This just in: Oakland Raiders owner Mark Davis is in talks to play next season’s home games at Tottenham Hotspur‘s new stadium, according to multiple news stories all citing … aw man, the Daily Mail? Repeating claims from a single unsourced story is never good journalism, but doing so when the original story is in a paper actually banned by Wikipedia as unreliable is even worse.
And even worse than that, the original Daily Mail story actually does provide a source, but it’s an extremely problematic one:
NFL commentator and writer Ray Glazer revealed: ‘London is now an option for the Raiders. It is being discussed for them to play there next year. They are still trying to figure it out. The Raiders are discussing it. Do they play four home games, four away games, and back and forth again?
That’s actually Jay Glazer, who said that in on-air commentary on Fox Sports over a week ago, and provided no sources himself beyond just throwing London out as “a possibility as of now.” Then he signed off “Cheerio!” because that’s how you indicate to Americans that you are talking about England, or that you are Bertie Wooster.
This is a pretty alarming example of journalistic reification, wherein something gets reported once in the press (or in a British tabloid that is sort of shaped like the press) and then can freely be reported by headlines around the world because it was reported in the press, man. Not that the Raiders definitely won’t move to London — it’s a possibility, just like pretty much every other place on the planet — but it’s not a particularly new one or an exceptionally likely one. I mean, I could write that the Oakland Raiders could play next season at the Stade Olympique in Montreal, and it would be just as accurate and just as sourced. In fact, I just wrote it, and I’d put this site’s accuracy up against the Daily Mail’s any day. San Jose Mercury News, your task is clear.
UPDATE: OH GOD NOW IT’S BEEN UPGRADED TO A “REPORT”!
The story isn’t believable for the Raiders to play in Tottenham for the simple fact that Tottenham hasn’t even gotten to play int Tottenham yet and there is not really any end in sight for them to start playing there. At the current rate, the Hotspurs will be in Wembley for a while, probably until something like 2038.
Hasn’t London “always” been an option for the Raiders?
I mean, they have played there before. And saying it is “an option” doesn’t mean that more than 1 or 2 games will be played there, somehow some way.
If this were next, next year (IE: once Spurs have been in their new and heavily mortgaged digs for a full season), I might believe they will become landlord to an NFL team. Their construction cost has gone from $500m to $600m to $1bn, as these things are wont to do. So they’ll need some help paying down debt. But I don’t see them taking on an NFL tenant in their first season in the new stadium.
IF Glazer is even close to right on this (and I wouldn’t put a high percentage on that), they will play at Wembley and not Levy’s spaceship.
… just for clarification, I mean if Glazer has it right that they will play 7-8 notionally “home” dates in London… not that they will play their once or twice over the season…
When I grew up in the UK, the Daily Mail was one of several tabloid newspapers known euphemistically as “budgie cage liner”, due to the use in budgerigar cages being about the best possible use for the newspaper.
We wouldn’t even want to have fish and chips wrapped in the Daily Mail.
You should do your research. The Wikipedia ban of the Daily Mail was proposed and pushed through by a person who literally gloated that they had used “Daily Mail style tactics” to achieve their goal, and has since been banned by Wikipedia for flouting some of their most sacred rules. Claiming The Guardian had zero IPSO rulings against them, was one such example of these tactics (The Guardian of course not even being subject to IPSO). The Wikipedia debate to ban the Mail was thoroughly tainted by similar lies, misdirection and bias. They got away with it because they know people like you just assume that you can’t lie on Wikipedia and get away with it. You can, and they did. As for the story, I see no reason why the Raiders would not be considering a temporary season in London. The stadium will obviously be ready and is up to scratch for NFL, they have to leave Oakland, and the league is obviously desperate for a way to test out the theory of a London franchise, without having to commit. Not exactly a leap of imagination. If Glazer is lying about this being subject to actual talks, then your issue is obviously with the non-existent broadcasting standards in the US, not the Mail. You can’t tell a lie like that on British TV, just like the Mail can get sanctioned if they told it themselves. If you want to stop the press reporting what people say about newsworthy things just because you don’t like it, well, good luck with that. You may have more in common with the way Wikipedians think than you realise.
Wow, I had no idea there was an anti-Wikipedia faction out there! Thanks for enlightening me!
The Daily Mail, in any case, should not be taken seriously because it is a laughably terrible excuse for a newspaper. When it gets the name of its only source wrong, then doubly so.