Eddie DeBartolo-Raiders story curiously timed and infuriatingly obtuse

The newest red herring in the saga of the Oakland Coliseum has been told, and it is Eddie DeBartolo The Younger.

Just in time, as it turns out, to Las Vegas go all-in on rendering the DeBartolo story entirely fish-based.

Well, let’s stop right there. We don’t know if the DeBartolo hook on the Raider relocation story is a true red herring. Then again, nobody does. Eddie The HOF has seen (or had) his name floated as a potential savior of the Raiders in Oakland by showing interest in potentially bankrolling part of a possible bid by a group led by Ronnie Lott for the land that holds the Coliseum, the plant that neither the Raiders nor Athletics nor Warriors want to stay in a day longer than they have to.

In other words, DeBartolo’s name has been waved in some vague scheme to make a vague play at some vague part of the Oakland landscape which might involve the Raiders in some very vague way.

Got it?

It must, you see, be remembered that the Raiders, who are at this very moment collecting another $750 million in actually spendable promises from Las Vegas based on Friday’s Nevada Legislature vote, have shown no interest whatsoever in staying in Northern California.

Mark Davis wants to leave, has wanted to leave for at least a year if not more, has had no direct conversations with any of Oakland’s power brokers in months while being very active in the attempt to move the team to Nevada, and is too far down the road with Vegas to do anything other than wait for the NFL owners meeting that will decide his short-term and long-term fates.

And there is very little reason to believe in any Eddie-based scenario in the interim. In fact, this story seems like a pure and unadulterated plant.

The Vegas plan has continued apace, with the Nevada legislature’s decision to kick in (or cave, depending on your view of public extortion for private stadiums), and unless the owners either tell Davis he’s not getting the 24 votes required to move or offer him terms he finds intolerable, and then the San Diego Chargers lose their own stadium initiative and decide to pick up their option on the smaller half of Stan Kroenke’s Los Angeles plant, there is no reason for Davis to change his mind.

Eddie or no Eddie.

This has been the case throughout, and the floated DeBartolo story is curiously timed and infuriatingly obtuse.

Curious enough to make suspicious minds think that this was a way for Oakland proponents to smoke out Davis’ disinterest in the East Bay and indemnifying the Oakland folks from the criticism that would come if the team does move. In other words, blame delegation.

And obtuse enough to make one ask if DeBartolo is interested in the real estate, the stadium or the team, and in the latter case how he intends to make this whirlwind run at re-entry into the league.

Besides, none of the DeBartolo news affects the central issue here, which is how the NFL weighs the idea of pulling money out of Las Vegas against its already public views on Mark Davis’ place among them.

Getting the money from Nevada on Friday told the NFL owners that the ball is now in their court, which makes Eddie and the Coliseum land and Oakland and Alameda County all irrelevancies until the following developments run their course:

- The San Diego Chargers are rebuffed in their attempts to fund a stadium through a hotel tax, which forces owner Dean Spanos to either stay in town, swathed in defeat, pick up their option to move to Los Angeles as Stan Kroenke’s most reluctant crypto-tenant, or suddenly develop an as-yet-unreported interest in Las Vegas.

- The NFL owners begin lobbying each other to determine under what conditions they would approve Davis’ relocation – up to and including Davis divesting himself from controlling interest in the franchise, either to his currently silent partners, a Las Vegas group that may or may not involve billionaire Sheldon Adelson, or the International Order Of Early Morning Blackjack Dealers.

In sum, the DeBartolo story is a charming one that might mean none of the things people want to delude themselves that it could be. He might want the Coliseum land as developable land alone – so for that matter might Lott and his group. In which case, hurray – “Rich guy buys dirt” is always a really sexy story.

Or he might want to buy into the Raiders, which would require that Davis be willing to reduce his stake from the low-40 percent level it currently resides, while Davis would rightfully ask why he should sell any part of his team for the right to stay in a place he clearly wants to leave.

But as this regards the actual realities of the right now, Oakland is where it has been all along – waiting for richer and more powerful people to decide the form, location and guidance the Raiders will take.

And until the next actual moving parts – the San Diego hotel tax vote November 8, and the owners meeting early next year – Eddie DeBartolo’s role (or lack thereof) makes for relatively flavorless speculation. He is a vaguely interested potential party in something that, at least for a few more months, remains an ethereal fantasy for people in no current position to affect reality.