Next week in Arizona, the NFL’s owners may vote on whether the Raiders can move from a state to the west to a state to the north. West.
Via Mark Maske of the Washington Post, an unnamed official with one team expressed an equivocal belief that the relocation petition from California to Nevada will succeed.
“I think it will be approved,” the unnamed source told Maske. “But I’m not certain yet.”
A total of 24 votes will be needed to approve the move. While no owners have spoken out against the proposal, the question becomes whether owners believe that the stadium in project in Las Vegas will be not just viable but successful. (Having a site selected and a stadium lease in place would help, too.)
Gambling hasn’t become a potential impediment, with the league apparently glossing over the challenges presented by having a group of young men living in and among an extensive network of professional gambling establishments and professional gamblers who will be tempted to try to secure inside information from players who may develop a gambling habit -- and the inevitable debts that go along with it.
Still, a deal won’t be done until it’s done, and concerns arising from the prevalence of gambling could take on a life of their own once the owners are hashing out the issues in a meeting room. Hovering over the process is the possibility that Raiders owner Mark Davis will move the team with or without approval of his partners, daring the league into a repeat of the antitrust litigation arising from the relocation of the team from Oakland to Los Angeles more than three decades ago.