OT: Las Vegas is in play?
What could be better than Captain Cameltoe in Sin City!
Still the greatest photograph ever taken. The hair, the cameltoe, the sleeves up to his fingers, the grin, the all-white outfit in a sea of red, the fact he's sitting to rub himself while everyone else stands... . There's so much to love about this.
April 24th, 2016 at 11:10 PM ^
April 24th, 2016 at 10:39 PM ^
I have literally no idea who this is. Sure, I could Google it or reverse image it, but I don't care to. I am as far disconnected from anything NFL as one can be, while still loving football.
Here is the truth bomb.
I have seen this picture before and honestly thought people were making fun of like a team's owner's handicapped son. I really thought "this here special needs individual is the butt of some joke I am not in on.... Seems really mean. And insensitive. Where's the Michigan difference?" As a sibling of someone with special needs, I did not appreciate it.
The fact that I really thought that was what was going on is hilarious. I still don't know who he is, but I have figured out he probably isn't special needs. Just really gross.
April 24th, 2016 at 10:50 PM ^
April 24th, 2016 at 11:41 PM ^
BTW, he is Mark Davis, owner of the (Oakland/TBD) Raiders and son of former owner Al Davis. His only special need, other than what is mentioned above, is for a fashion consultant and physical trainer. If someone with special needs was being mocked, I am sure that they would be on a tour of Bolivia.
certainly appears to have needs, and those needs would require a special type of effort to overcome. So he "is" and he "isn't" it would appear.
April 25th, 2016 at 12:30 AM ^
April 25th, 2016 at 12:29 AM ^
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Yet that have such close ties to fantasy sports and websites like FanDuel and Draft Kings. They don't mind gambling at all as long as they can control it and get a cut. Of course, you might have been sarcastic with your statement.
April 25th, 2016 at 10:34 AM ^
I prefer my sarcasm without a /s
Thankisk to the Native American legal provisions, It seems like almost every state has some kind of gaming now. When Nevada was the only state that had legalized gambling, they sorta had an excuse. Now, they reallly don't have an excuse for keeping a franchise from moving to Vegas.
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This actually is a solid idea. At only 8 home games a year, they could easily sell out every game between visiting fans and bundle deals with hotels. I'd make a trip if the lions played there. I don't see much of a home field advantage for the Raiders, however. It'd be hard to build a fan base there, unless they were old LA Raider fans making the trip.
If the Chargers get a new stadium in San Diego (which is starting to look good http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/15311588/roger-goodell-attends-san-diego-chargers-rally-support-new-stadium-plan ), the Raiders will move to LA. The Bolts are really not a very good fit for LA and Demoff has rightly noted that the Rams are OK with the Raider move since the Rams and Raiders are very unlikely to target the same fans. In fact, the Raiders (unlike the Bolts) would need more or less NO marketing and very little PR spending to establish a major fan base there. Also, the city of Oakland has already stated they would rather keep the A's and let Lew Wolff build a new baseball stadium on the Colesium site.
Prince Valium and the nfl once again try to ransom another city
I'm a fan already.
April 24th, 2016 at 11:02 PM ^
April 24th, 2016 at 11:55 PM ^
You include Virginia Beach on your list of potential spots yet put them on a lower tier or on par with several cities that while are larger or equal to in size and/or populations they do not include the same inherent advantages that Virginia Beach does
First off would be the would be it's neighboring cities. The combined Hampton Roads market or "The 7 Cities" as we like to call it here has roughly a total of 1.6 million citizens and is the enitire SE portion of the commonwealth. Norfolk and Virginia Beach's populations and land masses combined are about equal to or greater than that of Detroit. You add in Chesapeake and you are up to about 925,000 people and you still have 4 cities to go.
Secondly VA has not had a professional team since the Virginia Squires in the old ABA and are very thirsty for a team of their own. The closest pro team are either located in DC/Baltimore or in Charlotte. While there is more than a fair share of Redskins fans in this area there are very few people who truly indentify with the franchises of the other pro sports in any of the listed cities above and would quite frankly welcome a team from any of the 4 major pro sports here with open arms IMHO.
