RUSH: Now, here it is. Here’s the story about the NFL. You know, I saw this earlier this week. It’s in the Stack of things unrelated to the campaign, and that’s a huge Stack. There’s so much good stuff piling up in there that has nothing to do with the campaign, and I’ve set it aside because everybody’s focus right now is on the presidential race.
But one of these things, the Los Angeles market has not had a football team since 1990 some odd, when the Raiders went back to Oakland. And it’s been great for people in LA because they haven’t had a home team; they have to watch on TV, which means if the home team sucks, you have to watch the home team games home and road. LA hasn’t had to do that. LA’s gotten the best games on TV, over-the-air broadcast, every weekend. That’s gonna change now. Now they’ve got to watch the Rams. But the NFL said look, it’s the number two market. We cannot not be there.
So this long, arduous process began to select a couple teams, max, one team to go there, maybe two. The way it’s ended up, the St. Louis Rams have left and they’re gonna go to Los Angeles, gonna go back to Los Angeles. Stan Kroenke, the owner, has promised to build this massive new facility in Inglewood near the airport, near LAX. And the owners saw his presentation, this is incredible, this is just incredible. Plus all the relocation fees, $550 million to move your team, you have to pay the league. It was a deal they couldn’t turn down.
There was an alternative deal in Carson, California, that involved the Raiders and the San Diego Chargers going and occupying one stadium, and that was thought to be the deal that everybody preferred, until Kroenke made his presentation on January 12th and blew the Carson deal out of the water. So the way it’s ended up is that the San Diego Chargers, who’ve had trouble getting a new stadium in San Diego, which is said to be due to the people of San Diego unwilling to use public money to help build a stadium, new stadium, the Chargers were given a year to make a deal with Kroenke and decide to move to LA with him, become the Los Angeles Chargers, two teams in that new stadium. And then that depended whether or not they wanted to take equity in the whole operation, become partners with Kroenke or just tenants. So they had to put that deal together.
In the process of all of this happening, it was learned why the league opted for Kroenke and did not go for the Carson initiative which had the Chargers and the Raiders there. “In a comprehensive look at the furious battle for Los Angeles among the Rams, Chargers, and Raiders in ESPN, one passage alludes to the concern regarding Raiders fans, as follows: ‘Most owners wanted to avoid a Raiders return to Los Angeles,'” because they still hate Al Davis, even though he’s passed away. Oh, oh, I can say something now, by the way. Owing to the Al Davis burning bridges, the league, even though many of the owners were not even owners when Al Davis was, they still hate the guy, constantly suing the league, Pete Rozelle and all that.
Plus this. “Most owners wanted to avoid a Raiders return to Los Angeles because of the co-opting of Raiders team apparel,” by Southern California gangs, concerns so deep that some wouldn’t even consider Carson. The bottom line, what’s been revealed here is that deep in the bowels of NFL hearings, meetings, somebody said, “We don’t want the Raiders back anywhere in LA, Carson, Inglewood, Southern California, we don’t want ’em anywhere because gangs here are gonna co-opt ’em and the Raiders are gonna end up wearing gang apparel and the gangs are gonna wear Raiders apparel and we don’t want this kind of an image in the NFL.”
Now, some of you probably know this, but others of you might not. And it’s not just true of the National Football League. Have you noticed — like for those of you fans of Rutgers, what’s the name of the Rutgers — Scarlet Knights or something. Their color is red. UCLA, powder blue. Have you noticed that now and then they wear all black uniforms or all black jerseys? Do you know why this is? You don’t know why this is? No. The players want this because black is an acknowledged gang color. That’s why so many NFL teams have a third alternative jersey that has black.
The Detroit Lions never wore black in a hundred thousand years until a couple years ago. The Carolina Panthers in the Super Bowl, their colors are not black. They’re Columbia blue and silver and white. All of a sudden the past couple, three or four years they’ve had black. Baltimore Ravens, purple and white, never black, but all of a sudden they’ve got black. My point here is the NFL is worried about something that’s already happened. I know, people that don’t know this are hearing this and thinking, “My God, this Limbaugh guy is off his –” Before you challenge me on this, I challenge you, do your own work on this, Google search it, whatever. There is no question.
