Quote:
Originally Posted by Senator Clay Davis
More likely Miami thinks Vegas kicks them out of the Super Bowl rotation, which is looking like LA, Vegas, Arizona, New Orleans and various. Miami not happy to become "various", especially after they just upgraded their stadium.
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Ross voted "no" because he felt the Raiders didn't try hard enough to stay;
http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com...-raiders-move/
As a Raiders fan I feel he's off base as when Al Davis moved back to Oakland he was promised that the city would work with him to eventually build a new facility and none of that ever transpired while Al was alive. When Mark took over he accessed the situation and realized that not only the team needed to be overhauled but the organization and the facilities as well and had worked with the city of Oakland for years and the city just stalled and stalled. Oakland is in danger of losing all their professional franchises so it's not like this was a Raiders thing. The city never really got serious about negotiating with its franchises and Davis finally realized that it was time to move forward.
I don't want to get into the politics of using public money to build stadiums but Mark Davis is unlike other NFL owners. He wasn't a billionaire that bought a football team. He's the son of an original AFL/NFL owner and their money revolved solely around the team. The Raiders have always been cash poor compared to the rest of the NFL and Al actually sold shares of the team to raise money to overspend in free agency on all his busts leaving Mark a huge mess of a terrible roster, facilities that were falling apart, and the bare minimum shares to still have a majority. He badly needed a new facility but unlike other owners he doesn't have the additional incomes from other businesses to cover the costs so there was no way he was ever going to get a new facility without outside assistance.
As a Raiders fan I'm happy that things are finally getting resolved. It would have been nice to see them stay in Oakland but selfishly Las Vegas is better for fans like me as I'm going to be able to see them live more and I'm looking forward to weekend trips where I can hit a hockey game on Saturday and football game Sunday.