The Raiders are on their way to Las Vegas, and this is owner Mark Davis' deal, of course.
He assembled the money, when many of us-and many in the NFL-thought he couldn't. He made the pitch to his fellow owners. This is his mega-deal and should be credited (or cursed) as such.
Mark Davis' deal, his historic moment, the signature move of his life.
But if you talk to people around these negotiations, who know exactly how the Raiders lined up the financing, the political will, and then the wherewithal to drive today's 31-1 ownership approval vote for relocation to Nevada... they all point to one man...
And it's not Mark Davis.
It's Dallas owner Jerry Jones.
Who has now helped the 49ers into the Levi's Stadium gold mine, brokered the deal to get the Rams into Inglewood, Calif., and then the Chargers there, too, and now has guided the Raiders to Las Vegas, due to start playing in the new stadium by 2019 or 2020.
Oh, and by the way, Jones owns a major chunk of Legends, a hospitality-marketing company that will now sell the suites and sponsorships for the Las Vegas stadium (with potentially the largest naming-rights deal ever), is selling them for the Rams and Chargers in LA, and sold out the suites and sponsorships for Levi's.
The result of all four teams' new stadium activity in the last four or five years? Hundreds of millions of dollars for Legends, I'm told, and if Las Vegas takes off, Jones' company is potentially set to become more valuable, by itself, than most NFL franchises.
And Jones will have sway over all these teams, naturally, most especially the 49ers, whose current team president, Al Guido, is a former Legends executive.
So why is Jones doing this? Clearly, this is a profitable endeavor for him, and he has strong reasons to want to solidify those four teams for the good of the NFL.
But he and his company have also pried themselves into this power broker role because he saw the financial weaknesses of each team ... and inserted himself and his company to help fix things.
Which is what has happened.
Certainly pulling teams from St. Louis, San Diego and Oakland all within a two-year stretch ... and I guess you could add San Francisco in there as a ditched-city ... is a wrenching part of the Jones master plan.
But are the franchises more stable now? Probably or definitely. Does it mean more money for the NFL? Likely. And for Jones? Absolutely.
Why are the teams letting Jones do this? For one, nobody has ever gone broke doing business with Legends.
Beyond that, each team had its specific reasons-and remember, each time Jones leverages one of these deals, he only grows more powerful leading into the next deal.
You want to bet against Jones now after he ramrodded the last few deals? He'll just flatten you.
Mark Davis knew where the power center was-in Dallas, with Legendsafter he and Chargers owner Dean Spanos got flattened themselves when they tried to move to Carson.
That one caused some bitterness between Mark Davis and Jones, but remember that Jones idolized Al Davis and it's not hard to imagine Jones making sure that Davis and the Raiders had a soft landing after Jones cut the deal to keep them out of LA.
The soft landing arrived when the Nevada legislature voted to provide $750M to the Raiders' Las Vegas stadium effort.
That was money that Oakland could never and should never have committed to any project like this.
Once that happened, even after casino magnate Sheldon Adelson was pushed out of the deal, Jones made sure Las Vegas was going to happen for the Raiders-even bringing in Bank of America to take Adelson's place in the financing.
This is going to result in a large annual debt-service payment for Mark Davis, and it's a number that many around the league aren't sure he can muster ... if the suites and PSLs don't come in strongly. But, of course, Jones' company is in charge of a lot of that.
What's guaranteeing that loan? It's the power and heft of the NFL, and right now, that's Jones.
And the most remarkable thing (to me) is this: Jones/Legends will reap all this profit from these moves, while the team owners are the ones taking the financial risk.
But again, Jones' role essentially guarantees limited risk for the moving franchises-his company lands the big sponsorship and suite deals, he helps negotiate the relocation fees, the fees come as a percentage of the increased revenue... everybody wins.
Except for the fans from the ditched cities, but that, for Jones and his partners, is just a minor price of doing business.
So what happens while the Las Vegas stadium is under construction? That's at least two years away, maybe three, and for 2017 at least, the Raiders are committed to playing at the Coliseum.
Beyond that, Davis said he hopes to continue playing in Oakland until the Vegas stadium is ready, but it remains up in the air and I have heard repeatedly that playing home games at Levi's in 2018 or 2019 is a live possibility.
It's all going to be awkward. Less awkward if the Raiders remain successful on the field, but still awkward for everybody.
Also: Because the NFL likes to maintain leverage, Oakland will be discussed as a new "open" market for a possible relocation from some other team, probably underlined by Jerry Jones.
And so will sharing Levi's Stadium.
Can you imagine if talks to try to lure a team to the Bay Area occur... while the "Oakland" Raiders are still playing at the Coliseum or Levi's?
Meanwhile, the A's, who were probably the team that wanted out the most five years ago, are the only major-league Oakland sports team that has no plans to leave.
(The Warriors' San Francisco arena is due to open in a little over two years.)
This is a massive opportunity for the A's to take over the East Bay, and a bit of a responsibility, if they're ready for it.
The city of Oakland basically limited what it could offer to the Raiders because it didn't want to agree to anything that would blow up their chances to get an A's stadium done on the Coliseum property; I don't think that was the deal-killer, but it certainly was a factor in the Raiders' decision.
So ... now all attention can turn to the A's and only the A's.
If owner John Fisher can come up with a real plan for a new stadium on the Coliseum site, there is nothing stopping him-and in fact, the MLB powers have been waiting for the Raiders' exit for years now.
It just happened. The Raiders' stalemate is over. They're heading out the door, which opens every possibility for the A's, who should be ready for this.