Raiders on the move

http://m.bbc.co.uk/sport/american-football/38684738

I know we have some NFL fans on here, it's another sad day for the sport when a team is uprooted and moved but this has to be one of the worst yet.

A real community club has been uprooted and dropped into the soulless sesspit that is Las Vegas just to sell 'NFL experience' to tourists, sad times indeed.

 

I lost interest in the NFL some years ago.

When I first started watching The Rams and Raiders were both based in LA. Then moved respectively to St Louis and Oakland.

I remember the owner of the Browns moving the franchise away from Cleveland because he didn;t get on with the fans...

 

I think that single word says a lot about NFL. It's a business first, a club/team somewhere bringing up the rear.

 

I mentioned the San Diego Chargers move here recently, but there didn't seem much interest. It's an example of an owner's blackmailing their support.

http://www.not606.com/threads/afc-wimbledon-v-mk-dons.345010/page-4#post-10349938

Some who support the NFL on here willfully ignore this kind of thing I feel. I have followed it since the mid 80s but there is such an arrogance behind them in thinking that it's so secure that they can move teams who have been in areas for generations and blackout games in local areas.

They make a ton of money as it is (mainly TV like the top tier football here), enough to show respect for the support of the game. But treating it like it's just another business is dangerous for any team sport's credibility. In fallow periods owners will want to depend on their local support. Bad owners will undermine that support. And for all the idea that people support a 'franchise' and support isn't meant to be just local, I actually think that most national support will just bandwagon teams who keep being successful, and forget about others. To just depend on the fact that you can never be relegated and can count on the huge pooled TV revenue undermines the sport.

Any team that moves tends to be because of bad ownership not making it work where they are. Their decisions are the reasons for their team's failure, because with salary cap and high draft picks you can improve in the NFL with decent decision making from the top.

The Miami Dolphins is a better example, an owner who invested his money into improving their stadium rather than moving. But bad owners are tolerated in the NFL.

There's probably some parallels with the Allams wanting to own the Kcom stadium, and their milking the TV money. The joker in the pack though is relegation, something they don't have in the NFL. As a result owners aren't like a dynasty in the US where it's hard to get rid of them for generations. The Spanos family have been in charge of the San Diego Chargers since 1984, the team itself had been in San Diego from the early 60s, well before them. Their level of success in San Diego, one Superbowl appearance in all that time and really only two contending periods in the mid 90s and later 2000s, was hardly impressive.

 

Any sport where the club is a franchise is a joke. Of course we have a franchise in Hull.

 

I thought the same about the Gateshead Thunder fans when their franchise was moved to Hull.

 

The Raiders were originally in Oakland, they moved to LA not too long after their formation, then back to Oakland in the early/mid 90's - one of the joys of supporting a franchise based team. Melton Tigers anyone?

 

will the team be renamed?

Las Vegas Gamblers?
Las Vegas Mafiosa?
Las Vegas ****hole in the middle of the desert?

Las Vegas is just about the most depressing place I have had the misfortune to visit. I presented a paper at a conference there. I wasn't fast enough finding an excuse when they were looking for a sacrificial victim to represent the company.

Still, I made a profit on the Blackjack.

 

The Rams started life in Cleveland, moved to LA then to St Louis and finally back to Cleveland.
The Raiders as has been pointed out elsewhere went from Oakland to LA and back and are now upping stick to Nevada.
The Browns franchise was moved to Baltimore and renamed The Ravens. A new Cleveland Browns came into the NFL 3 or 4 years later.

 

I love Vegas. Take it at face value and its a great place.

 

Had a couple of nights/days in Las Vegas last year. Won't go back but it does need to be seen, one of the wonders of the world.

 

as in "I wonder why anyone would want to go there".

 

It could have been us.

Raiders of the lost fer ark.

 

just a joke of a sport really

 

Apparently each 'franchise' gets about 50 million dollars for voting yes to the latest relocations, so most obviously will approve these things. They have no long term understanding of team sport's need for a strong local base, and look at it as just another mercenary business.

Also the Raiders may still play the next 2 seasons in Oakland while Las Vegas gets sorted. The San Diego Chargers owner was more machiavellian, he strung people along that he might stay in San Diego for the last two seasons while negotiating a move to LA. That way he may have been able to get a few more to shell out for season tickets in San Diego before he got the move done at the start of this year.

 

I lost interest in the NFL about a month ago.

Definitely had nothing to do with the team I follow ****ing up a 25 point lead in the third quarter of the Super Bowl, not at all. Not at all.

 

International break
Football talk dwindles
Utter boredom
American football threads
Cyanide capsule.....

 

I agree, I'd rather Hull were liquidated and formed a new club like Bradford recently have. Unfortunately fans have absolutely no say in these matters.

 

There are no franchises in Hull anymore, there were two a few years ago but rugby league moved away from franchising when they realised it didn't work. Hull FC are the product of a merger just like plenty of Premier League and EFL clubs are but they are no longer a franchise.

 

Who are the Premier League and EFL clubs who have merged ?