NFL franchise launches raid into Las Vegas
The Oakland Raiders are Vegasbound.
Owners of the NFL’s teams, meeting yesterday at a Phoenix resort for the annual league meeting, voted to ratify the Raiders’ proposed move from Oakland, California, to Las Vegas.
The owners reportedly voted 31-1 in favour of the move, with only Miami Dolphins owner Stephen Ross voting against it.
The franchise is to remain in Oakland while a US$1.9 billion (NZ$2.7 billion) stadium for the Raiders and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas’ football team is under construction.
But then the Raiders are headed to Vegas in a move that once would have been unthinkable to the NFL, given the league’s longstanding public opposition to sports gambling.
It is the third franchise relocation approved by NFL owners in a little more than a year. They voted in January 2016 to ratify the Rams’ move from St Louis to Los Angeles.
The Rams played this past season in LA and they are to be joined there in the 2017 season by the Chargers, who announced earlier this year they would exercise their option to move from San Diego to LA.
It is the second time the Raiders will leave Oakland. The franchise departed following the 1981 season and played in Los Angeles from ‘82 through ‘94 before returning to Oakland.
Raiders owner Mark Davis set his sights on Las Vegas after the owners last year chose the Inglewood, California, stadium proposal of Rams owner Stan Kroenke over the Carson project proposed by Davis and the Chargers’ Dean Spanos.
The LA option granted then to the Chargers would have passed to the Raiders if Spanos had kept his team in San Diego. But Davis didn’t wait for that possibility, pledging he was committed to taking his franchise to Las Vegas.
Owners initially seemed wary about the size of the Las Vegas market. But those concerns melted away as the league contended there was no viable new-stadium alternative in Oakland to keep the franchise there.
Any reluctance by the league and the owners to place a franchise in the country’s gambling capital never seemed to become a significant obstacle to the move proposed by Davis. By the time Tuesday’s vote was taken, it had become clear that no meaningful opposition to the relocation had formed among the owners.
Under a year ago, Las Vegas didn’t have a professional sports team. Now, they were getting two, with an NHL franchise announced for the city making their debut at the end of this year.