The Las Vegas Raiders have decided to hit the road for training camp this year, but if you’re a fan of the team, you probably shouldn’t plan on following them to their new location.
The Raiders will be in the Los Angeles area for training camp and although the team is extremely popular there, fans won’t be able to attend any camp practices due to an obscure NFL rule.
According to league policy, the Raiders decision to hold training camp near L.A. means they’re essentially infringing on the home territory of both the Rams and Chargers, and because of that, they’ll be facing a few restrictions.
Not only are fans mostly banned, but the team isn’t even allowed to advertise the fact that they’re going to be in Los Angeles. Also, the Raiders aren’t allowed to invite any local media from the L.A. area. The team will invite a few season-ticket holders and several VIPs to attend practice during their 18-day stay, but pretty much everyone else is going to be shut out.
“Every club has an exclusive home territory extending 75 miles in all directions from the exterior corporate borders of the city for which it holds a franchise. If another club holds its preseason training camp within that exclusive territory then it cannot be marketed locally,” the policy states, via ESPN.com.
The Raiders are holding camp in Costa Mesa, California, which is about 40 miles from downtown Los Angeles. The rookies have already reported to camp and the veterans will be joining them on Tuesday.
The Chargers and Rams could have given the Raiders permission to promote their trip to L.A., but the two teams blocked that from happening, according to Raiders owner Mark Davis. And at this point, changing the location of training camp isn’t an option.
“That’s where we’re having camp, but the Chargers and Rams have the ability to block us from [promoting.] It’s fine,” Davis told ESPN.”It would be nice if all the fans could be there, but, whatever. Like I said, the Chargers and Rams have that ability.”
The Raiders spent 13 seasons in Los Angeles (1982-94), so they’re extremely popular in the area and it seems that the Chargers and Rams just didn’t want to compete with that popularity. The Cowboys are also holding training camp near L.A. (in Oxnard), but they started holding camp there before the Chargers and Rams made the move to Los Angeles, so the Cowboys don’t need to get permission from either team to invite fans or advertise that they’re going to be there.
Although fans won’t be able to attend practice in Southern California, the Raiders will be holding two practices that will be open to the public once they get back to Las Vegas in August.
The Raiders actually held training camp in in Southern Nevada for the past four years, but they decided to relocate this year because new coach Antonio Pierce thinks that going out of town for training camp can help with team unity.
“Team bonding. Getting together, getting to know one another. Getting away from all the distractions. All about ball, just ball,” Pierce told the media on Sunday. “I want us to be the tightest group of Raiders that, hopefully, this organization has ever seen and that’s what we’re going to grow and build on.”
The Raiders only have a one-year contract to do training camp in Costa Mesa, so there’s a good chance that they’ll be heading somewhere else for camp in 2025, especially since the Rams and Chargers don’t really seem to want them in Los Angeles.
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