All that being said brings me to my 3rd point on why the Hampton Roads market shouldn't be underrated. This area possesses the largest constellation of military bases on the east coast. Quite frankly if there ever was a nuclear war this area is PROBABLY #3 on the list of potential targets after DC & NY. A military presence like that means a lot of our citizens are transplants from other areas who not only would make sure they made it to the stadium/ballpark when their "home team" came into town but truly would support a Virginia franchise as their "2nd team".
The sad part about the entire argument that I made above is that it is all a moot point as our local leaders cannot put their egos to the side long enough to consider the greater good of the region and state. Whether it 1 of the cities insisting the team be refered to by ther city(Va Beach & Norfolk), or even if they agree to call the franchise "the Virginia Whatevers", none of the 7 cities can agree on where to build a home venue as they all want the rights(although Va Beach already has plans of their own for a stadium with 14,000ish seats that could potentially attract the NBA or NHL).
Sorry for the long post but I always have to stick up for this area to outsiders the same way as I would stick up for Detroit!
The traffic is deadly though. My brother lives in Elizabeth City NC, my other brother was stationed at Norfolk for 8 years and my sister in law if from Va Beach so I drive thru Washington/Baltimore and the Hampton Roads area to visit often. Id rather drive through Washington. I always get stuck in Hampton Roads. Sometimes for hours if there is a problem at one of the bridges.
As an aside while trying to find my way from one closed bridge to the other I found the site where the Monitor and Merrimack fought. Never would have seen it otherwise.
April 25th, 2016 at 10:32 AM ^
The traffic here is awful and because of the residents here being from different places also means a clash in driving styles which of course leads a lot of that congestion as well. I cannot agree however that the traffic here is worse that DC/Baltimore traffic. I have been in some DC traffic that backs up to 15 miles outside of the city whereas most of our tunnels don't get backed up that far without a major accident.
Now for the downsides, however:
- The total area is about 1.8 million, which puts it on the low end of population for the major leagues, but also includes far-flung areas like Elizabeth City and Williamsburg.
- The team would have to be on the Southside somewhere, because the Peninsula is too small to support it, but there isn't a lot of cross-pollination across the bridge-tunnels. For your averae 7:00 weekday game, I can't see people being willing to put up with the rush hour traffic and the hassle of going to the game from Hampton or NN. I would submit that even coming from Portsmouth, people would consider it too much of a pain. Any time a tunnel is involved, traffic suuuuuuucks.
- Most of that military population is pretty transient. There are some people who stay their whole careers, but many don't (or else they're doing four or five and getting out again.) And the other thing about most of that military population is that it doesn't have much disposable income - some don't even have cars. The bulk of it is junior enlisted dudes.
When I lived in Virginia there were plenty of efforts to bring a major-league team to the area (notably, the Expos) and I was rooting for one of them to succeed. Living in Norfolk, my friends and I would go to Admirals games. I even have an Admirals jersey (but I can't wear it to Wings games, because it looks like a Blackhawks jersey. Bad foresight on my part.) But I'm not sure I can say I would've gone to major-league games just as often. Maybe when the Wings came to town. Can't beat $15 tickets with major-league prices.
That area in SE VA won't have a team in the near future. It's on par with Jacksonville. People from outside the area hardly know it exists. SE VA is also about as isolated as you can get. Austin/San Antonio is a more viable location.
If there get to be 60 teams in the league, then I think SE VA will have a chance.
April 25th, 2016 at 10:51 AM ^
I was here when we were in contention for the Expos! I even put a deposit down on season tickets I was so excited at the prospect. I was even happier that it was a NL team coming to town so it would not have ruined my love or loyalty for the Tigers.
Perhaps you also remembered when George Shinn leveraged moving the Hornets to Norfolk to geta better deal out of NOLA. Hell the was a chance we would have beat NOLA had we had a NBA ready building already in place.
I agree with all of your points you made but all of them can be worked around. The team would most certainly have to be located on the Southside, although I do believe while they couldn't support the team alone, Portsmouth could be used for a stadium site and I believe that people would commute the same way they do to Auburn Hills and once did to the Silverdome.
You are also right about the coming and going of the military personel, but that just means there are always fresh faces around and new money to be spent. Even the junior enlisted soldiers would be fine. From what I can tell they have no problems spending what funds they do have and public transportation isn't that bad here(and is getting better as our light rail is likely getting expanded to Va Beach).
