Hey, apountry: Hate the Raiders while you still can.
There’s a distinct possibility that Denver’s lengthy, heated rivalry with either the Raiders or the Chargers could die, as the result of the league’s move back to the Los Angeles market. And Broncos president Joe Ellis doesn’t like it. Not one bit.
“We have tremendous tradition in these rivalries with the Raiders and Chargers,” Ellis told me Wednesday. “If we have to die on our swords to keep those rivalries, we will.”
There’s too much bad blood between the Broncos and their bitter football rivals from California to let one of them quit as a member of the AFC West.
From the Rob Lytle phantom fumble on the day Denver earned its first Super Bowl berth to the Monday night snowball brawl in 1999, so much spite laces the relationship between the Broncos and Raiders that Al Davis would roll over in his grave if the teams stopped playing two times every season.
Yes, the dump the Chargers call home in San Diego should be condemned, but is that any reason for Denver to forsake the misty-colored memories of Dennis Smith blocking a field goal not once, but twice(!) or Philip Rivers talking trash with Jay Cutler?
“We’ll fight to keep those rivalries,” said Ellis, after returning from league meetings in suburban Chicago, where he listened to presentations by three franchises intent on relocating to Los Angeles, the nation’s second-biggest television market.
With momentum building for the NFL’s return to L.A. as soon as 2016, ownership of Oakland and San Diego have presented a plan to share a stadium, in competition with a proposal from Stan Kroenke, who wants to move his Rams from St. Louis to a new entertainment complex near Los Angeles International Airport.
The NFL is America’s sports passion, and it is television that not only drives the football audience wild, but shoots league revenues through the roof. Beginning with the upcoming season, media revenue from network broadcast partners alone will average more than $5 billion annually.
The big money paid to televise the league is a major reason it makes sense for the Giants and Jets, which share the same stadium and the lucrative New York television market, to play in separate conferences, with NFC home games broadcast by Fox and AFC home games televised by CBS.
Beginning to get the picture why storied rivalries in the AFC West could be endangered?
The Chargers and Raiders have proposed a move to the southern Los Angeles suburb of Carson, where they would both play home games in the same, new $1.75 billion venue.
The impact on the Broncos could be significant. Should the joint proposal of the Raiders and Chargers gain approval from the league, there’s a distinct possibility one of the franchises would be asked to move from the AFC West to the NFC West, so the two L.A. teams would play in separate conferences, in order to best serve the business interests of Fox and CBS.
“If there were two teams in Los Angeles and they were in the same division, how are you going to make that work from a television standpoint?” said Ellis, concisely stating the challenge of preventing a breakup of the AFC West. “One network would have a dominant play if the Chargers and Raiders were both in Los Angeles and both playing in the same division rather than separate conferences.”
How, most likely, would the landscape of the AFC West change? It appears the most logical choice as Denver’s new division rivals would be the Seahawks or Cardinals.
From the Kingdome to the Super Bowl, there’s certainly a history of bad blood between the Broncos and Seahawks, who were a member of the AFC West from 1977-2001. But, at least in the short term, it would be a bad competitive bargain for Denver if Seattle replaced Oakland in the division.
We can distill the analysis of Arizona’s attractiveness as a new division rival in two words: Ho. Hum. Major-league baseball has tried to pump up a desert vs. mountain rivalry between the Diamondbacks and Rockies for years. The result? Yawns.
“I think it’s important to keep the rivalries with both the Raiders and Chargers that have been in place now for going on 56 years. I think it’s important to our fans,” Ellis said.
Broncomaniacs don’t particularly like the Raiders or Chargers.
But wouldn’t you miss ’em if one of those rivals was gone from the AFC West?
Mark Kiszla: mkiszla@denverpost.com or
