Whether it be peanut butter and jelly or Han Solo and Chewbacca, the world has a way of bringing together entities that fit perfectly in unity, working together to create something truly extraordinary. One of those duos could be a league, if not a national institution of near-religious significance, built on gambling and fantasy sports and a city built upon the same activities. Las Vegas and the National Football League.
Vegas and the NFL are a Perfect Fit
Yesterday, it seemed like a pipe dream. Today, it seems a possibility. Tomorrow, if it becomes reality, it will become obvious to us. How could it take so long?
Las Vegas seems an obvious location for the NFL to place a franchise. The Las Vegas Valley has a population of over two million people in one of the fastest growing metropolitan areas in the United States. It has established a strong presence in international business, commerce, urban development, and entertainment and is one of the most iconic tourist destinations in the world.
There are plenty of clients in Vegas to sell premium seats to and a number of premier entertainment companies in town to patronize the suites a Las Vegas NFL stadium would have to offer. Combine this with the out-of-town companies who can use suites and seats for their clients and Las Vegas is the perfect nexus point for many of America’s most prominent corporations to pour money into an NFL franchise’s pocket books.
Despite the NFL’s long-standing staunch opposition to sports gambling, which resulted in a policy banning Las Vegas tourism advertisements during games and a publicized 2003 case of Las Vegas tourism advertisements which didn’t mention or portray images of gambling being banned from Super Bowl broadcasts, all signs point to the fact that this potential move to Las Vegas is not some kind of pipe dream for the league.
This over-the-top policy the NFL has implemented to combat sports gambling is crumbling just as the winds of American betting culture is changing. In an American Gaming Association report from last year, an estimated $2 billion would be bet on NFL and college football in U.S. sports books last season, while another $93 billion was gambled online or illegally on the sport. The NFL is warming up to the idea of sports betting, partly due to the stringent regulations of the Nevada sports gambling industry, one of the most tightly regulated industries. Additionally, the NFL’s push for more games in England, where wagers are legally placed on these games at London’s Wembley Stadium, is evidence that the NFL is slowly giving leeway in their “war” on sports betting.
And in a league that appears a perfect fit for Las Vegas, no team would be a better fit for the Sin City than the Raiders; football’s team of outlaws in the city of outlaws, an organization that in it’s 1970’s prime built it’s reputation on hard hitting football (often with the intent of injuring opponents), trash talking, and larger than life villains who partied and lived a life of vice, now moving to a city synonymous with debauchery.
The Raiders are also a franchise with a nationwide following. The silver and black transcends Oakland and Northern California. Imagine thousands of visitors to Las Vegas donning the classic Raider Nation outfit of a painted face and spiked shoulder pads, like a scene out of Mad Max, converging on America’s city of ill repute. It certainly is the perfect fit.
The weariness of putting an NFL franchise in Las Vegas is understandable. It would enter the league as the fifth-smallest media market (ahead of Green Bay, Buffalo, New Orleans and Jacksonville) and close to a fourth of its population is employed in the casino industry, which doesn’t keep the tidiest hours. This poses an issue for Sunday games when such a large chunk of the population will be unable to come out to games due to their Friday to Monday “work week”.
Mark Davis, the Oakland Raiders owner, has publicly stated that he is willing to pay $500 million, with $200 million coming from NFL loans, into funding a proposed $1.4 billion stadium to bring the Raiders to Las Vegas.
Imagine thousands of football fans travelling from across America to Las Vegas to watch their teams take on the Raiders, making a weekend out of it. The fit is perfect.
The Silver State could become the silver and black state.
Yesterday it was a pipe dream. Now it seems like a very real possibility.
This could get fun.
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