Oakland Raiders relocation: 5 reasons it is wrong
By John Buhler
1. A major loss in available media market revenue
This is the reason that moving the Raiders from Oakland to Las Vegas is the most puzzling. While the NFL did relocate teams from St. Louis and San Diego to Los Angeles, that had more to do with an expanding media market than stadium issues if we’re being totally honest.
Los Angeles is the second-biggest media market in the United States outside of New York. St. Louis and San Diego’s are sizable, but not top-10 markets. Should the Raiders end up in Las Vegas, they will leave the sixth-biggest media market in the United States for one in the upper 40s.
The Bay Area has sustained two NFL, two MLB, one NBA, one NHL, one MLS, and two Pac-12 teams for decades. It’s one of the few areas in the country that can conceivably sustain two professional franchises in the same sport. The Bay Area is vast and diverse, big enough to attract and maintain two totally different fanbases.
Next: Top 30 NFL Games Of All Time
When the NFL relocated the Rams and the Chargers, television money had a lot to do with that. Television revenue is where the bulk of the NFL’s annual income comes from. The NFL is the No. 1 show on five networks. Why would they want to take a team in a top-10 market and put it in one that isn’t even top-32?