Mark Davis Dismissive of Raiders Moving to San Diego
After Super Bowl 51 ended on Sunday night and the NFL's version of Emperor Palpatine and Darth Vader in Bill Belicheck and Tom Brady had won their 5th championship together, the book was officially closed on the San Diego Chargers. The 2016-2017 NFL season will now go down as the last season to have a San Diego NFL team in its record books, at least for the foreseeable future.
Marty Caswell of The Darren Smith Show managed to track down Raiders' owner Mark Davis during the Super Bowl festivities this week in Houston. Davis was dismissive of the idea of moving the Raiders to San Diego, stating "we're not doing any other things right now ... ", going on to say that he was fully committed to the Las Vegas deal in place.
Mark Davis wasn't interested in talking about San Diego Raiders pic.twitter.com/YOduR2cySn
— Marty Caswell (@MartyCaswell) February 4, 2017
The Las Vegas relocation plan saw both casino mogul Sheldon Adelson and finance giant Goldman Sachs pull $650 million from the Raiders' proposed Las Vegas stadium project. The Nevada legislature has already approved $750 million in funding, which the NFL would be insane to pass up, given the reluctance of Oakland and San Diego to pony up any public money for stadiums.
However, Davis would be wise to at least look into San Diego as a potential landing spot for the Raiders. The city is close enough to capture the massive fan base in Los Angeles, and expand on the growing popularity of the NFL and the Raiders brand in Mexico. The Super Bowl Champion New England Patriots will face the Raiders in Mexico City in 2017. San Diego also has an established fan base for the Raiders, given that at least 90% of the 60,000 that attended the Chargers-Raiders game in Week 16 game in San Diego were wearing silver and black.
San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer has indicated that he has been in contact with the NFL and the Raiders to try and lure a team back to San Diego. However, the issue still remains in finding an ideal stadium solution where the city and its residents aren't forced to finance a stadium for league that brings in an estimated $12 Billion per year. But hey, at least there's a chance.
