The Oakland Raiders need to be in Oakland and owner Mark Davis should’ve done all he could to make sure that they stay there for life.
Now the Raiders are headed for Sin City in 2020 after a 31-1 vote by NFL owners approved the Raiders move to Las Vegas. The only owner Raiders fans like anymore is Stephen Ross of the Miami Dolphins who was the only one to vote against it.
Ross felt that the Raiders had not done all that they could to try and stay in Oakland. He felt they needed to do all they could to stay in Oakland because that is the community that has supported them for countless years.
The Raiders will spend the next two seasons in Oakland but the fans will certainly be content about it. It’s like getting a divorce but still living in the same home for the next few years.
Despite the negative feelings towards this move, from a business perspective, this is a very smart move for the organization. The Raiders will finally have its first brand new stadium after sharing a field with a baseball team for countless years.
It will cost close to two billion dollars and seat 65,000 people. The state of Nevada also does not have an income tax, so more high profile NFL players will likely sign with the Raiders because they will not take a pay cut like they would playing in California.
People also travel all over the world to spend weekends in Vegas so the Raiders would have a great chance of selling out every home game. The new stadium will be close to the Las Vegas strip and people will look for something to do on Sundays after a long night of gambling on Saturday.
However, the loyal Oakland fans are still not taking the news very well. They are the best fans in football and have cheered the Raiders on through a number of losing seasons. As one of the loyal and diehard Raider fans myself, I still don’t know how to react to this.
The Raiders are not meant to play in any other city besides Oakland. The only other logical relocation would be Los Angeles but two NFL teams moved there in the past few years.
The Raiders played in Los Angeles from 1982-1994.
Star Raiders quarterback Derek Carr gave a heartfelt farewell on Twitter to the fans who watched him put together one of the most successful seasons as a Raider quarterback in 2016. He talked about wanting to spend his entire career in the city of Oakland and his teammates responded the exact same way.
Sadly, they will only have two years to bring a Super Bowl back to Oakland before packing their bags and moving to Vegas and leaving Oakland without a team.
The city of Oakland did offer the team $1.3 billion to stay just days before they voted on the Vegas relocation, but NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell was just not impressed by it.
Goodell said that this offer wasn’t “actionable in a reasonable timeframe.” But if the Raiders are playing two more years in Oakland, they and the city could have come to a reasonable deal on a new stadium that would have left the fans very pleased.
Goodell probably just wanted them to move to Vegas so he can find more ways to fine the players like he often does. Many Raider fans will look to boycott the move to Vegas. Numerous posters filled the Oakland Coliseum last football season saying “Don’t leave” or “If you go we won’t follow.”
Nobody thought this move would even be close to happening. The Raiders needed 24 approval votes from NFL owners to move and ended up with 31.
This will either end up as a really solid move or a move that will haunt the Raiders for years to come. The Las Vegas Raiders could be very successful and win multiple championships or players could end up gambling all of its contracts and showing up to games hungover from a long Saturday night on the Las Vegas strip.
But hey, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.