CBS Sports’ Amy Trask started interning with the Oakland Raiders in 1983. Nobody in the sports media knows the organization as well as her.
The NFL owners are meeting this week in Phoenix, where they just approved the Raiders’ move from Oakland to Las Vegas. Trask called into the Murph and Mac show Monday morning to discuss owner Mark Davis’ thinking behind the move.
“He does have his reasoning, I was privy to some of his thinking before I left the team,” Trask said. “But look, one thing we know is actions speak louder than words. And we’ve seen the team now twice over the last year-and-a-half or so request approval to move. That says to me, as it does to anyone who looks at actions, the team wants to move.”
Murph followed up and asked if she could share some of that privy information.
“Well I could share it with you, but I guess my mindset is simply what I just shared,” Trask said. “It seems apparent, and it did to me, that the team’s energies and efforts and resources have been focused on relocating.
“There is no municipality in California that can or that should in the eyes of many be throwing anything close to that amount of money ($950 million) towards a stadium project. In fact, in Nevada it’s not just the municipality, it’s the whole state throwing it’s weight behind that money. You are not going to replicate that in California and that’s not a suggestion on my part that one should be able to replicate that, but men, if you listen to nothing I say for the rest of my life, hear me out now: That is a lot of money.”
So why do the Raiders not feel a sense of loyalty to Oakland? Trask prefaced her answer by saying she left the team four years ago, before mayor Libby Schaaf was in office.
“There are those to me that have said, ‘Why wasn’t a deal done a long time ago?’” Trask said. “Well I think Libby — and this is going to sound, and I’m rushing because I know you have to go to break so I’m going to state it bluntly, and it’s going to sound unkind to Libby’s predecessor (Jean Quan) and I don’t have time to soften the blow. So I will simply say Libby Schaaf brings a gravitas, a wisdom, intellect and a business savvy to the position of mayor that her predecessor didn’t have. Clearly, what happens if Libby was in position five years ago.”
And for those curious about how the vote will go down Monday in Phoenix? Trask has been in that owners meeting room before.
“There are instances when things are tabled, but if the league believes the votes are there to pass a resolution, a vote will be taken,” Trask said. “It will not be secret ballot. It will either be a show of hands, a yay or nay, or in some instances a roll call. My guess is this may well be a roll call, but it doesn’t have to be. And it’s up to the discretion of the league office whether it’s by roll call or simply a show of hands.”
