Timing Is Everything: Day After Oakland Sues Raiders, NFL Says Draft Will Be In Las Vegas In 2020
By ALAN SNEL
LVSportsBiz.com
The NFL showed the city of Oakland.
A mere day after the city alleged in a lawsuit filed in federal court that the Raiders are illegally moving to Las Vegas and that the NFL team owes damages to Oakland, the National Football League said it’s holding the 2020 Draft event in Las Vegas.
The city of Oakland’s lawsuit news came Tuesday. The NFL picked Wednesday to inform the public that the league is staging its Draft show/event/TV content in Las Vegas just a couple of months before the Raiders stadium opens on the west side of Interstate 15 across the highway from Mandalay Bay in mid-summer 2020.
Talk about timing.
The 2020 NFL Draft announcement, as released by the Las Vegas ad firm of R & R Partners (the ad agency for the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority), ties the draft event to the Raiders’ relocation: “The destination will showcase the newest NFL players just months ahead of joining the league as its newest hometown with the relocation of the Raiders for the 2020.”
When you have a league generating $14 billion a year in revenue and a public agency like the LVCVA that is very calculating with its announcements, you know the timing of the draft announcement just a day after the lawsuit news was not coincidental.
The Raiders are searching for a home field for 2019 after the team pulled its $7.5 million offer to rent the Coliseum in Oakland for 2019 off the table in light of the lawsuit. They are looking at the San Diego Chargers old stadium in San Diego County and Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, Calif. among a half-dozen possibilities. The Las Vegas stadium is scheduled to be ready in July 2020.
The fact that the NFL is holding the Draft in Las Vegas is not a big surprise because Raiders President Marc Badain has mentioned that the draft is among several events that Las Vegas and the Raiders would be vying for such as major college football games and international soccer matches.
Break-ups can be messy but after the hurt feelings subside, it’s also feasible that the Raiders and Oakland could return to the negotiating table to finalize a lease deal to play one last NFL season in Oakland in 2019. But right now, the emotions are raw. Consider Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf’s tweet:
Good Morning America even did a segment on the city of Oakland/Raiders legal tussle.
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Speaking of annual revenues, the Vegas Golden Knights did quite nicely in the revenue department during their inaugural 2017-18 season. LVSportsBiz.com has reported during the past year about the Golden Knights’ strong ticket sales, corporate sponsorships and merchandise sales. And Forbes confirmed the excellent revenues and operating income in a recent story: “The Knights took in $180 million in revenue in the past year—the tenth highest in hockey—and $53 million in operating income, the fifth highest among the league’s 31 teams. The Knights are now worth $575 million, 15% more than their expansion fee.”
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