After much consideration, I’ve decided watching the National Football League’s official relationship with Las Vegas develop is going to be fun.
Not fun in the way, say, that watching the circus come to town is fun. Nothing so tame.
It’s more like the thrill to be found in seeing the circus pitch its big tent and then discover the roaring lions and juggling bears have been set loose on the community. It’s fun, but it’s also a little scary.
With so much cheerleading going on in the local press and government to encourage not only a staggering outlay of public funding for a new stadium, but an unabashed ovation for the departure of the Oakland Raiders for Las Vegas, it would appear the real fun is only beginning for the community and for the image-conscious league itself.
It’s clear from recent events that the NFL, all gushing publicity aside, is still wrestling with the Vegas idea.
Arm wrestling, in this case.
When some of the league’s charity-minded entrepreneurs gathered early in the month at the MGM Grand to produce the “Pro Football Arm Wrestling Championship” to air later this year on CBS, the league’s image-obsessed watchdogs got the vapors. The players who helped organize the event committed the sin of failing to notify the league of their intention to stage the bicep-flexing and grunting exhibition on the grounds of — heaven forbid — a casino resort in Las Vegas.
That’s against the league’s longstanding policy that prohibits the promotion of gambling and the necessity of avoiding Las Vegas at all costs. (It’s just a suggestion, but it may be smart to consider a rewrite some time before the Las Vegas Raiders kick off in 2020.)
For now, as USA Today’s Jarrett Bell reported in his column, the league is managing to keep a straight face.
“Had we been asked in advance if this was acceptable, we would have indicated that it was in direct violation of the gambling policy,” NFL executive vice president for public affairs Joe Lockhart explained. “No one sought pre-approval.”
Had pre-approval been sought, of course, it would have been denied.
As anyone who follows his career surely knows by now, Nevada brothel baron Dennis Hof needs pre-approval from almost no one. In the wake of the Raiders-to-Vegas announcement, Hof made a statement of his own: He was creating a Raiders-themed whorehouse. Cue the backfield-in-motion jokes.
Hof wasn’t much of a candidate for the Nevada Legislature, but he is a master of marketing his business and attracting free media. You can bet he won’t be the last Nevada hustler to figure a way to benefit from the Raiders announcement.
Where does that leave the NFL?
From the look of things, just a little bit pregnant. Hof is a free agent, but after a 33-1 vote to approve the Raiders’ move, the league’s aversion to all things gambling appears laughably hypocritical.
Wait, it gets weirder.
New England tight end Rob Gronkowski is easily one of the most visible faces in the NFL. He was a featured party boy just last week poolside at Encore Beach Club. The shirtless wildman’s exhibition featured plenty of bikini-clad babes, a champagne shower, and cameras aplenty. (Also a timely leak to TMZ.)
It’s nothing new. He’s done the super-sized frat boy routine before. Gronkowski can’t keep his shirt on in Las Vegas.
And that’s okay with Vegas. But the image-obsessed NFL looks ridiculous scolding organizers of a silly arm wrestling competition — with partial proceeds going to charity — at a time one of its best-known representatives is preening and prancing with professional wrestlings down the street.
But this is just part of what makes the NFL’s Hollywood air kiss of Las Vegas, the legalized sports betting capital of the world, so entertaining and fun to watch.
And the fun is just beginning.
John L. Smith is a longtime Las Vegas journalist and author. Contact him at jlnevadasmith@gmail.com. On Twitter: @jlnevadasmith.
