Oakland Raiders Relocation A Failure Of Leadership More Than Anything

Oakland Raiders owner Mark Davis, in the wake of the owner’s vote to allow relocation of the team to Las Vegas, is being unfairly cast in the role of the black-hatted villain.

As difficult as it may be to believe, there is somebody right now with a lower approval rating than Donald Trump and Congress – and that is Oakland Raiders owner Mark Davis. At least, in the East Bay area. After winning approval to move his team to Las Vegas, Davis has become the most unpopular person in Northern California – though it’s not entirely fair.

Sure, the sentiment among Oakland residents is heartbreak and outrage. And it’s hard not to feel your heart go out to those longtime Raider fans in the area.

At the same time though, the emotion needs to be taken out of it and it has to be remembered that the NFL is a business. And as the owner of the team, Mark Davis has a responsibility to do what’s in the organization’s best interest.

His decisions aren’t always going to be popular ones – obviously – but they’re aimed at bettering his organization’s situation. And let’s face it folks, the current situation in Oakland is totally and completely FUBAR.

It’s easy to paint Davis as the lone villain, as the guy in the black hat who rode into town and stole the team, jerking the rug out from underneath everybody in the process. But that is a gross oversimplification of the situation as well as a partial rewriting of history.

If blame must really be assigned – and every story needs a villain, right? – then there is plenty of that to go around.

The first – and biggest – finger should probably be pointed at the politicians in Oakland who had years to find out a solution to the stadium problems. They had years, and yet only started really working on it at the eleventh hour – and then dropped the ball terribly a few times along the way.

Though most discount the idea – or just flat out don’t believe it – Davis tried to find a solution to keep the Raiders in their ancestral home. And there never was a viable solution forthcoming from the politicians.

Rather than working out a lease deal that could have helped keep both the A’s and Raiders in town while working with them both to find a stadium solution, the Oakland politicians seemed to prioritize keeping their baseball team rather than their football team.

The lease the A’s were given, made it impossible for Davis and the Raiders to even think about building a new stadium on the current Coliseum footprint for a number of years. And yet, with the Coliseum falling apart around their ears – with leaks stopped by using red Solo cups and duct tape, and routine sewage flooding – it’s more than clear that they didn’t have a number of years to wait.

The A’s though, did try to help facilitate a deal in which they were able to build a new stadium, and allow the Raiders to construct theirs on the existing Coliseum site. A’s co-owner Lew Wolff did ask the city to help him secure a parcel of land north of the Coliseum to construct a new ballpark – the city declined to help him. When Wolff then asked for help to commission a study for constructing a ballpark on the south end of the existing Coliseum site, the city and county both declined.

There were a host of things the city could have done to help facilitate a deal that could have kept both the A’s and Raiders in town, but they did nothing. They simply kept trying to kick that can down the road – until the road abruptly ended.

And lest anyone twist that sentiment into something it’s not, this is not a case of the A’s driving the Raiders out of town. This is a case of poor leadership – starting with the mayor’s office – and them seeming to put a priority on keeping the A’s in town, rather than the Raiders.

This all lends credence to the idea that Oakland mayor Libby Schaaf never fully intended to help keep the Raiders in town, preferring – as she stated on numerous occasions – to help keep the A’s in Oakland instead.

That idea is further bolstered by the eleventh hour pitch to the NFL to keep the Raiders in Oakland – a pitch that in view of league executives, was little more that political posturing and a means of “saving face” rather than a legitimate proposal.

Next: Owners Vote Goes Davis' Way, Team Headed To Vegas

Indeed, in reading between the lines of what has been said by league officials, Schaaf’s goal was not to keep the Raiders in Oakland, but to give herself political cover by appearing to be doing something to keep the team in town – without actually doing much.

All throughout the process, Davis stated time and time again, that his preference, his absolute desire, was to keep the Raiders in Oakland. But he said he needed help to make that happen. Help from the city and from the county – help that never came.

So, with little choice, all Davis could do was explore other opportunities. And once Las Vegas ponied up $750 million dollars to help build a state of the art stadium in the desert, the die was cast.

It’s easy to blame Davis. To cast him as the main villain in this drama. But doing so overlooks the undeniable fact that the failure of leadership in Oakland – whether it was unfortunate happenstance, or by design – was the main contributor to the long, drawn out nightmare that culminated in the approval to move to Sin City.

Though most can’t seem to get past his goofy haircut or penchant for flying coach, Davis is a businessman first and foremost. He’s going to do what he can to protect his organization – and yes, turn a profit while doing so. One of the reason he’s in the football business is to make money doing so – just as everybody else would be.

But it’s also more than just turning a buck. In trying to maximize the profile of the Raiders, he’s trying to secure the legacy of his team. A legacy his father built. The Raiders are one of the league’s most iconic franchises with a global fanbase.

Unfortunately, the city they called home for many years, treated them like second class citizens. And that is not Davis’ fault. That is simply, a dismal failure of leadership.

So rather than throwing stones and burning Davis in effigy, maybe spare a few rocks and matches for the bigger villain in this melodrama – the Oakland city government.