So it’s 2023, and you and your friends want to go to Las Vegas for a sports-and-gambling Vegas Trip. But what event? The NCAA tournament is always so packed, and NBA Summer League would be fun except that your Hornets play in Orlando.
“Oh, hey, guys, if we wait one year, the Panthers are playing at the Raiders! Let’s just book this for next fall instead.”
Repeat, eight times a year, every year.
It’s real now: The Raiders will be in Las Vegas starting 2020. The NFL’s owners approved the move nearly unanimously (31 of 32 votes), in keeping with recent tradition of treating California like an entrance/exit mat.
Yes, it’s easy to see why Las Vegas wants the Raiders: It’s a new reason to bring people into town for a weekend and secure that coveted NFL fan audience that undoubtedly will blow stacks at the roulette wheel. It’s easy to see why the 31 other owners want the Raiders in Las Vegas: Their own fans will be thrilled, and the league will gain even more revenue (including relocation fees) that will then be shared. It’s even easy to see why the Raiders would want to be in Las Vegas: They’re sick of sharing a market with the more locally popular 49ers, and they have all sorts of new revenue coming.
But it’s also easy to see who wouldn’t want the Raiders in Las Vegas: fans. Not just the Oakland faithful. The Raiders have never defined themselves by their city; the 13 years in Los Angeles are every bit as much a part of Raiders lore as the 45 in Oakland. They became a national brand in the 1960s and ’70s, sort of the anti-Cowboys, and they have a national fan base that may not care much about where they happen to play.
And what a fan base.
Kirby Lee, USA TODAY Sports
They’ll build a local core all over again, to some degree. Las Vegas has been starved for pro sports for years, and though the Vegas Golden Knights will open shop at the start of next NHL season, an NFL team simply is a whole ‘nother beast. Nevada will adapt the Raiders, if not immediately, then over time.
There’s no doubt that the city of Oakland has a reason to be mad. The Davis family crushed them once by moving the team to Los Angeles at the peak of the franchise’s history. Now they’re expected to show up for three more seasons of Oakland Raiders football with the bags all-but-packed for Las Vegas in 2020.
Then the move happens. The new, uncertain local fan base gets priced out by visiting fans. The team’s jerseys become a favorite piece of Vegas Trip SWAG. The casinos rake in even more live NFL betting than normal, and the buffets don’t quite know what hit them. The KISS-style makeup fades. Everyone talks about how much they love that Las Vegas has a team.
The silver and black fades to green.
