Mike Freeman’s 10-Point Stance: Mark Cuban Talks NFL Expansion

1. Mark Cuban: NFL expansion fee would be enormous

Mark Cuban is one of the smartest people in all of sports. Hell, he’s one of the smartest people, period. When he talks, you listen, and what he recently told me about NFL expansion is an interesting listen.

I asked Cuban if it was a truly viable option for the NFL to put a team in Las Vegas. His response? 

“Only if it’s a multibillion-dollar franchise fee.”

Cuban was referring to flat-out expansion, not a team like the Raiders or Chargers relocating.

I must admit, I’ve never heard a number that high—several billion (plural)—for what it would take to make it worth the NFL’s while to expand. Bob McNair paid $700 million for the Houston Texans in 1999, and that was considered the highest expansion fee in the history of American sports. Consider the NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport reported in January that for the right to move to Los Angeles, a franchise must pay $550 million.

I asked Cuban to expound.

“When you add a team, you have to give them their share of profits,” he said. “So, teams would split things by 33, not 32. The franchise fee has to be enough to more than pay for the share of revenue teams are giving up. It’s the same reason I voted against expanding in the NBA. …

“The question isn’t whether it’s worth it for the new owner. It’s whether it’s worth it to the NFL owners.”

He got me thinking. If expansion in the NBA doesn’t make financial sense for owners, then it won’t in the NFL, either. Finding the right owner is hard enough, but it simply might not be profitable for the current group of owners to allow another team at a reasonable price. This might be the biggest reason there’s been no expansion in some two decades.

All of which means what we may see for decades to come is a game of musical cities, similar to what we’re seeing now with the Rams, Chargers and Raiders. The Rams moved to Los Angeles. The Chargers might move…somewhere. The Raiders might go to Vegas.

If there’s no true expansion, there could be years of teams threatening to move—maybe even to places like London or Mexico City. More cities could be held hostage. Build us a new stadium, or we’ll move.

Again, Cuban is often a few steps ahead of almost everyone else in sports. He might see something no one else does. He’s that smart. And if what he says is accurate, any expansion would lead to significant financial loss for owners unless a new buyer paid several billion dollars for a team.

So maybe we should get used to a 32-team league. It might stay that way for decades.

 

2. Long-term NFL plan could be to force Mark Davis to sell Raiders

Want to know how cutthroat NFL owners are? Consider the case of their long-term plan for Mark Davis.

If owners reach a point where they don’t want Davis to move the team to Las Vegas, they would purposely make the relocation fee far too high, I’m told by a league source.

Then, Davis would wither on the vine in Oakland, and he’d be forced to sell the team, and there’d be the new ownership that some owners, like Jerry Jones, have long wanted in Oakland. I know for a fact this plan is being considered. I’m told some in the league are talking openly about it.

Yeah, NFL owners don’t mess around.

(Also, a personal note: This will be the last damn time I write about the damn NFL in Vegas until a damn team moves there.)

 

3. En banc

It’s a fancy-pants phrase. It basically means Tom Brady wants his appeal, which was previously heard by a limited number of appellate judges and was …

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