Raiders move Vegas yardsticks for NHL
The NFL shouldn’t be an excuse for the NHL not to make it in Las Vegas.
But it’s sure going to make it a great deal more challenging. Having the NFL in town with the NHL is like being little old Canada living next to the United States. When the elephant rolls over in bed, you will surely notice.
Still, by the time the Raiders actually get to Sin City to play a football game, the Golden Knights will have had at least two full seasons to win fans, plant lasting roots in the community and establish an identity.
They’re just going to have to be an excellent organization right away and be very persuasive in their attempts to convince another nontraditional hockey market that it needs to fall in love with the sport.
In that way, Monday’s announcement that NFL owners had voted 31-1 (only Miami against) to permit the Raiders to relocate to Nevada from Oakland could actually be the added motivation Bill Foley’s hockey organization needs to aggressively do what needs to be done to help the hockey team survive and thrive as the first pro sports team to play out of Vegas.
The Knights now know there’s no time to waste. There’s no honeymoon period. The team was announced nine months ago, thousands of season tickets have been sold, the name and logo were unveiled in November and general manager George McPhee is already negotiating deals with his 30 counterparts in preparation for the expansion draft. All those things, however, were done largely with the understanding, or hope, that the Knights would be the only game in town, just like the Nashville Predators dreamed of having Music City to themselves but then learned the Houston Oilers were moving to Tennessee as well.
The Preds have survived and estab- lished a strong foothold in the market, although it hasn’t always been easy even though they’ve been very competitive most of the time and established a strong identity in the market. So the Knights need to do all that before the Raiders arrive in two or three seasons. If the team struggles to fill its building, or is dull and uninteresting, or if the response of Vegas businesses is lukewarm and the Knights organization fails to get its players out to be involved in the community, then they’ll be extremely vulnerable to being crushed by the football team.
Even if the Knights do everything right, it will still be impossible for them to ever be anything other than the No. 2 team in town. The NFL is just that big, that overwhelming in its presence. Buffalo has an NFL and an NHL team and no matter how incompetent the Bills are, they’re still No. 1. Of course, the Sabres have been pretty incompetent in recent years, too.
The Raiders, once they arrive, will suck up the lion’s share of media attention and corporate sponsorship in Vegas. So the task for the Knights will be to grow deep enough roots over the next two years that they won’t just be swept away when the NFL tsunami hits.
“If I had complete control, I would have rather the Raiders would not have been here,” a combative Foley told SinBin.vegas, a new hockey website. “But I didn’t, so welcome. Bring ’em on.”
We know the Raiders will play in Oakland for the next two years, and won’t that be pleasant for them? Team owner Mark Davis said on Monday he hopes fans won’t take their anger and bitterness out on the players and coaches. That’s a nice thing to say, except who else can the fans vent their unhappiness on, unless Roger Goodell shows up and agrees to participate in a dunk tunk as the dunkee?
This is just the latest example of the mighty NFL valuing money and new stadiums ahead of fans and history, and until it comes back and bites the league in the butt it will keep happening.
The Golden Knights, meanwhile, have some advantages over the Raiders. If they draft well, they should have three highly-touted prospects to show off to their fans by the 2019-20 season. They can chase free agents, as well, and there will be some big names available before then. If John Tavares doesn’t re-sign with the Islanders, would he consider going to Vegas?
The Knights can also work to establish an image that they were born in Vegas, and weren’t stolen from some other city. They can promote the fact Foley pursued this team as a gift for his hometown, while everyone already knows the Raiders, the original NFL pirates under Al Davis, are only Nevada-bound because Oakland politicians wouldn’t cough up the money for a new stadium.
Foley’s team can also promote the fact the T-Mobile Arena was privately funded, while the Raiders new stadium sucked up a breathtaking $750 million in public monies.
“Thought we’d spend it on police and schools,” said Foley. “Instead, I guess we’re getting a football stadium.”
Beyond this competition for business between the Golden Knights and Raiders, it is rather humorous now to contemplate how Las Vegas was shunned for decades as a location for pro sports because of the gaming industry, casinos and legalized sports gambling. Too dangerous, too immoral. Suddenly, in 2017, all sins have been washed away and the NHL and NFL have decided all that was bad is all good.
Goodell is trying to sell the angle that the NFL hasn’t changed, but Vegas has, and is no longer quite so hooked on betting.
“It’s really an entertainment city now,” Goodell told The MMQB.com writer Peter King.
Like the orange man in the oval office, these guys will say anything. We already knew that. At least the NHL didn’t rape and pillage the city before putting a team there. The NFL, on the other hand, has found another city willing to spend incredible amounts of taxpayer dollars on playpens for pro sports under the misguided belief this will somehow make their city better.
Or stronger. Or more noticed. Or something. Damien Cox is the co-host of Prime Time Sports on Sportsnet 590 The FAN. He spent nearly 30 years covering sports for The Star. Follow him @DamoSpin. His column appears Tuesday and Saturday.