NFL to Las Vegas: The reality a sports columnist never saw coming

I remember most the facial expressions, ones that seemed to offer congratulations and yet at the same time suggest I had just arrived at the company Christmas party shirtless while swigging a bottle of Spirytus Delikatesowy and singing “Rock Lobster.”

There was a lot of talk about hot summers and even more about moving to a place without a major league professional sports franchise, about the perceived lack of range for a sports columnist to capture.

I think someone used the term Mayberry.

Well, even Andy Taylor wouldn’t believe this yarn.

To suggest much has changed in the Las Vegas sports landscape the past 12 years would be to suggest UNLV basketball is in the midst of a massive rebuild, and yet even the most positive of souls couldn’t have forecast this reality:

In making official Thursday what has been reported for months by applying for relocation from Oakland to Las Vegas, the Raiders moved this town one enormous step closer to the sort of national relevancy only those cities housing an NFL team know.

Landing an NHL franchise — the Golden Knights are live for real beginning in October — put Las Vegas on the map for professional sports.

The NFL gets it a chunk of the entire globe.

There is nothing like being one of 32, a reality whose magnitude of stature can’t be suitably expressed.

The Raiders still need 24 owners to approve their intentions of moving to Las Vegas, but the more this process has glided along, the more positive viewpoints from NFL suits regarding the $1.9 billion stadium plan and ability of the market to sustain and support all that is silver and black, the more you believe team owner Mark Davis wouldn’t take this step unless he was fairly confident he had the votes.

Or that he can at least get them before ballots are tallied in March.

Even if the magic number falls short, there is precedent (see his late father Al’s successful lawsuit against the NFL) for moving regardless of the league’s position.

In his mind, Davis is coming. Period.

I never could tell if all those back slaps and handshakes were born from sincere happiness or unadulterated pity years ago, if my friends and colleagues in San Diego were sending me off to what they viewed an amazing opportunity or my funeral.

But what transpired over the past week — the Chargers departing for Los Angeles and the Raiders now officially stating their claim to making a home in the desert — aptly demonstrates the kind of pendulum swing of emotions that an NFL team can create.

And how it can, overnight, change a city’s fortunes for better or worse.

Time will tell how Las Vegas reacts to the news of the likely arrival of the Raiders, but we have witnessed numerous times what a franchise leaving can do to a town’s mental state.

“The day the Chargers got here, it was the No. 1 story in the history of San Diego sports,” said longtime San Diego Union-Tribune sports columnist Nick Canepa. “Until they left, which is now the No. 1 story. I can’t speak for how Las Vegas is going to react to getting the NFL. I don’t live there. But it’s an enormous thing. It makes you a big league city. There are only 32 of them, and that’s very important. Las Vegas isn’t a big market, but it has a lot of money, and money draws interest.

“Now, when you lose a team, it’s like losing a limb. It’s awful. Two of my three sons will never watch the Chargers again. I’ve been doing so for 55 years, so why stop now? I don’t go to games to watch owners, and I don’t think the people of Las Vegas will go watch Mark Davis. At least I hope not, for goodness sake.”

The Chargers’ move was unique in numerous ways, beginning with the fact they departed for a city that doesn’t seem the least bit interested in having them. It wasn’t like when the Cardinals arrived in Phoenix or the Colts in Indianapolis or the Ravens in Baltimore or the Texans in Houston.

Parades were thrown. People were euphoric.

“With the Chargers to Los Angeles,” Canepa said, “it’s like the Nazis marched into town in 1939.”

It won’t be that way here. Las Vegas might be a somewhat transient place of 2.5 million within its metropolitan area, but if you thought the excitement was palpable for the Golden Knights landing as an expansion team, it’s nothing to the national spotlight and interest that arrives with the NFL. Communities most always feed off the thrill.

Twelve years ago, traveling north on Interstate 15, I could never have imagined Las Vegas sports changing to this degree.

Had anyone back then suggested the NHL and likely NFL would eventually take up residence, well, I would have accused them of downing a few too many shots of Spirytus Delikatesowy.

And immediately corrected them on the Mayberry comment.

Contact columnist Ed Graney at egraney@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4618. He can be a heard on “Seat and Ed” on Fox Sports 1340 from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday. Follow @edgraney on Twitter.