The NFL is finally set to cast its vote on allowing Mark Davis to move the Oakland Raiders to Las Vegas, and at least one prominent observer is predicting it will pass:
On the eve of the NFL’s annual spring meeting in Phoenix, commissioner Roger Goodell told ESPN’s Sal Paolantonio that the voting outcome on the Oakland Raiders‘ proposed move to Las Vegas will be “positive.”
“I think we will have a vote, and I think we will have a positive vote. I think we are in pretty good shape,” Goodell said.
Goodell’s job is to do the bidding of the 32 NFL owners, so unless he’s reading the room very poorly, he probably knows of what he speaks. Which means the NFL will soon see its third franchise relocation in the two years since St. Louis Rams owner Stan Kroenke first laid plans to move to Los Angeles and jump-started the whole relocation merry-go-round. And also that the NFL is more excited about a public body writing Davis a $750 million check than worried about how Davis will repay the $650 million he’ll have to borrow, which it probably should be, given that there’s no way anyone else was going to offer the Raiders that much stadium cash, and playing in a relatively small Las Vegas market doesn’t matter too much so long as those national TV checks keep rolling in.
There is still every sign that the Las Vegas Raiders could be a disaster, given not just that $650 million debt load but the, shall we say, uncertainty around whether a team will be able to sell season tickets when its main customer base is expected to be fans of visiting teams who’d like to combine a trip to a road game with some gambling and hearing old guys play music. But they’ve pretty much been a disaster in Oakland, too, so I can certainly see 24 NFL owners saying, “Fine, Mark stumbled into a $750 million check, let him go ahead and try to make it work.”
As for what this means for the league as a whole: L.A. is now full up as a market, and Oakland and San Diego are both close enough to existing NFL cities — Santa Clara and Los Angeles, respectively — and disinterested enough in throwing money at new stadiums that’s it’s unlikely anyone will use them as a move threat anytime soon. Which means the next time an NFL team owner wants to saber-rattle in order to shake loose public funds, he’s going to need to resort to … St. Louis? San Antonio? London? I guess if Las Vegas is an acceptable target, there’s no reason Austin or Birmingham or Portland (either one) isn’t, so this doesn’t really hurt team owners’ leverage much. And it adds to the viability of the threat that teams could move anywhere, anytime, so don’t push us, or we’ll go ahead and do it, believe you me!
Pro football really is the worst of all sports for many, many reasons, and needs to meet a quick and unceremonious demise. Youth football participation seems to have reversed its precipitous decline, but where there’s the fear of death, there’s hope.
“The NFL proved my central thesis wrong, again.” -Neil
My “central thesis,” such that I have one, is that modern-day sports team owners and leagues are as much in the business of extracting public subsidies as in the business of selling tickets to sporting events. This meshes pretty handily with that, actually.
I mean the thesis that local governments just need to stay strong and not give stadium subsidies when team owners make empty threats to leave.
I’ve said for many, many years that that doesn’t apply to the NFL, because of its singular TV revenue model.
What exactly do you think happened here to disprove any sort of thesis? If I say high interest loans are a bad idea your taking out a high interest loan doesn’t disprove anything.
They do. And who cares whether the threats are empty or not? You don’t think the NFL: will be back with a second team in the Bay Area eventually?
And in the mean time if fans loved the Raiders so much they can support it with their patronage and maybe they wouldn’t have left.
I think the Mayor of Oakland is probably happy–this wasn’t going to get solved in a manner favorable to Oakland, and now problem solved (outside the sunk cost).
Maybe she can move on without seeing the need to break the bank on the As.
Politically, she can say “Ronnie Lott did his best.”
Just shows the absolute desperation of the NFL.
I could see Levi stadium as the next threat target for an NFL team to pursue. The Bay Area could host 2 teams with its wealth. Yet, other than the jaguars nobody is looking to move, doubt the bills move given thier owner is a local. Thus, it’s California jaguars or bust
The 49ers have no incentive (nor requirement as the Rams did) to allow another team into their market. As the Raiders were already established, it would have made sense to have them share the stadium in Santa Clara.
It’s possible. However, I would expect that other owners will wait to see how the enforced partnership (more or less) between Kroenke and Spanos works out before leaping into bed with another owner (especially the Yorks).
I don’t think the Jaguars are currently looking to move.
I don’t know if you read this analysis. Pretty interesting.
http://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/If-Raiders-go-to-Vegas-Oakland-could-win-11029278.php
Yeah, the unique part of this story is while most teams moving yield stories of sobbing fans this one has largely been one of a shrug or even a “well, that’s a financial win.”
There goes any chance of the NHL team being successful in the long run. They already convert those season ticket deposits ?
