(01-15-2017 12:05 PM)MplsBison Wrote:  

(01-14-2017 12:02 PM)Tom in Lazybrook Wrote:  Ugh...How much do the taxpayers pay Sheldon for the stadium?

My understanding is that the Vegas stadium tax-funded portion will be paid by a tax on hotel rooms. So essentially, it's all the travelers to Vegas paying for the stadium, and nothing from the residences.

Doesn't get more perfect than that.

Yep, only the irrational would be up in arms about that. Don't like it? You shouldn't be going to gamble hundreds of dollars away anyways in Vegas if you can't pay a little more on your hotel bill. Nobody loses except the greedy and the cheap.

(01-15-2017 03:22 PM)Love and Honor Wrote:  The NFL, compared to all the other major sports leagues, is the least dependent on individual markets by far. While there's a big difference in financial clout between the Cowboys and Bengals, the league shares money in such a fashion that it makes teams in markets like Green Bay possible when they could barely support AAA baseball. The business model would work and everyone would make money even if the best teams were in Buffalo, Jacksonville, or Oakland.

However, that model relies on a broad base of support across the country in non-NFL cities from Boise to Birmingham. When you start alienating large markets like St. Louis, San Diego, and Oakland, you undercut your support in order to make a couple teams more valuable on paper. That's all well and good for now, but in the long term those kinds of actions pose a threat to the league's well being. That, in addition to overseeing a less entertaining product (from all the rule changes), a less entertaining in-game experience (frequent play stoppages, high ticket prices creating a corporatized atmosphere), and bad press (the concussion issue, debatably the national anthem thing) can't help.

Honestly, I think the NFL has really screwed up the relocation process the last year or so. I know I'm salty because I was a Rams fan, but look at how NFL ratings have dropped in St. Louis and LA to see how well moving a bad team under an awful owner to a fickle sports town works.

True and false.

While you make some good points, I don't think it's all that pronounced. The Chargers are just moving a couple hours away, granted to a place many San Diegans bat their eyes at. The NFL will take a hit in San Diego but won't lose it and who cares if they lose San Diego to a redundant LA market? San Diego has only a small hinterland (i.e. other areas that add support to their season ticket base and TV market) and as a matter of fact it's exactly the same for the Chargers now, just flip flop LA and San Diego. Ditto for the Raiders, they actually move back closer to the market they're most popular in, are still relatively close to Oakland and there is a team that fills their void, a more popular team, the 49ers. Besides, what else could be done for either? Their stadiums are only a few steps away from being condemned.

Losing St. Louis sucks but no franchise had much tradition in St. Louis and though the Rams had some glory days, those had faded by the time they moved. The NFL is still doing fine in most of Illinois thanks to the Bears and Colts and in Missouri thanks to the Chiefs. If the NFL had their way, the Jaguars would have moved to LA and the Rams would have at least finished their lease in St. Louis.