Mark Davis Won't Talk About How He Ruthlessly Fired Raiders Team President for Reporting an Alleged Hostile Work Environment to the NFL
Stephen Maturen. Getty Images.Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown.
When you sit atop the power structure of a major enterprise, it's almost inevitable that people will come after you. Often those who have been in a position of trust. And sometimes circumstances require you to stop at nothing in order to hold onto your power.
It happened with Michael Corleone. It happened with Tony Soprano. It happened with Walter White. It happened with Wendy and Marty Byrde. Not to mention kings and queens and emperors and presidents throughout history. Being in a position of power and influence, by its very nature, attracts the attention of ambitious people around you and makes you a target. And there are moments when the only way to prevent your own blood from spilling is to spill theirs first.
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And there is no more powerful and ambitious figure in all of business right now than Mark Davis. This calculating, cold-blooded mogul didn't claw his way to the top of the Raiders food chain just by being the son of team founder and legendary maverick Al Davis. There is more to this football kingpin than simply winning Megamillions in the Sperm Lottery.
No, Davis the Younger got where he is through guile, wits and cunning. By recognizing threats and, whenever necessary, neutralizing them. Often brutally. The way Stalin or Mao would purge the upper levels of their regimes in order to eliminate anyone they perceived as not loyal to them, Davis too has run the sewers of Las Vegas red with the blood of his adversaries.
Take the latest example. Raiders president Dan Vantrelle accused Davis of misconduct, reported him to the league, and now is gone.
Source - Dan Ventrelle is no longer with the team, owner Mark Davis announced Friday, and the former Raiders interim president said it’s because he tried to act as a whistleblower over the team’s working conditions. …
Ventrelle told the Review-Journal on Friday afternoon that he was fired in retaliation for him alerting the NFL that Davis ignored concerns that there was a hostile-work environment within the organization.
“I have committed almost 18 years of my life to the success of the Raiders as General Counsel and President,” Ventrelle said in a texted statement. “I take that responsibility very seriously, which is why multiple written complaints from employees that Mark created a hostile work environment and engaged in other potential misconduct caused me grave concern.”
Ventrelle said when he confronted Davis about the issues that he was dismissive of them. So, Ventrelle took the matter to league officials.
“(He) did not demonstrate the warranted level of concern,” Ventrelle said. “Given this, I informed the NFL of these issues and of Mark’s unacceptable response. Soon thereafter, I was fired in retaliation for raising these concerns. … I firmly stand by my decision to elevate these issues to protect the organization and its female employees." …
When reached by the Review-Journal early Friday evening, Davis said: “I’ve heard about (Ventrelle’s) statement, but I won’t comment on it. The only thing I want made clear is that Dan Ventrelle was never president of the Raiders. He has always been the interim president. He was never named president.The interim was always a temporary designation to determine whether he would be the (full-time) president or not. I want that clear — he is not the president of the Las Vegas Raiders. Never was. I think there’s a misconception about that.”
Absolutely fiendish. Mark Davis may come across as the runt of the NFL owners' litter, but he is not to be underestimated. The guy is a Sith Lord. He will cut your professional throat, watch the light leave your eyes, then go home to his preposterously elaborate lair and sleep like a baby. I mean, he not only shitcans his accuser, he makes it out like the guy never really worked for him. Despite being the club (interim) president and being in the organization for 18 years. That's the kind of thing you hear about in Orwell's 1984, where the government will erase any mention of you from the records, so it's like you never existed. With one statement, Davis made Ventrelle into an UnPerson.
Best of luck to the new regime coming in. GM Dave Zeigler and HC Josh McDaniels just got hired to run the Raiders enterprise by a man who can and will eliminate anyone who crosses him, cast them out, and wipe any evidence of your existence from memory. And that's before we've even gotten to hear word one about Ventrelle's allegations of a hostile work environment from the female employees. The NFL claims it's launching an investigation, but who even knows where that will go. When a guy this ruthless is the subject of the inquiry, had a $2 billion stadium built for him, and gives no fucks about the man who ran his franchise? Well that's a man even the NFL doesn't want to cross. You do not want to be on the hurtin' side of one Mark Davis.