Today’s Las Vegas is far more than dirty casinos and adult night clubs. There’s high end restaurants, Broadway shows, five star hotels, and even a monorail that makes Sin City look more like Disney than Sodom and Gomorrah. For those seeking good clean fun, few towns offer more than Las Vegas.
That menu might just expand in the upcoming years, as increasingly the NFL, and in particular the Oakland Raiders, might gamble on relocating to the desert. It would be Nevada’s first major professional sports team, giving residents something more than college sports and the occasional big-time prize fight that comes through town. It would require the construction of a new domed stadium, something the Raiders seem unlikely to get in their current hometown. This would come from a mix of private and public funding, about half – or $750 million – from state tourism taxes. It’s a common formula for building high tech sports facilities that either attract a team or keep one from leaving. And it seems this diversion of state funds can come without a vote of the general public, a reminder of your government at work.
Beyond the fiscal realities of stadium construction, a move would require the approval of NFL team owners, something that may or may not happen. Owners can be unpredictable around team relocation, especially if the move hurts any other franchises or the league in general. San Francisco has long owned the California Bay Area, so the Raiders’ departure won’t leave the cupboards bare. And putting a team in Las Vegas wouldn’t infringe on anyone else, especially since the closest team – the Los Angeles Rams – haven’t even arrived yet.
Still, Las Vegas presents a unique, shall we say opportunity for the league. For starters, it’s more of a giant rest stop than a residential city. It’s a stop-over, not a long term destination. It’s like putting a team in Yellowstone National Park, only with more neon. Even considering permanent residents, Las Vegas would be one of the smallest markets in the NFL. And many, if not most of its residents work in the middle-class tourism industry, lacking the requisite income to buy NFL season tickets.
Then there’s also the obvious question of gambling, which I’ve heard is fairly prevalent out there. If the league were to create the Las Vegas Raiders, which actually has a nice ring to it, they’d have to decide whether to push for a ban on gambling on the team. This was the restriction on UNLV and University of Nevada-Reno for decades, for fear of point shaving or other nefarious issues. While the league is officially against organized gambling on football, it’s also a-OK with daily fantasy sports, which is like being a vegetarian for moral reasons but wearing leather pants – and apologies to any I’ve offended. And certainly, the NFL has benefited greatly from organized and, shall we say more illicit gambling on the game. Staying out of Vegas has been one way to avoid truly addressing this hypocrisy. This new Raiders team will press a more consistent stance on the issue.
But perhaps most obvious here, and I’m assuming the Raiders are going to go, if for no other reason than the fact that they plays in a stadium that feels right out of 1960 on a field that plays like a city sand lot, is that the NFL may truly acknowledge it’s place not simply as an American sport, but rather an American entertainment enterprise. I’m not sure exactly how the Raiders might sell to local fans, but I have to imagine they’ll be marketed not unlike Celine Deon or Siegfried and Roy – Vegas icons you come to town to see. The NFL has long delocalized itself, insuring you can enjoy whatever entertainment product you like the most, regardless of where they happen to locate their games. And now, you can make it part of your Vegas vacation. Catch a show, play the slots, eat at Top of the World, and watch the Raiders. The line between sport and spectacle has always been a blurry one at best. Where better to cross the line than Vegas.
For football purists who still think the game is best played on frozen tundra in Wisconsin, well, you can still have that. Just don’t expect to catch a magic show at halftime, which I’m sure is coming.
If this works, who knows what’s next. Maybe a team that plays at Disney, where ESPN already co-brands a theme park. Like Vegas, they already have a monorail.
Keith Strudler is the director of the Marist College Center for Sports Communication and an associate professor of communication. You can follow him on twitter at @KeithStrudler
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