As Ian Rapoport of NFL.com reported over the weekend, the Raiders have filed relocation papers to move from Oakland to Las Vegas. The Mark Davis-led Raiders will now need to receive approval from 24 NFL owners to relocate, and that vote will likely take place in March.
The city of Oakland made “no progress” in retaining the team, Rapoport noted, and few believe that their proposal for a new stadium is “credible.” The Raiders have been looking to move out of Oakland Alameda Coliseum, their home from 1966-1981 and again since 1995, but they’ll spend the next two seasons there even if the league approves their move, according to Paul Gutierrez of ESPN.com.
As the Raiders continue in Oakland for a couple more years, construction will preumsably get underway on a Las Vegas stadium sometime soon. The Raiders have a $1.9 billion proposed facility in the works, but $650MM of that is supposed to come from casino magnate Sheldon Adelson. There have been bumps in the road in negotiations between him and the Raiders, so it’s unclear whether Adelson will be part of the plan. The rest of the money will come from the the Raiders ($500MM) and a record in public money ($750MM) via hotel room tax revenue. The Raiders have also suggested a plan that would allow the team to finance a new stadium via Goldman Sachs advisors.
For what it’s worth, Rapoport noted previously that the league’s owners aren’t as opposed to the idea of the Raiders going from Oakland to Vegas as originally anticipated. The plan is “making progress and gathering momentum,” which should be good news to Davis.
The Chargers announced their move from San Diego to Los Angeles last week, which came a year after the Rams relocated from St. Louis to LA. The Raiders departing their longstanding home would further shake up the league.
I have followed the raiders since September 1960.They WERE NOT the raiders in LA, they WILL NOT be the raiders in LV !!!!!!!!!!!! The Oakland Raiders will soon ‘belong to the ages’. Fond memories will have to do.
As a kid growing up in the 80s the Raiders played basketball against the teachers at my school. In the city of Los Angeles. I understand you being upset but I’m tires of watching football games on a baseball field. There are sewage problems and the entire area around the stadium is boarded up buildings and aged city. Yet the city and Libby schaef try to spin it and say they’ve done all they can to keep the Raiders there. That’s a bunch of crap. If Oakland wants to be taken serious it needs to be cleaned up. They pushed the Raiders and Mark Davis away. Go ahead and have memories of Oakland, I’m a Raider fan and believe in their future. While I do believe the Raiders are Oakland, they’ll never get a stadium built in Oakland or clean up the city. It’s a shame but the closesness to Sacramento must have some sort of affect on the dirty politicians. California makes more money than most countries but cant fix their cities, very sad.
They’ll have no success there, realize Las Vegas isn’t a pro sports town, then move somewhere else. Toronto Raiders? San Diego Raiders? Mexico City Raiders? St Louis Raiders?
They’ll be fine in Vegas! They have a really good organization now, from Mark Davis to McKensie to JDR! The vast majority of their best players are very young and just entering their prime! Vegas is a grown community with families and the Raiders will not only to “the new hot thing”, but they’ll be very good if not great. Plus if you know the LA market at all, and know how many Raider fans are in the inland empire and east park of LA then you know they will make that 3 hour drive many time during the football season. Throw in the “cool crowd” who are just in town to be seen and the locals and the Raiders will do fine in Vegas! I feel bad for the fans in Oakland because they are some of the best fans of a team in any sport and deserves to keep there team. But in this day and time no owner is going to play in that stadium and not look to move when they are getting $750mil from somewhere else.
Completely agree. IE, LA, and OC fans will gladly make that drive, not to mention the fans that are already transplants from CA. I don’t think attendance/support will be an issue. If it were any team other than the Raiders, yes, I do think there would be a good chance the move would fail.
LGBT Raven, in your opinion they won’t have success. Unless you’ve done studies you have no clue what you’re talking about. Just being negative hater. Players will want to play in Vegas because of no state tax. How do you know it’s not a pro sports team if it’s never been tried?
Sure, I’m sure there won’t be any conflicts of interest having a casino fund a sports team. Don’t worry, it’s not like EVERY SINGLE HOME LOSS will be scrutinized and raise unanswerable questions. Nahhh, none of that I’m sure.
Dianxue, why does it matter if the team is in Vegas? All peo sports are already bet on. You’ve been watching too many movies. No team in Vegas has a better chance at throwing games than a team in any other city.
The Raiders would lease the Stadium from the casino guy. He wants part of the team. Not gonna happen. Besides the financials are there to build without him.
If Goldman Sachs bails out me and my buddies will cover it. pure words so far.
ᴍy ᴜɴᴄʟᴇ ʜᴀyᴅᴇɴ ʀᴇᴄᴇɴᴛʟy ɢᴏᴛ ᴀ ꜱᴛᴜɴɴɪɴɢ ʀᴇᴅ ʜyᴜɴᴅᴀɪ ᴠᴇʀᴀᴄʀᴜᴢ ꜱᴜᴠ ꜰʀᴏᴍ ᴏɴʟy ᴡᴏʀᴋɪɴ ᴩᴀʀᴛᴛɪᴍᴇ ᴏɴ ᴀ ʜᴏᴍᴇ ᴄᴏᴍᴩᴜᴛᴇʀ. ᴠɪꜱɪᴛ ᴛʜᴇ ᴡᴇʙꜱɪᴛᴇ
>>>>>>>>>>>>>JOBSSITS.TK
Is this the real world, or some 10 year old’s franchise mode game on Madden??
Milwaukee Raiders
Raiders should just move to Sacramento since it’s so close to Oakland. They’d still keep all their fans from the Bay Area since it’s only a 1 hour drive
Yeah, but who wants to be in Sacramento? That’s just jumping to another city that’s kind of meh. Vegas is a better option in my opinion, and I can see them not having attendance issues, and probably pulling fans away from the rams quite frankly.
I live in Vegas and can’t wait.
People will not see the immediate connection, here, but as Seattle Supersonics fan I thank the Raiders.
Vegas inheriting an NFL team greatly decreases the likelihood that Vegas can win a bid for an NBA team in the near future – despite their building a brand new, state-of-the-art NBA facility to house a team.
That in turn increases the likelihood that Seattle will be one of the cities to win an expansion bid when the NBA decides to expand, which I believe will happen soon.
The talent is getting much better in hoops, so I predict that NBA Commissioner Adam Silver and the NBA board of governors will warm up to the idea of expanding within the next three years.
They are conservative, so they will want to wait at least a decade before moving into Vegas – if they ever move there at all.