A similar situation happened in Nashville. The Titans were instantly pretty successful, it took until about 4 years ago for the Predators to really establish themselves, I except a similar case to occur in Vegas.
I believe the city of Nashville provides yearly operating subsidies to keep that failed business afloat.
The Titans most definitely were not instantly successful. They had two terrible years in Tennessee before the new stadium was built. In 1997, they were drawing 20,000 people, and in 1998, they were at Vanderbilt’s 41,000 seat stadium and still couldn’t sell it out. The Titans didn’t become successful until the new stadium opened.
Also, the Vegas NHL franchise has three years until the Raiders arrive.
You imply the Titans are successful today. I guess in an absolute sense the whole NFL is wildly profitable, but in a relative sense both by revenue and valuation the Titans are a whole lot less successful than the Texans. Moving from Houston was ultimately a money-loser.
By giving this to Davis now, the owners are setting him up for failure that will eventually require him to sell a controlling interest in the franchise.
When was the last time the NFL approved a move (or expansion for that matter) when a stadium site still wasn’t selected?
Exactly. The NFL can “unmove” in future if they wish, subject to contractual requirements, should the LV experiment not work. This seems like a pretty good way to usher Davis out the door to me… without looking like they leaned on him.
Just let him take on debt he can’t manage and pretty soon he’ll be calling the league office to see if there might be someone else who would like to own his ‘family heirloom’. He will end up a richer man, in all likelihood, through moving the team to LV whether he retains ownership or not… but my guess would be he will not manage to hold on to the franchise.
Never met him so I can’t speak to his intellectual abilities, but he doesn’t seem to sense the monster in the dark here.
Nevada had better be damn sure it gets an ironclad 30-year commitment in its lease, that’s all I can say.
I keep telling you, there are no iron-clad leases. The smartest guy in the room never works for the City.
The Pacers didn’t convince you?
*cough St. Petersburg cough*
Au contraire. The San Diego Padres only exist today because of an ironclad lease on Jack Murphy Stadium. The Padres were set to move to Washington in 1974, and the move was so certain that Topps even printed up cards of Padres players as “Washington National League”.
However, the city of San Diego had an ace up its sleeve: the lease to Jack Murphy Stadium explicitly stated that the team had to continue to pay its lease for the life of the lease’s length, even if the team moved, and the lease was in place through 1989. As soon as that came out, the banks financing the Washington group pulled out because the franchise would not be viable if it had to pay for two stadiums.
I have one of those cards! Johnny Grubb, if I remember right.
Well, yes and no. As the Raiders failure kind of showed if you burn your fan base they don’t always come back. Will be interesting to see what happens in LA with the Rams.
“He will end up a richer man, in all likelihood,…”
Maybe, maybe not. That $650M in debt could put a pretty big dent in what the team was worth yesterday.
The value of the Raiders in an old stadium in Oakland is not likely to be the same as the value of the Raiders in Nevada in a shiny new palace (whenever that actually happens).
It could be that if he has to sell out early, he won’t end up significantly better off… but I don’t see how he ends up selling the LV Raiders for less than the Oakland Raiders, even accounting for the unpaid balance.
Given who we are talking about, I guess it’s possible he loses control of the franchise before it even gets to LV, but… still unlikely in my view.
You feel it’s unlikely they will move or he loses control? The NFL already approved the move. All owners except Stephen Ross Miami Dolphins owner.
The value of the Titans is less than the Texans. The value of the Colts is less than the Ravens. OK, I guess the Ravens are more valuable than the Browns. However, in general moving from a larger market to a smaller one rarely works out in the long run from a valuation perspective. Just asks the Rams or….you know…the Raiders.
NJ: I think that was pretty clear… unlikely he loses control before they move. The move is already “underway” (sort of).
Scola:
You’re mixing analogies a bit there… the Titans did not “become” the Texans, nor did the Colts become the Ravens.
Compare the value of the Colts in Memorial stadium in Baltimore to the value of the Colts in (either stadium) Indy.
Or compare the value of the Oilers in the Astrodome to the Titans at LP field.
Both of these are true analogies, just like the Ravens in Baltimore vs Browns at old Municipal stadium.
Vegas is (if you count CMA) significantly smaller than the Raiders “total” market size. However, that doesn’t matter if they can’t fill their 50k stadium – which they can’t.
It is certainly possible that they won’t be able to fill the new one either, but clearly Davis thinks he will be better off with the revenue streams a new facility in a smaller market generates.
I guess we’ll find out in a few years whether he is right or not.
This sucks but then again this state truly earns its educational ranking of dead last. People are so stupid they don’t realize how much this is going to cost them in the long run. These will be the same people who will be complaining when their taxes goes up, public schools get closed, pensions get wrecked (which is already starting), and crime continues its escalation (it’s going to get worse).
