Los Angeles area media cannot cover Raiders pre-season activities.
National Football League franchise owners are very protective of their local territories and do not want any outsiders like Mark Davis, the majority owner of the Las Vegas Raiders franchise, to invade another territory even if it is for training camp. Davis decided that his team should get out of the desert heat for about 18 days and get ready for the season in Costa Mesa which is in Orange County, California and not near the NFL stadium that houses the two Los Angeles franchises in Inglewood, California. Neither the Los Angeles Chargers franchise nor the Los Angeles Rams franchise have anything to do with Los Angeles. Costa Mesa is 42 miles from Inglewood and is much closer to an abandoned NFL market in Anaheim. There is some sort of media curtain which prevents the local Los Angeles news outlets from making the trip to Costa Mesa to do fluff pieces on the Raiders’ players and coaches.
The local TV stations’ management are not going to complain because the LA CBS, NBC, ABC and FOX stations are included in the NFL-TV business relationships. The Los Angeles Times, the Long Beach Press-Telegram and the Orange County Register cannot cover the Raiders’ practices. The Costa Mesa training camp practices are closed to the public. But Jerry Jones’ Dallas Cowboys franchise training camp is taking place in Oxnard, California which is about 60 miles from Inglewood and Jones is marketing the Oxnard-Cowboys experience which lasts through August 21st. But Jones owns America’s Team. The silliness of the media blackout is this. The Raiders’ website will have interviews. ESPN and other outlets will be reporting on Raiders’ pre-season activities. Las Vegas media will be in Costa Mesa with stories on the web. If a Los Angeles area news outlet wanted to sue for access, they would win in court.
Evan Weiner’s books are available at iTunes – https://books.apple.com/us/author/evan-weiner/id595575191
Evan can be reached at evan_weiner@hotmail.com
