When you’re a sports team owner trying to get your fellow owners to okay your move to a new city that’s waving a $750 million check in your face, it’s not so bad a strategy to try to burn your bridges with your old city, just in case. And Oakland Raiders owner Mark Davis is clearly a man who knows his way around a can of lighter fluid:
“Oakland was in the driver’s seat if they could’ve put together anything,” Davis said Wednesday at the NFL’s fall meetings, after updating his fellow owners on his desire to relocate to the gambling capital. “They came up with nothing.
“Las Vegas has already done what it is supposed to do and we have to bring it up to the National Football League and get permission to move to Las Vegas.”
Yeah, screw you, Oakland! You didn’t offer Mark Davis a $750 million check, instead only saying you’d pay for maybe $200 million worth of infrastructure! Who wants a measly $200 million, amirite, guys?
(For her part, Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf issued a statement following Davis’s press conference: “If Oakland is going to be successful in offering the Raiders and the NFL a viable alternative to moving to Las Vegas, I have to stay clearheaded. I cannot afford for us to be thrown off our game because Nevada lawmakers have deemed it appropriate to put $750M in public money towards a private sports facility. While I’m committed to keeping the Raiders, I will not enter into a bidding war with Nevada using public funds.”)
Anyhoo, no NFL owners tipped their hand following the meeting on how they plan to vote — Houston Texans owner Robert McNair said, “These things are still so fluid until they nail everything down we don’t know what we’re looking at. We’ll wait until we have a full package,” which is a really long way of saying “Reply cloudy, ask again later” — so we may well be waiting a few months while everyone hashes out their positions here. (Plus what everyone can agree on as a relocation fee.) Davis has said he plans to have the Raiders play in Oakland the next two seasons anyway, which is going to go oh so well after he just announced he’s moving the team and gave the middle finger to his old city. How is Sports Twitter responding to this?
@ESPNNFL Why would Oakland fans support Davis and Raiders after being dumped twice ? #jilted at altar
— Mr Excitement (@FumbleOffense4U) October 20, 2016
https://twitter.com/shanecowan63/status/789127189153193984
#DenverBroncos #Broncos #GoBroncos Oakland Raiders owner Mark Davis makes presentation to NFL owners https://t.co/ROt8NIDlim
— Denver Broncos Fans (@BroncosViews) October 19, 2016
Wait, what? Mark Davis made his presentation to his fellow owners in a long-sleeved white t-shirt? Maybe how he’s perceived by Oakland fans isn’t this guy’s biggest worry.
Davis’ quotes are the height of arrogance, coming out of the mouth of a guy born with the silver spoon in his mouth. “Oakland was in the driver’s seat…they came up with nothing.” “Las Vegas has already done what it is SUPPOSED TO DO…”. The legislators and governor of Nevada have embarrassed themselves and the state they claim to represent. It’s going to take years (Nevada’s legislature meets every two years), but every clown who rammed this through can kiss his or her political career goodbye when the full ramifications of this fiasco manifest themselves.
Yep. This state is an utter joke and a laughingstock throughout the country. That’s why I loved what Mayor Schaaf said in slamming Nevada’s inept and feckless “leadership”. She even said the dollar amount, which I don’t believe a sitting politician has ever done to a fellow contemporary. A state who is broke, uneducated, and service-oriented can now afford a NFL franchise?
You are right when you said heads are going to roll. The 16 Senators, 26 Assembly members, and 6 County Commissioners who voted for this are finished.
I feel for the people of Oakland. If I were them, I would not show up for any home games henceforth. Let him not earn a single dime. And what kind of owner shows up to a meeting in a long-sleeve shirt? I guess Davis is really Tommy Boy.
So if the city tells them to go pound sand, can they prevent the Raiders from playing in the Coliseum immediately? And has that ever been done by a city or private stadium owner in the modern era kick out one of their tenant.
Davis has options on the Coliseum for 2017 and 2018.
The plot thickens: If Raiders approved to Vegas, Oakland may terminate the lease, with the Raiders contracting to use Sam Boyd as emergency backup temporary stadium.
http://lastwordonprofootball.com/2016/10/21/could-this-season-be-the-last-in-oakland-for-the-raiders/
There’s really no incentive to do that.
