that is just the value of owning an NFL team anywhere, with the value of it being in NY vs. Omaha only a smallish sliver. If the NFL were selling an expansion franchise in L.A., I have no doubt they could charge $2 billion. But to move an already existing franchise from, say, St. Louis to L.A.? Nobody wants that market bad enough to pay big money for it, and they know it.
Fair points.
However, I don’t agree that RSNs are no factor at all for the NFL. It’s just a matter of time until some club starts their own “channel” in conjunction with an RSN. The league may not allow them to broadcast games live on it, but they’ll do NFL Network style “games in an hour” and offer all kinds of “team themed” programming (like Man United and the Maple Leafs do on their respective “live game free” networks). They may also gain the right to rebroadcast the network telecasts with a min. 24 hour delay or something like that (it won’t be ‘same day/overnight’ rebroadcasts…). I’m not suggesting that an NFL team could generate $200m a year like some MLB teams do from their RSNs, but I don’t think $40-60m is out of the question.
I disagree on the last point as well… “someone” will pay more than a relocation fee of $500m for LA when a stadium is built/being built. If an owner (existing or new) isn’t willing to pay in the $2Bn range, they won’t get LA (and at least to date, no-one has).
Houston and Cleveland were both in the $700m range weren’t they? And that was (2002/1999) roughly 15 years ago. With Forbes suggesting an ‘avg’ NFL franchise is worth $1.4Bn today, I have to think that the league will demand at least $2Bn for LA… maybe more.
But fair enough, we disagree… at the rate stadium development is going, we may not live long enough to find out if either of us is correct…
They should build a stadium that floats on water, and than have cities bid on rights to host it (maybe in 5 year incriments). The Raiders could do 5 years in the S.F. Bay, then 5 in London, 5 in Hawaii, etc…