All of this is purely debate of course because as both of us have said there have been efforts before and they have failed. I also think that the NFL is not the answer for this area as there are bigger markets who struggle just like you say we would. Like you said however with the support the Admirals get here I think the NHL would epsecially do well here and the NBA & MLB would survive(and even thrive once they put out a winning product).
As a side note Wahoo, you were 1 of the posters I had hoped would reply!
April 25th, 2016 at 12:02 PM ^
not sure if Virginia Beach would work for reasons noted here (like transient population, corporate base, etc) plus Richmond and NOVA are big time into the Skins from what I remember. For being a relatively small market, thats a tough battle to fight. I would think a baseball team may work as the Nationals are still fairly new, but I question how good a home VA Beach would really be for a pro team
April 25th, 2016 at 10:05 PM ^
I agree that NOVA and Richmond arer big Redskins are which is why I don't think the NFL could succeed here. Also NOVA are very much into the DC sports so people are probably right as well about MLB but not Ricmond is not so enamored for the other DC pro tems and I think they would embrace a winning Hampton Roads franchise. Keep in mind as well that it wouldn't be just Va Beach supporting these teams, it would be the whole SE portion of the state and like mentioned above some of NE NC as well. Those would be some of the reasons why I think the NBA or NHL would actually have a shot.
April 25th, 2016 at 11:32 AM ^
is there enough corporate $$$ down there? My sense (I may be wrong), is that there is not a huge corporate base in the Tidewater. And that could limit the possibilities of a major-league franchise.
I do expect ODU football to be a big-time success in the longer-term. No reason why they can't be a top-tier C-USA team and leverage that into an invite to, say, the American. Frankly, I'm surprised it took them so long to start up football. Talent-rich region and they are, outside of the various minor-league teams (AAA baseball, was AHL/now ECHL), the only game in town.
April 25th, 2016 at 10:13 PM ^
You are correct about ODU IMO. The area is ripe and they were nearly bowl eligible last season in only their 2nd season of eligibility, their 3rd year in FBS, and just their 7 or 8th year as a program overall.
To my knowledge as far as coporoate $$'s go, there are several Fortune 500 comanpanies headquatered in Norfolk(not sure which ones) and I am sure a team could get some of the Richmond coporate $$ as well.
I am not saying that we will ever get a team, I am just reminding people that this area is growing and drastically underrated by even it's own residents as to it's potential.
A side question to all of the VA MGO readers, which do you think the area will get 1st, gaming or sports?
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Another place where you play in front of 10,000 on a good night, and are absolutely invaded by visiting fans on bad nights
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April 25th, 2016 at 12:06 PM ^
I'm drawing that conclusion because it's a non-hockey city out in the desert that is less than half the size of Phoenix. Southern teams rarely draw well. Dallas, for as good as they are, were only 15th in attendance this year.
My bet is a theoretical Las Vegas franchise flops within 10-15 years and ends up in a place like Quebec City, Seattle, or somewhere else north
April 24th, 2016 at 10:37 PM ^
Yeah, but the Vegas team will have two major advantages that the Coyotes don't: they're the first team in town, and they should be able to sell plenty of corporate-favor tickets, vacation-package tickets, etc.
April 24th, 2016 at 10:45 PM ^
Plus they won't be playing in Glendale, which from my understanding is prety much like the Blackhawks playing in Aurora.
But I stopped going to games when they moved to Glendale, even though it was a much better arena for hockey than the America West facility.
April 24th, 2016 at 10:52 PM ^
The (one-armed) Bandits
April 24th, 2016 at 10:19 PM ^
The Raiders are a perfect fit for Las Vegas. Let it happen...its not as if the NFL is a league based in credibility and integrity anyway. Football at the NFL level is for pure entertainment & commerce value only, which gambling is a huge part of both. The influx of travel on Sundays to LV will help the struggling local economy too.
April 24th, 2016 at 10:51 PM ^
Goody. They can have their stadium designed like the ones in Qatar.
April 24th, 2016 at 10:52 PM ^
The Las Vegas Fighting Escorts
April 25th, 2016 at 12:31 AM ^
OT and a happy ending....
April 24th, 2016 at 11:22 PM ^
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