Legit 'Las Vegas Raiders' obstacles that aren't gambling related

Despite Jerry Jones and Robert Kraft publicly supporting the Oakland Raiders moving to Las Vegas, there will be obstacles. The main one has nothing to do with gambling.

There will be the gambling issue of course because the NFL's history against Las Vegas and gambling is very consistent. And there is the stadium issue. Just because Raiders owner Mark Davis pledged $500 million, that doesn't mean it'll get built. It wouldn't be something new in Las Vegas for a big project to be hyped, only to see it never get off the ground. There's also the issue of whether the NFL is using Las Vegas as its new Los Angeles, and scaring existing cities with the threat of moving to Vegas, like it did with L.A. for 21 years.

But there's a real concern, and it's simply whether Las Vegas can sustain an NFL team.

Vegas is not a big market. It's 40th in television market size, less than one-third the size of the Bay Area. It's not a tiny town, but it's also a step down for the NFL, which is always worried about its bottom line. The Raiders would need to capture a market that is filled with transplants who presumably already root for a team, if they follow the NFL. In 2011 the Las Vegas Sun said Nevada had by far the most transplants living there of any U.S. state, with only 24 percent of its residents born in Nevada.

Las Vegas isn't a bad sports town. UNLV basketball has a great following. UNLV football doesn't, but that's because it has a lackluster stadium well away from campus, and it's UNLV football. But Las Vegas is also a unique market and we really don't know what would happen if a pro team moves there.

[Yahoo Fantasy Football is open for the 2016 season. Sign up now]

Give Davis this: He knows that his team would need to win over a local fan base to survive.

"We're not looking to make this something where fans are going to fly in every week for the games," Davis said, according to NFL.com. "To fly down for 10 games a year might not be a thing that would happen for a lot of people. We want to have a local fan base and that's very important for us and I think that's something Las Vegas would like to have as well."

The "tourists will fill the stadium!" idea gets tossed around often. Even Kraft mentioned it at this week's NFL spring meeting.

"I bet you every visiting team would have a lot of fans going there for weekends," the New England Patriots owner said, according to the Associated Press.

These pie-in-the-sky ideas that the Raiders will be supported by tourists, Californians or random gamblers living it up in Vegas over a weekend don't hold up very well.

Tourists will come from out of town

Yes, they certainly will. Especially in the first few years, when the idea is novel. But how much is "a lot"? Figure this, if the Pittsburgh Steelers are playing the Las Vegas Raiders, how many people are coming from Pittsburgh for it? Well if you expect even 10,000 visiting fans to help fill the stadium, that's about 65-70 full flights (on a 737) from Pittsburgh to Vegas with nothing but people planning to go to the game. If you've had the thought that 25,000 visiting people will help fill Vegas' stadium every single week, do the math. That's not realistic.

There will be some tourists who come specifically to see their team play in Vegas, surely. But figuring you can build a fan base just off of that is foolish. Not to mention: Are Denver Broncos and Kansas City Chiefs fans flying out 20,000 deep every single year? I know, I know, you think you will, but the novelty will wear off. And are you even getting close to 10,000 Tennessee Titans or Tampa Bay Buccaneers or Carolina Panthers fans out when the Raiders host those teams? Getting 10,000 visitors in town for a game is a lot, and that might happen a few times. It is not happening every home game, every season.

Raiders fans in California will drive or fly in every week

Again, no question there will be many who do so early on. And the Raiders have great and loyal support in Northern and Southern California, and some will be regulars to attend games in Vegas. But you're not building a fan base to fill a 65,000-seat stadium just on that. Driving? I don't know how many of you have driven from Las Vegas to Los Angeles on a Sunday night, but on a normal Sunday a drive that should take four hours might take twice that long. Traffic is brutal. And if thousands of people are hitting Interstate 15 to get back to California at 5 p.m. when the game is done? Good luck. And it's not going to be appealing to make that drive there and back in the sixth Las Vegas Raiders season, when it's Week 16 and the 4-10 Raiders are hosting the 5-9 Detroit Lions.

And some of those fans will choose to fly to Las Vegas and back, but there aren't that many flights leaving Las Vegas to LAX after Sunday afternoon games let out, and plenty of Californians who are way more interested in going to Wet Republic on Sunday than an NFL game are buying those flights too. The Raiders can't plan on having a bulk of its fan base living 250 or more miles away.

Casinos will buy up all the expensive seats/boxes and random tourists will want to go

People have a perception of Las Vegas casino companies printing cash. Well, in 2015 Caesars Entertainment, one of the two companies that controls most of the Las Vegas Strip casinos, filed bankruptcy protection because it had $18.4 billion in debt. MGM Properties has been cutting costs and pushing ways to create revenue (including charging for parking) with its Profit Growth Plan. The idea that Vegas casinos will happily drop millions for every luxury box in the stadium and give them out to high rollers probably isn't realistic.

And will there be tourists who go watch an NFL game even if it doesn't involve their favorite team? Some, sure. But plenty of people check out of their hotel before noon on Sunday and head home, and wouldn't spend all afternoon at a random NFL game before heading to the airport. And if you give a tourist a choice of paying $100 for a ticket to watch the Raiders host the Jacksonville Jaguars, or sit in a sports book and watch all the games on an NFL Sunday, plenty are picking the latter.

Again, the NFL can't rely on these unrealistic methods to fill a large portion of a Las Vegas stadium. There needs to be proof that Las Vegas itself can sustain the team — and I won't rule out that happening, it's just uncertain now.

"The gambling is one thing, but I'm more curious to find out whether the market is deep enough to support a team," Giants owner John Mara said, according to ESPN. "Those are things that have to be figured out before it can be seriously considered."

The idea of a team in Las Vegas is fun for just about everyone, but there will be challenges involved. Don't book your rooms at Cosmopolitan for that 2019 Las Vegas Raiders-Green Bay Packers tilt just yet folks, there are a lot more questions that need be answered before an NFL team in Sin City becomes reality.

- - - - - - -

Frank Schwab is the editor of Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at shutdown.corner@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @YahooSchwab