The Raiders Moving To Vegas Is Great Content

Brett In Chicago9 years ago

On Monday, the NFL owners voted by a 31-1 count to approve the Raiders’ move from Oakland to Las Vegas.

The NFL has been wanting to get a footprint in Vegas for some time now, and I’m not sure I could’ve picked a more perfect franchise than the Raiders. The Raiders are home to the most dysfunctional ownership in professional sports, with Mark Davis taking the torch from his father Al — bad hair and all. It’s also home to the nastiest group of fans in professional sports. There’s always a non-zero chance that you will be attacked and/or murdered while attending a Raiders game in Oakland.

Vegas is Sin City and the Raiders are the football version of sin. It’s a perfect fit. As a Chiefs fan, I hate the Raiders and their fans. They are the worst. And if you have the balls to show up to the Oakland Coliseum in Chiefs gear, you’re more of a man than I. I love the Chiefs, but I’m not risking a beer bottle to the head or a knife to the throat in a city as shitty as Oakland just to root them on. I’ll watch the Chiefs make fools of the Raiders from the comfort of my couch or at a bar.

Now, though? A road game against the Raiders just became far more appealing. There’s a weekend trip to Vegas in the mix, after all, and rather than spending that Sunday regretting every decision you made at the blackjack table and the club the previous two nights, you can work in a nice day drinking buzz while watching your team annihilate the L.V. Raiders to ease the hangover.

While I openly despise the Raiders and their fan base, I do have some empathy for them losing their team. I’ve never had to experience that as a fan, and I imagine it would suck. Especially considering the Raiders were mostly terrible for the past 10 years or so and now finally have a franchise quarterback in Derek Carr and a young team that should be really good for awhile. Tough times in The Town.

Will fans still embrace the Raiders as their team? Or will they go the way of Rams fans and disown them and root for their continued failure? I have no idea what I would do if the Chiefs or Royals left Kansas City. I think I’m too invested in both teams to stop caring about them just because they’re in a different city. To me, not rooting for a team and hating them for leaving your city is a little like harboring resentment for an ex who, due to the whole leaving you for someone else thing, obviously does not care what you feel — so you should probably just let it go. Just a thought, STL.

If Raiders fans decide to stick it out with the Raiders, that likely means droves of these monsters will descend upon Vegas eight weekends in the fall, which has the potential to be an epic disaster. These people are their own special breed of degenerate while in Oakland; getting them all together in the degenerate capital is like handing a stick of dynamite to a pyromaniac. Shit is going to get out of hand.

If there isn’t an executive at HBO right now pitching the idea of a reality show centered around Raiders fans in Vegas then they should lose their job (The Raiders on Hard Knocks is a veritable lock, right?). Shit, even MTV should be scheming right now with finding a group of the most dubious Raiders fans to live in a house together in Vegas during football season. Who wouldn’t watch that?

The entertainment possibilities with the Raiders in Vegas, both on the field and off it, are endless. I for one, can’t wait to see how it all unfolds..

Image via YouTube/James Garcia