Raiders' move to Las Vegas caps embarrassing 15 months for NFL

After the Oakland Raiders made their relocation proposal to the NFL's 31 other owners Monday, a vote was held without a single question being asked.

With all but one owner voting in favor, and without a whimper, a team was ripped from its fans.

Another team, that is.

The move caps a shameful 15-month stretch for the "mighty" NFL that would have seemed impossible as few as five years ago.

The St. Louis Rams kicked it off by becoming the Los Angeles Rams in January 2016, a move that had been foretold for years but always seemed a distant possibility.

The NFL is a behemoth, we said. Its franchises cannot fail. Los Angeles will eventually get a team, we thought, but probably an expansion team.

Only 12 months later, the San Diego Chargers meekly followed the Rams to Los Angeles. The floodgates of failure were wide open.

Now, little more than a year after the Rams packed their trucks, a third team is on the move.

Money talks, and the Raiders were wooed to Las Vegas by the promise of $750 million in public money to spend on a new stadium.

More importantly, each NFL owner will net more than $50 million as the result of relocation fees from the Rams', Chargers', and Raiders' moves.

Maybe it's just the new reality of sports business in the 21st century. Maybe fans in St. Louis, San Diego, and Oakland will get over it and find a new love. Maybe we'll all get used to the idea that franchises move when it's advantageous, and that fans can't claim any ownership over a team.

But maybe the NFL has passed a threshold from which there is no going back. Maybe it can't reasonably ask for the loyalty of any fan ever again. Maybe the most successful sports league on the planet isn't just showing some cracks, it's coming apart.