Unlike in some other markets, the LV/Nevada taxpayers will get stuck with huge costs while – for the most part – not being able to afford tickets. The whole business plan here is for visitors to support the team, not locals. That isn’t an accident… Davis and the NFL (and NHL, for that matter) know that Las Vegas is pretty much a low income town, unlike many other host cities.
Sure, a few casino moguls and celebrity poker luminaries might hang around for a while, but the rank and file taxpayers are even less likely to be able to attend with any regularity here than in most other NFL home cities.
I can say with pretty strong confidence Austin isn’t giving any public money to an NFL team. They turned an about face to MLS overtures a couple years ago. That said, it could make sense for politicians from a neighboring county like Hays or Williamson to try and drum up support.
It’s official.
http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000000795413/article/nfl-team-owners-approve-raiders-move-to-las-vegas
Well, so why can’t they share the Sam Boyd Silver Bowl with UNLV? If they let the Chargers play in a tiny soccer stadium for a few, why not?
Because they would have to pay rent and not control all revenue streams on non game days. At the end of the day they pay nothing in Oakland. However thanks to baseball the name of the game is a billion plus in city extortion in order to inflate revenue and team valuation.
I believe the Raiders have to pay the city of oakland/county of alameda something in rent to play in the coliseum.The other thing is aren’t the Raiders still in ownership of Carol Davis,Marks mother?And when the good lord takes her to the football field yonder won’t Mark Davis have to pay a boatload in estate taxes? It’s a Fail on all counts.Fail to the Raiders to move,Fail to Nevada to fall for the ruse,and Fail to the NFL who have a serious problem here.Re-location happening too often.
I believe the Raiders pay $3.5M a year in rent on the Coliseum.
I actually can’t imagine why they are staying for the lame-duck seasons. They have a year-to-year rent and I can’t imagine they’ll be a terribly popular team given they are leaving. Unless they are counting on the large number of fans of away teams showing up (half of the Bay Area is folks who moved here from “back east”, myself included) which I suppose is their Vegas business model anyways.
I predict this will go over as well as the 1996 Houston Oilers did.
Eventually the league will step in and tell them to take their show to Sam Boyd (or any other place that offers to fill a stadium to at least 3/4 capacity) rather than have to televise games at the Coliseum with 15,000-20,000 in the stands.
Most likely. The scheduling issues listed below can be accommodated with a couple of seasons of Mon/Thurs night home games in Sept and a “home” game in London or two.
It wouldn’t work at Sam Boyd forever, but they can make do for a couple of seasons… which is much better for business than playing in Oakland in front of fans who have only turned up to display uncomplimentary banners about their owner, team and the league in which they play.
But hey, based on last season, maybe they will host a conference final in the old barn before alighting for Nevada…. where, being the Raiders, we have to assume they will suck for two decades before having another winning season…
Unlike UNLV, the Raiders can’t play all their home games in September and early October at night. It’s fairly common for daytime temperatures in the early part of the season to be close to 110 in LV. (Worse than when Cardinals played outdoors at Sun Devil).
There’s no easy solution, as bottom loading (giving Raiders most home games in Nov/Dec) would create an unfair advantage.
True, but as noted above there are ways they could be accommodated for a couple of seasons. It wouldn’t work longer than that, but then, the league doesn’t need it to.
So they’re on the move to Vegas!!! What is the over and under on how many years they will stay?
I’m not a Raider fan in fact I call myself a “Raider Hater” (I’m a live long Dolphin fan born and raised in North New Jersey) but for the second time for the Raider fans and the third time in the past 6 months (St. Louis & San Diego) I feel for the loyal football fan in general.
You can’t blame the city because they need to worry about the tax payers first and they can’t give into the NFL like every other city is doing. With the way the economy has been they need to worey about the city first and not a sports team that plays 8 games a year there (maybe more if you’re lucky to get into the playoffs).
As we all know how this country operates it money HUNGRY. I could see if Oakland DIDN’T have a strong fan base and they make a move but they have a very loyal fan base one of the best in the NFL. The NFL did this just for money. Every time there is a new stadium being built with tax payers money it’s going to be a World Class stadium. How many are there going to be in this world?
Vegas doesn’t even have enough citizens to fill a stadium and what tax paying citizens they have usually work at the casinos working weekends and late evenings so the fan base will not be anything like it is in Oakland. And when they do play there the visiting team will have the larger fan base because their fans are traveling to vegas to make a long weekend out of it.
They NFL should have paid for the stadium like they did in New Jersey (Meadowlands) or have the owner pay for it like Stephen Ross did in Miami. The way the NFL holds the city ransom is bull crap. The NFL is making money hand over fist tahtbita tkme they pay and help yeh cities out.
If I were a Raider fan whether season ticket holder or someone who buys one or two games a season I would BOYCOTT every game this year.