I saw it referenced by a number of sportswriters who acknowledged that this was the subtle reason. Never announced that this is why. You’ll never find a story that announces this is why. It’s just the players wanted it. Coaches want to keep the players happy in this kind of regard. If wearing black makes ’em feel different, more dominant, whatever, fine. We don’t care. So put it in the color scheme, petition the league, takes a couple years, change the uniform or add an alternative color, and bammo, you’re in there.
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RUSH: By the way, this black uniform color business? It’s not just the National Football League. Some universities have been forced to add black to the uniforms, usually the jersey, in order to be able to recruit players. Players have demanded it, or they’re not gonna go to the school. Folks, the NFL, they have to know this. This idea that they want to keep the Raiders out of LA ’cause they’re worried about gangs co-opting Raiders apparel? Raiders apparel already can’t get more… I mean, it’s black and silver, and it’s got a pirate up there with a knife in his mouth and so forth. I mean, it’s The Black Hole, the fan base at the Oakland Coliseum. I just think it’s… The horse is out of the barn on this one.
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RUSH: Here’s Nathan in Clear Lake, California, it’s great to have you on the program. Hi.
CALLER: Hey, Rush. Thank you.
RUSH: You bet.
CALLER: What I wanted to talk about, you brought up the fact that the NFL has all these jerseys out and they’re alternate jerseys, and a lot of them are gang related, or can be gang related. When I was in high school, I was actually asked to remove some of my jerseys because of the colors that they were.
RUSH: Wait, wait, wait. Ho-ho-ho. Wait. You were asked, you mean you were a player?
CALLER: No. I was just a fan. I played high school football like my freshman year, but I didn’t get much farther than that.
RUSH: Wait a minute, now. You’re a fan and people are asking you to change your jerseys?
CALLER: Yeah. I was a Steelers fan, and still, you know, still bleed black and gold. But I’m up here in the San Francisco Bay area, and I had a supervisor, yard supervisor say — and this is just after the Steelers beat the Seahawks in the Super Bowl in 2005-2006, and one of the guys said, “Look, Nathan, I have to ask you to remove your jersey.” And I said, “Well, why?” And he says, “Because it’s black and gold.”
And I said, “Well, what’s that mean?” And he says, “Well, it’s Latin Kings colors.” And I don’t know what the Latin Kings were. I said, “What is that, a video game or something?” And he says, “No, it’s a street gang, and those are their colors, black and gold.” So I said, “Okay, fine.” Took it off. The next day I showed up wearing a Willie Mays jersey. And same thing, he says, “You either have to turn it inside out or you gotta take it off.” And I said okay —
RUSH: Wait a minute, Willie Mays never wore a black jersey. The gangs had not infiltrated baseball by then.
CALLER: Yeah, but what it was was the number 24 on the back. Apparently it’s related to the 24th Street gang or something like that.
RUSH: Wow. Now, you got average people on the street telling you this stuff. Take off your Steelers jersey because it’s black and gold and that’s the Latin Kings? Look, that may well be. (interruption) Well, I know. People get shot at over this kind of stuff. If you wear the wrong thing in the wrong gang neighborhood, yeah, and particularly if you’re doing it on purpose. It’s like, you know, waving red in front of a bull down in Mexico City. But this is a different thing than what’s going on with official team apparel.
Look, folks, you have to read between the lines here. I mean, I’m not gonna… College recruits are telling universities they’re not gonna come unless there is a black jersey as part of the uniform scheme. Who are we talking about here? The players are the ones who want to wear black because it symbolizes something to people they care about, okay? My only point here is for the NFL, for this to be… It’s an ESPN story, so that right there, okay?
Take it with a grain of salt. But still, the word out of these NFL meetings on moving the team to LA, is they didn’t want the Raiders ’cause they’re afraid that LA street gangs are gonna co-opt the Raiders apparel, and the league doesn’t want to be seen that way. My only point is, they already are. When a team that has never had black in its color scheme ends up wearing all black? You’ve seen black jersey, black pants. Where do you think that comes from? Go back 10, 15, 20, 30, 100 years. That was never any team’s official uniform.
You had to go to college or Pop Warner to find uniform colors and arrangements like that. But you know, Nike and Adidas have now become designers as well as manufacturers of these jerseys and so forth. So it’s… My only point here is the NFL, for all this talk about not wantin’ a gang takeover of the Raiders apparel? “Well, psst? Uhhh, have you seen over there?” That’s all I’m saying. And it’s not just me, folks. You can find this has been written about any number of places, in even the Drive-By sports pages.
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