It was announced today that the 2020 NFL draft will be held in Las Vegas. However, it could be like a ship stranded in a sand dune. The City of Oakland is suing the league and the Oakland Raiders for 
alleged collusion in engineering the move of the silver and black to Sin City. The team could find itself homeless for the 2019 season, banished from Oakland and with no ready stadium in Las Vegas. According to Sports Illustrated, Oakland “argues that Raiders owner Mark Davis, along with other NFL owners and league officials, have formed an illegal ‘cartel.’ This so-called cartel is accused of violating federal antitrust law and California civil laws by attempting to facilitate the Raiders’ planned relocation to Las Vegas in 2020,” motivated by greed for relocation fees.
Oakland is seeking damages which, while they would not prohibit Davis’ move to Las Vegas, would make it considerably more expensive. According to ESPN, “At the NFL owners meetings in Dallas on Wednesday, team president Marc Badain said the Raiders’ $7.5 million lease proposal to the city for one final season in the Oakland Coliseum is off the table in the wake of the lawsuit.” (Perhaps long-suffering 
Raider fans should be grateful.) As many as six teams — some already with an NFL club of their own — are vying to take the newly homeless team in for a season. The lawsuit hinges upon a clause in the NFL constitution which reads, “Each club’s primary obligation to the League and to all other member clubs is to advance the interests of the League in its home territory. This primary obligation includes, but is not limited to, maximizing fan support, including attendance, in its home territory.” The lawsuit alleges “an NFL-rigged process … in order to further line the pockets of NFL Club owners with millions of dollars paid by their billionaire competitors.” Thereby Oakland “lost not only the Raiders, but also any chance to host an NFL team in the future.” (One of the dark-horse contenders to play home to the Raiders next season is Reno.)
Davis is being sued for saying in public that he wanted the team to stay in Oakland while privately directing his staff to find a new home anyplace else. Cities approached included San Antonio, San Diego and Los Angeles (which, had Davis succeeded, would find itself 
home to three NFL teams). Grounds for the lawsuit include losses in income, taxes and property value once the Raiders pick up and move. Sheldon Adelson may be heaving a sigh of relief that he got out of the Raiders-to-Vegas process relatively early or else he might well be a codefendant. Faced with the rigors of pretrial discovery, the NFL might take a page from its own book and settle preemptively, as it did in the matter of player concussions. Raider quarterback Derek Carr called the situation “crazy,” Carr being no stranger to insanity, seeing as he’s on his fourth coach in five seasons. He can at least take comfort in a slate of creampuff teams on the home-game slate next season, in which they will face nobody particularly tough except the Kansas City Chiefs.
Aforesaid craziness has also included a leak of raw sewage from the Oakland Athletics‘ clubhouse and — in a clear metaphor for the Raiders’ 3-10 season — a skunk on the rampage in the stands during the home opener. Two dead mice were also found in the media soda machine but I prefer to think that was the Davis family’s special way of saying ‘thanks for the memories.’
