Viva Las Vegas: The Raiders

The price point has been set for the Raiders’ possible relocation to the Silver City of Las Vegas at roughly $350 million. This does not include the $1 billion stadium cost, but luckily for Mark Davis, it seems like various investors in the Vegas area are willing to help with a majority of the build. Anyway, $350 million might seem like a lot of money, right? Well, as it turns out, both the Rams and the Chargers paid nearly twice as much as this to move their franchises to Los Angeles, with each team forking over roughly $650 million each. With this price point officially set by the NFL, there doesn’t seem like there are a whole lot of positives to staying in Oakland compared to Las Vegas.

First of all, everyone loves Oakland as a football town. However, their various stadiums and arenas from the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum to the Oracle aren’t in the best of conditions. The city can no longer fund such a project, and one thing that can be blamed for it was the Raiders’ return from LA. When the Silver and Black came back up north after spending a few years in southern California, the Oakland taxpayer and the Oakland governmental body was forced to pay for nearly the entirety of the relocation. Now, almost 25 years later, the government’s debt is just about paid off. While the city itself loves its Raiders, they also need their money. The Raiders don’t exactly share their profits with the city and its government, so there isn’t too much in it for Oakland financially. Now if there were a few private business owners that wanted to help the team make renovations to the stadium, it would be completely the opposite situation. These business moguls could practically bail out the team and help them build a new stadium in Oakland. Unfortunately, there aren’t a whole lot of large businesses in Oakland that would be willing to help out; it just so happens that all of those businesses in the bay area are in the larger and more thriving city of San Francisco.

With this financial reality taken into account, it only seems like a matter of time until the Raiders officially announce their move to Las Vegas. While it isn’t proven that Vegas will be a good sports market yet, the Raiders surely can’t do any harm. With how successful their team was last season and how well they’re set up for next season, the team should be able to build a pretty good fan base in the desert. Combine that with the fact that Vegas will also have a hockey team next season, and you have what could possibly be America’s next big sports town. Vegas is filled with private organizations willing to help fund these teams and their stadiums, building up a new city ready for the experimentation of a professional, major league sports market. If the Raiders are successful, along with a possible success of the NHL’s Golden Knights, it might attract more teams in the future, and put Vegas on the map in the sports world (outside of just the gambling). If the Raiders want to move to Nevada, the stars seem to be aligned pretty well right now.

Written by Rick Wronski