Oakland can’t pursue antitrust claims over Raiders’ move to Las Vegas

The National Football League will not have to face renewed antitrust claims over the Raiders' decision to move from Oakland to Las Vegas, a U.S. magistrate judge ruled.

Calling the city's allegations "unorthodox," Magistrate Judge Joseph Spero found the NFL's 32-team structure and relocation fees are not anticompetitive.

"In [a] hypothetical world, what would prevent Las Vegas from offering a more attractive deal, as in fact occurred?" he wrote in a Thursday order.

In 2018, Oakland sued the NFL and the Raiders, accusing them of operating as a "cartel" to extract significantly larger payments for stadium construction and maintenance than would be possible in a truly competitive market.

The lawsuit was dismissed last year but Oakland was given a chance to fix defects. It again came up short. City of Oakland v. The National Football League, 18-CV-07444 (N.D. Cal., filed Dec. 11, 2018).

Attorneys at Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP and Covington & Burling LLP representing the NFL and the Oakland City Attorney's Office did not immediately respond to requests for comment Friday.

The Raiders paid $378 million to relocate to Las Vegas after two-thirds of the league's teams approved the move. Oakland argued the fee increased the likelihood that other teams would vote to approve the relocation because they stood to make money by doing so.

But Spero found the payment actually protects existing host cities. While he agreed with plaintiffs it incentivized teams to pass relocation efforts once the Raiders committed to it, he said the process, at that stage, does not impair competition.

"In a market entirely lacking such restraints, no approval from the NFL would have been necessary, and the Raiders' decision to relocate to Las Vegas would have been the end of the story," he wrote.

As to claims the NFL's 32-team limit is anticompetitive, Oakland failed to show the Raiders would have remained if more teams were allowed and a structure that should alternatively be implemented, according to the order.

In its renewed complaint, plaintiffs' attorneys at the city attorney's office and Pearson, Simon & Warshaw, LLP added claims the Raiders have historically played in Oakland and that a recent economic analysis ranked it as the top city for an NFL team. The number of teams has not increased at a rate commensurate with the U.S. population or the number of cities capable of supporting one, they argued.

Spero called the argument "halfhearted." He found Oakland is not objecting to the limit on the number of teams but rather that it no longer has one.

"It would seem that Oakland simply wishes it could have kept one of those teams for itself, and benefited from the prestige and economic windfall that derive from that scarcity, without paying the supracompetitive price that also arises from it," he wrote.

And regardless of the merits of the claims, Spero concluded the alleged harm is not recoverable under antitrust law.

Oakland argued damages for lost investment value, taxes, and rental income from the Raiders' leasing of the Oakland Coliseum. Spero found only injuries for "commercial interests" could be sought.

Before relocating, the Raiders and Oakland were in a protracted dispute over a new stadium.

Shortly after the city pledged $350 toward the effort, the team announced its departure to Las Vegas, which had state support to commit $750 million toward the construction of a new $2.5 billion stadium. The Raiders are set to begin playing there this season.