Perhaps one of the more captivating tales about the NFL over the past year – and one the league detested for its scrupulous detail – came from ESPN The Magazine entitled “The Wow Factor: The real story behind NFL owners’ battle to bring football back to Los Angeles.” It explained a forceful power struggle between 32 owners, many divided between an old system of doing business and a present group demarcated by vast levels of capital and impact. So you can’t blame us here at 702 ENT, for wanting to know the latest scoop on the Raiders’ relocation…
Eventually, when relocation votes were cast, new money won out, and a stadium project to house the Rams (and now the Chargers) in Inglewood was preferred over an option for San Diego and the Raiders in Carson. Things shouldn’t prove so muddled when proprietors soon decide on Oakland’s wish to make Las Vegas home – this time it’s about one team and not three. Yet if the L.A. chronicle demonstrated anything, it’s that there are insufficient, if any lateral deals some owners won’t budge to, to get their way.
“I think this is already done and the Raiders are moving,” expressed Ray Ratto, columnist for CSN Bay Area, who has featured the team’s relocation hopes for ages. “It has reached the point where (Raiders owner Mark Davis) has acceded to all of their demands, and I believe there is some weariness among owners that they don’t want this to be a problem in perpetuity. Most have to be saying, ‘How many times are we going to have (the Raiders and relocation) on the agenda?’ ”
Several are certain that such news could come when owners meet in Arizona March 26-29. Given the fact that Raiders now have safeguarded funding through Bank of America for the $1.9 billion project and a tenancy agreement has advanced to attorneys for the team and Las Vegas Stadium Authority Board to negotiate and settle, the next obvious question would be: What would convince an owner to be against the move? Which ones of the 32 could be, at this stage, hard no votes?
The Raiders require 24 in favor to be accepted for relocation, and one thing in Davis’ favour, is that the NFL no longer is run by its old guard. The most influential owners love, more than anything else, live money – something that Las Vegas has. They also love contact to foreign money, defined by those high-rollers paying large chunks of it up and down the Strip.
Dominant owners acknowledge that when market size is mentioned as a possible impairment to the deal, TV sets no longer are as great a mainspring in a time when things are shifting into all matters internet. They recognize that by moving the Raiders to Las Vegas, the NFL isn’t forsaking the nation’s sixth-largest market that is the Bay Area but only the eastern part of it.
Some trust the Steelers might be a no vote, given the Rooney family’s enduring resentment about having to deprive gambling interests years back, but would those thoughts still hold now that Las Vegas Sands Corp? Sheldon Adelson, who’s the Chairman and CEO is not part of the Las Vegas deal. Would an owner such as Bill Bidwill in Arizona vote against the Raiders purely for geographical reasons? Would an ultratraditional such as Mike Brown in Cincinnati disapprove of a Las Vegas team?
Would an owner like Clark Hunt in Kansas City think twice about voting in favor if he thinks the financial power within the AFC West would swing from his franchise to one in Southern Nevada, even if Davis would be paying off debt for the foreseeable future? Would someone such as Jerry Richardson in Carolina, repelled with how things played out in Los Angeles, vote no, grounded firmly on principle?
Where would John Mara and Martha Ford and Virginia Halas McCaskey of the old-guard Giants and Lions and Bears stand? It all makes for some definite uncertainties at the moment, probable barricades to those such as Jerry Jones in Dallas and Robert Kraft in New England and Stan Kroenke in Los Angeles, influential voices in the pro-Vegas camp.
Yet, when probing hard at all 32 potential arguments, in terms of relocation, discovering nine who could vote against the Las Vegas deal is more challenging than not.
“They can’t use the gambling excuse, because this league already embraced those evils with daily fantasy,” Ratto stated. “If the largest gambling center in the world was in Uzbekistan, we’d have the Uzbeky Raiders.
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