This has me agrovated and I’m not even a Raider fan.
BTW can anyone’s tell me why the NFL doesn’t pay taxes? THEY NEED TO because it’s the tax payers money they are making the BILLIONS from.
Signed a pissed off fan…
So the plan in Vegas deals with a home base of fans that probably isn’t large enough to support the team in the long fun, coupled with the expectation that visiting fans will flock to support their team as a cool Vegas getaway….forgetting for the fact that half of those visiting fans will probably be too hungover from Saturday night partying to make it to the stadium on Sunday.
This outcome was a given, but I must admit that 31-1 surprises me.
Me too. Go figure.
As an Oakland resident, I’m happy to see them go. Al Davis forced them to ruin their baseball stadium when he moved back by building a giant seating expansion nicknamed Mount Davis.
So what did the Raiders do? Tarp over those seats, refusing to sell them so that they could have “sellout” crowds. Even with increased demand for the improving team, they still refused to sell those seats.
Don’t let the front door hit you on the back side, Mark Davis.
Amen. I’m available to help them pack up their stuff if they want. In my book, the sooner they leave, the better.
31 owners say “what gambling problem?”.
I’d like to congratulate the City of Oakland on not giving in to a partner who was willing to put pretty much nothing in to a prospective stadium deal (what’s the trade in value on a 97 Voyager anyway?).
They can now take the money they didn’t spend on the Raiders and use it for schools, hospitals, police & fire services, and maybe even a little something for the poor folks.
Simultaneously, of course, they can go to work with the other tenant who is willing to put money in (ok, admit it, watch this space to see if that changes now the Raiders are out of the picture…) to their own stadium… what a novel concept.
I feel bad for Raider fans in Oakland, but this is the best financial decision the city could have made in regard to the two teams/one stadium debacle. Congrats, Mayor Schaff & co. Now make sure you don’t get hosed on the A’s deal on the rebound…
Don’t feel sorry for raider fans at all. They got what they deserved. Its not like this is the first time the raiders cheated. They welcomed them back after getting screwed. How many of those fools will continue to be NFL fans and continue to buy merchandize. Live by the sword die by the sword.
Considering their attendance numbers I’m not sure they really “welcomed them back after getting screwed.” Moving out of the Bay Area during and era when the 49ers won 4 Super Bowls (and another soon after the Raiders returned) was probably not wise. The generation that is now in their prime earning years grew up when the Raiders were in LA and the 49ers were dominating the sport. That didn’t help them sell high-priced tickets.
Always thought the raiders & 49ers were the NFL equivalent of baseball cubs & Sox. White collar being cub fans and blue collar being Sox fans.
As a native of Chicago and long-time resident of the Bay Area, ehh….sort of but not really.
In Chicago it’s a North Side – South Side thing. There are plenty of blue collar Polish guys from Jefferson Park who are Cubs fans. The only thing is the South Side has few white collar guys to be potential Sox fans (the Obamas notwithstanding).
In the Bay Area, there is less of a clear geographic line. I know Raiders fans from SF and 49ers fans from the East Bay. Of course the Cubs didn’t move to Schaumburg nor the Sox to Tampa (though the latter was a threat back in the day).
I didn’t know you hated football so much, Mr. deMaus!
Well I’m deep into the 100 year old cognac tonight and my feelings are mixed. Is there anything finer than 750 mil in public stadium cash? I can think of few things that bring a tear to my eye like that does.
But giving it to old Bowl Cut… sheesh, I can’t imagine him succeeding at much of anything other than inheriting his dad’s team. I guess time will tell.
All these moves are making my head spin… someone’s got to figure out how to sell London as the next destination for a team in need of some tender lovin’ PSC.
Meantime, I guess it’s Vegas Baby, us NFL owners are so money!
Congrats Piggy. The 32 of you have earned it (well, I mean, as much as you ever do).
But what’s up with that Ross fella? He spends his own money on upgrades and now votes against this??? Somebody go talk to that guy…
Like they used to say in the good old days in Vegas, “it’s a big desert”.
What’s up with Ross? Possibly Alzheimer’s. Or else he’s pals with Adelson. You never can tell in these situations because billionaires are a bunch of snakes. I oughtta know!
Miami Dade will kick up to 5 million in hotel tax money for every major event he can lure to his stadium. Per year. For instance 750k for an international soccer match and it goes up from there. The definition of a major event is pretty broad. He should recoup at least half the money he put in.
Slate has weighed in. Pretty great article.
http://slate.me/2o3JzqW
Hey , rumor is the Nevada jerks that gave the raiders 750mil have a gentlemen agreement for the Raiders to give the NHL a headstart until stadium ready. Don’t they need a gentlemen for that to work ?