LAS VEGAS – Since the NFL leaves it up to individual teams and / or local government regulations how many fans can play games, Mark Davis, owner of Las Vegas Raiders, tends to prevent fans from playing games in Las Vegas’ new Allegiant Stadium this season.
If fans are not admitted, Davis said, he will not participate in games. As the only vote against the league owners ‘recent decision to remove the top eight rows of seats in each stadium from the field and cover them with advertising, Davis said the Raiders’ idea to leave the seats for fans and build plexiglass on hockey lower end of the stadium to separate fans from players on the sidelines was “shot down” before the vote.
“No fan is more important to me than the other, whether he paid for 75,000 PSL or 500 PSL,” Davis told ESPN.com on Sunday evening. “For me they are all Raider fans. My attitude today is not fans [should attend games].
“I don’t even know if it’s safe to play. ‘Uncertainty’ is the word.”
Regardless of fans at games, Davis said he currently sees three options for the NFL:
1.Continue as planned and sign up for the training camp the next week. See what happens.
2. Delay the start of the season until November and go to a 12-game season in which the four inter-conference games of each team are canceled. (For the Raiders, this would mean games at the Carolina Panthers and Atlanta Falcons and home games against the New Orleans Saints and Tampa Bay Buccaneers.)
3. Cancel the 2020 season completely.
“With that, everything is in the air [COVID-19] Virus and how it will affect our league and season, “said Davis, adding that his frustration at removing the first eight rows of seats was compounded by the fact that the league made the decision about fans after a low season, as Davis called it , left to the individual teams. ” Justice “among the teams.
Having no offseason programs and only virtual meetings was based on “a worst case scenario,” said Davis, so every team was in the same situation.
Since the Raiders are sold out for the season, they no longer have room to move fans from these lower areas.
“This is the black hole,” said Davis. “They are the people who want to be in the front row. Exuberant fans … now I have to tell 8,000 people who helped build this thing that they can’t come to a game? I don’t have 8,000 seats Drag them in. We’re sold out.
“The look is terrible: advertising on the seats of people that you say can’t come to the game. I’d rather everyone be mad at me than just one person. I have to make up for it.” them and I will. It’s all about security and justice. “
The Raiders, who have lived in Los Angeles, Oakland, California for 13 seasons since moving in 1995, are in the middle of moving to southern Nevada.
Davis said without fans that it would be a “gentle opening” for the $ 1.9 billion dome with 65,000 seats near the Las Vegas Strip, with the goal of growing bigger by 2021 should the coronavirus pandemic hit abate there.
“We want our opening season to be special,” he said. “I don’t even know if we’re going to light that [Al Davis] Torch. These are all potentials and all should be respected. “
Stating that if he chose to exclude fans from Allegiant Stadium, he would stay away from games, Davis said that only people who are “essential to the game’s production” should be present.
“The only thing I care about is yelling at Jon after the game [Gruden]”Davis joked about the Raiders coach.” I can do that by phone. “
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