text: Even though this arrangement was acceptable to the NFL and the Oilers at the time, few people in either Memphis or Nashville were happy about it. After numerous attempts to get an NFL team over the last three decades, Memphians wanted nothing to do with a team that would be lost in only two years—especially to longtime rival Nashville. Conversely, Nashvillians showed little inclination to drive over  to see "their" team.  At the time, Interstate 40 was in the midst of major reconstruction in the Memphis area, lengthening the normal three-hour drive between Nashville and Memphis to five hours.
  In Memphis, attendance was even worse than it had been in the team's final season in Houston. The Oilers played before some of the smallest NFL crowds since the 1950s, with none of the first seven games of the season attracting crowds larger than 27,000, with two crowds of less than 18,000. The few fans there were usually indifferent, and often those that attended were fans of the opposing team. Attendance was smaller than what the USFL's Memphis Showboats had drawn and what the XFL's Memphis Maniax would draw to the same stadium. It appeared that only large contingents of fans supporting the Oilers' opponents kept average attendance from dropping below what it had been for the CFL's Memphis Mad Dogs.