Oakland has paid for the stadium or more to the point is still paying it. You can lease it or leave it vacant. It’s better to take the revenue as long as it covers any additional operating expenses (it does).
Now why anyone would pay for a ticket except fans of the away team, that I don’t know.
The city only gets $3.5 mil I’m rent a year from the Raiders, and considering the baseball/football conversion costs roughly $250k each time basically eating the entire cost of rent. From a pure business, economics stand point telling them to go away makes the most financial sense.
I like how Neil managed to find Shane Cowan, Canadian online activist/outdoorsman, to rip Mark Davis. Maybe next time find a Tibetan monk, sit him down for a 20 minute lecture on what football is, and have him cook up a real zinger!
Yes, Ben, Twitter is made up of non-credentialed sports fans. Sort of like blog comment boards.
At least find some Raiders fans!
Are there any?
Good luck finding the $ for the location fee, Davis.
For the 2 lame duck years, I’d advise Oakland to leave the baseball dirt on for the entire football season.
Relocation fees can be paid over 10 or more years with favorable-to-teams interest rates … and Sheldon Adelson has pledged to assist with any reloc fees.
My understanding, CCCTL, is that only the Raider organization is allowed to pay any relocation fee. To my knowledge, Sheldon Adelson is not a member of the Oakland Raider organization.
Where did you hear that, Dean? And how would the NFL stop Adelson from just giving Davis a pile of money (or a revenue stream from the stadium) and Davis using it to pay back any fee?
(Not saying Adelson would do it, but I’m not understanding the alleged mechanism here by which the NFL could stop it.)
Well, I suppose that’s possible, Neil, but the relocation articles published by the NFL state the following:
E. Payments Associated with an Approved Transfer
“If a club’s proposal to relocate to a new home territory is approved, the relocating club
will ordinarily be expected to pay a transfer fee to the League. The transfer fee will
compensate other member clubs of the League for the loss of the opportunity
appropriated by the relocating club and/or the enhancement (if any) in the value of the
franchise resulting from the move.”
So, the rule is the NFL team pays the relocation, not a 3rd party, and certainly not a 3rd party that has not been “vetted” so to speak since the NFL seems to have a very strict litmus test for prospective ownership not to mention debt ratio adherence.
Fine, so Mark Davis gets a nine-figure check from a mystery donor, then turns around and writes a check in the same sum to the NFL.
If the other NFL owners want to block this, they can do so by just voting against it. If they don’t want to block it, nobody’s going to waste too much time looking at Davis’s back bank statements.
Nevada falls to last on education ranking – http://www.rgj.com/story/news/education/2016/01/07/nevada-falls-last-education-ranking-despite-improvement/78397820/
What a shock (not)! Surprised it took this long. But here is the twisted logic of most Nevadans: “you see the stadium is going to stimulate growth, which means more people will move here, which means more tax money can go to education, which means people will become smarter, which means our economy will diversify, which means more jobs…” Not realising the stadium will only produce menial service jobs that are temporary, construction jobs that are finite, and marginal induced spending. And that taxed revenue near the stadium goes to the developer not the public.
Reno Gazette-Journal is first in left wing activism.
Now that is very true yet their statement about education in this state is also true. There is one common theme I notice regarding welfare to corporations: conservative politicians have no problem backing up the Brinks for multi-billionaires for the sake of the “public good”, but will not hesitate in denigrating someone who needs a bit of assistance in trying to make it through. Heck, they’re willing to cut public services to the bone in order to deliver the welfare their wealthy overlords demand from them (see Ohio, Cincinnati; Wisconsin, Milwaukee; the entire state of Texas; etc).
I’ve always said that the Raiders are one of the few teams in sports where the brand value outweighs the value to the franchise that the region provides. Fans in Oakland flocked to LA to watch the team and vice versa when they moved back to Oakland. Fans in both LA and Oakland will most likely flock to Vegas as well.
