Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)
If Jones has way, Raiders coming
Cowboys boss drew blueprint with stadium
So, is the Raiders’ NFL caravan inexorably rolling toward our dazzling jewel in the desert?
In the unforgettable phraseology of that football mercenary, Jerry McGuire, follow (duh) money.
Or maybe Jerry Jones said it first.
If the Oakland Raiders do move to Las Vegas, and no sane sports book would post contrarian long odds, that will mean nearly 10 percent of the league’s 32 cities will have shifted in about a year. Los Angeles started that seismic movement and, after decades with zero NFL franchises, the city suddenly has two mediocre teams in the Rams and Chargers.
For Los Angeles and Las Vegas, that whiplash-inducing development is not about football, tongue-wagging politicians or scorned fans. It is about cranes, dump trucks and hard hats. In Nevada’s instance, it is about moving mountains of earth and digging a gigantic hole in the ground off the Strip. This is about sponsorships, signage and naming rights.
This is about what a new stadium can do for NFL owners and their already-fat portfolios.
For more than three
decades, the most-lucrative of wealth-creation concepts for the league’s 32 filthy-rich owners has been this: Build us a stadium and not only will we come, we’ll scarf up the last penny or, in the case of Las Vegas, every last casino chip.
So, yes, Las Vegas, start preparing yourselves for pro football’s bacchanal in the desert. Sure, the owners must vote on the Raiders’ proposed relocation, likely at their next mega-meeting in March in Phoenix. At this point, it appears to be nothing but mere formality. Why?
There will be no new NFL stadium in Oakland. Owners have no desire to smear lipstick on an old porker. End of discussion.
The Raiders are not moving to San Diego, San Antonio or San Tropez.
Moving to Las Vegas is in the best financial interests of the league and, of course, Raiders owner and managing partner Mark Davis. Like most everyone else in their cozy fraternity, Davis has learned what Jones — owner, president and general manager of the Dallas Cowboys — ascertained after he bought the team in 1989. The old Oklahoma wildcatter quickly maximized profits when he stopped being a renter at Texas Stadium and became a landlord.
Jones created sponsorships and partnerships with corporations to increase stadium revenue streams that soon turned into rivers of money. NFL owners are greedy; they are not foolish. Deploying Jones’ blueprint in an effort to print more Benjamins, owners constructed new stadiums that started popping up like springtime lilies.
When the Chargers exercised their option last week to move to L.A., it removed any suspense regarding the Raiders and Las Vegas. For all intents and purposes, the Raiders, and the league, are out of viable financial options. Davis has no desire to keep signing one-year lease agreements because that is not where the money is buried.
It is deep in the desert. But it does not take much effort to unearth it.
While it is premature to officially roll out the welcome mat — yes, 75 percent of the NFL’s 32 owners must still approve the move — Las Vegans can start shopping for black-and-silver apparel.
When Jones purchased the Cowboys in 1989, he quickly demonstrated to his wealthy counterparts that the way to truly capitalize in an otherwise socialist endeavor was to maximize stadium-related income, which became more like rivers of revenue. Jones spent a then-unheard of $70 million on the Texas Stadium lease and took control of the lucrative rivers of revenue.
As Rick Gosselin, who has covered pro football for more than 40 years, wrote in the Dallas Morning News last year, Jones “single-handedly altered the NFL’s financial dynamic and changed the way the league does business.’’ When the billion-dollar ball yard in Las Vegas is constructed — and it will be for the Raiders — it will be the league’s 24th new stadium (including Los Angeles’ yet-tobe-constructed stadium) since Jones bought the Dallas franchise. Reread that last sentence. Jones, of course, is the NFL’s lead dog on most matters financial, including serving on the executive committee of the league’s management council. Last year, he was responsible for leading the charge in ownership’s decision to reverse course and move the Rams from St. Louis to Los Angeles. He is practiced in the art of persuasion. He already has gone on record as saying he looks favorably on Las Vegas as a suitable NFL destination.
The Las Vegas Raiders. Get used to hearing it this year. Sort of rolls off the tongue, doesn’t it?