NFL in Los Angeles: Why the Raiders Are the Best Team to Move

The Vikings are staying where they belong: in Minnesota.

The Twin Cities will not have to lose another team to Los Angeles, but most importantly, the NFL does not have to give up on the very large and wonderful corporate town. That also means that another team should be targeted for moving.

The potential organization for L.A. should fit at least these two minimum requirements, the first being that the team will be in the same division and not have to travel cross country for intra-divisional games. Second, the NFL should try to avoid moving a team out of a city with a great market and lots of corporate dollars, which would have happened if the NFL left Minnesota.

The team most ideal team to move would be, in my opinion, the Oakland Raiders. 

Why the Raiders?

The Bay Area is a major market and the Raiders also have a lot of history in Oakland. True, except that the Raiders also have a history in Los Angeles, and the franchise is failing to get lucrative sponsorships in Oakland.

Also, their stadium is one of the most outdated venues in professional football. I mean, does anybody know what the Coliseum is being called anymore?

The Raiders are the last remaining organization that shares its stadium with a baseball team. In addition, the Bay Area is being served by the 49ers, and the NFL did survive with only one team in the region before the Raiders moved in. That would logically mean that simply moving the Raiders south to L.A. would make financial sense.

Though L.A. is a huge market, it does have a questionable football appetite according to many critics.

The best way to test the L.A. market is to have a team looking to move there—let’s just say the Raiders—and have them play games in L.A., like the Bills do in Toronto. Playing games in Southern California will help build a fanbase in Los Angeles.

One such game could be a regular-season tilt between the Raiders and Chargers in Los Angeles, with the Raiders acting as the home team. If the games draw a large enough TV audience and fill up the L.A. Coliseum or the Rose Bowl, then the NFL and the team would be more willing to move and sacrifice their old market.

The added advantage towards the Raiders moving, as opposed to the only team still in Southern California, the Chargers, is that it would help create an even more intense divisional rivalry between the two teams in SoCal. It would also be a television bonanza. That rivalry could be one of the highest-rated games on national TV.

It would not end up being as non-existent as the Clippers vs. Lakers rivalry, simply because both teams have a history of success. 

I understand that there are still many people longing for the Rams to return, but think about it, the Raiders are the only L.A. team to ever win a Super Bowl, and the Rams have a championship in St. Louis, which came only a few years after leaving L.A.

The main problem that is related to staying in Oakland, assuming that there are no stadium projects underway currently, is that in addition to the Raiders sharing the Oakland Coliseum with the Oakland Athletics. That on the surface is not an inherent negative, but as of the latest Forbes report of the most valued teams in the NFL, the Raiders are 31.  That ranking will only go down because the Vikings have a new stadium deal. The reason why this team valuation is more evidence of a deteriorating state of the Oakland Coliseum's ability to generate revenue. In addition, because of the less capital the Raiders have compared to say the Cowboys, is that the Raiders have to dedicate more of their budget to players and coaches salaries.

A similar situation has played out before. The team in question, the Cleveland Browns in the 1990's. Just like the Raiders is that both teams had terrible stadiums. Art Modell and the Browns organization had to dedicate more money to player salaries and were unable to generate enough revenue through their stadium. Art Modell was about to go bankrupt, unless of course he relocated to Baltimore. In addition the same incident played out when Al Davis moved the team to Los Angeles initially, Al Davis can be a direct cause to the team relocations happening after moving to Los Angeles.  Baltimore lost their Colts, St. Louis lost the Cardinals, Cleveland lost their Browns, and Houston lost their Oilers. Al Davis changed the entire NFL geographic landscape, literally.