That being said, playing 2 years in a lame duck city while a new stadium gets built in Vegas is still unprecedented and over the top. I’ve heard that renovations to Sam Boyd could get capacity in the 40 to 50,000 range. Given that Raider games get roughly that amount in Oakland even with capacity being above 60,000, I don’t see what the big deal is about playing their for 3 seasons. Playing in a lame duck city for 2 years is almost as big a middle finger as relocating to Vegas in and of itself.
I thought the plan was for UNLV to leave Sam Boyd for the dome too. So any upgrades would be wasted money. (Which I’m sure the current Nevada legislator would cut a check for.)
They’re not renovating Sam Boyd, especially since it would be torn down if the stadium is built. If they decide to do that, someone should be drawn and quartered for a complete waste of funds. Then again, these are the same politicians who spent hundreds of millions of dollars repairing the major freeway interchange in town less than 15 years ago only to tear the whole thing down and spend $2.4 billion to do the exact same thing.
Oh yes they’re so valuable that they are a nomadic franchise that consistently don’t sell out home games. Granted, their brand is extremely strong and fan support is incredibly. How well does that translate into cold hard cash?
The juicy irony is that Dr. Dre, who was part of the group instrumental in forming the Raiders’ pop culture image, is actually worth more than the Davis family.
I believe an earlier post, “Nevada assembly loses mind, okays $750m to move Raiders to Vegas, bring imaginary tourists,” addressed this in the final paragraph. Sam Boyd Stadium will not be renovated if the Raiders move to Las Vegas and the new stadium gets built. If, however, the move does not take place, the State authorized $380m for a Sam Boyd replacement.
That is correct.
If this was true the Raiders wouldn’t be near the bottom of the NFL in attendance.
Can you find a guy who drives from LA to attend games? Sure. I know a guy who lives near DC and is a Steelers season ticket holder. Is it common? No.
They should play in St. Louis for two seasons, I hear there is a dome available.
You might be onto something. They could limit their remaining Oakland dates by taking a couple London dates. Maybe a couple games in San Antonio, or Mexico City. Make their home schedule a simple five or six game package.
Raiders will have no trouble drawing fans, even in so-called “lame duck” years. Plus, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the Raiders stay and an expansion team placed in LV.
Not going to happen. The owners are already griping about 32 teams (most wanted 30). The product is already diluted, injuries are up significantly, and quality of play is considerably down. The human body isn’t designed to undergo massive collisions within a 96-hour time frame. That’s why the Thursday night games have been a disaster. Most guys are just starting the recovering phase on Tuesday and now they have to get ready for a game 2 days later? This league is so smart and powerful they can’t figure out how to institute a bye week for the participants prior to the Thursday night game.
The greed of the NFL is going to lead to its downfall.
If the Chargers lose the vote in SD for a new stadium, could they be a candidate for Las Vegas instead of the Raiders?
No. If the San Diego stadium vote fails, which it will, the Chargers are going to LA to live in Stan Kroenke’s basement.
I am in Vegas right now as I type this reply. I was in an Uber yesterday and everyone is pumped up about the raiders coming here. I mentioned the uber because the driver said
That Sheldon Adeleson stroked a check and he’s paying for it because they were going to bid the concessions out and he didn’t want that so he’s paying for the stadium and not the public but remember this came from a uber driver so that’s the rumor I have no way to confirm.
Yeah, and an uber driver once told me Mark Davis was an alien and that he was build a stadium on Mars.
Sheldon Adelson is a weird guy, but not only is that unsubstantiated it doesn’t make any sense. Stadium concessions for 8 games aren’t worth anywhere near $750M.
I agree but only time will tell!!! Casino worker’s are very excited as well guess they never have been on this website!!!
I should be collecting names of Uber drivers and casino workers now, so I know who to interview in five years about whether they’re disappointed in the Raiders’ impact or lack thereof.
Only the lemmings like said Uber driver is pumped up about this albatross. No one with half a brain is remotely supportive of this. If these corrupt and feckless politicians and their overlords were so confident it would have went to a public vote like in San Diego.
Nevada’s will forever hold onto that coveted last place ranking for education. You just got a taste of it firsthand.