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Raiders Owner Makes Pitch to Las Vegas

So don’t worry, Raiders fans.

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Davis said Thursday that he wants to move the team to Las Vegas and pledged $500 million toward the building of a proposed $1.4 billion domed stadium, according to ESPN’s Paul Gutierrez.

“Together we can turn the Silver State into the Silver-and-Black State”, Davis said at the SNTIC meeting. “You see that market in a new stadium for San Francisco, the success the Giants have had, and the Golden State (Warriors) basketball team is having”. Roski helped lead the development of the STAPLES Center in downtown Los Angeles and has an estimated net worth of $4.7 billion.

Cervera, 47, said he took a picture with Davis and handed him a club shirt.

During his pitch to a Nevada tourism committee, Davis sat next to soccer star David Beckham and appeared with billionaire casino mogul Sheldon Adelson of Las Vegas Sands Corp. And even then, Nevada’s Legislature must be convinced that the plan will be of public benefit. Davis would also likely owe the National Football League hundreds of millions of dollars as a relocation fee.

In Vegas, the final $680 million in stadium costs would be paid for by a proposed hotel tax that would mostly hit the pocketbook of tourists.

But the proposal announced Thursday and backed in part by the Las Vegas Sands casino company is still far from a done deal. Raiders flags were out in full force – and not a picket sign was in sight to protest the stadium project.

This is still up in the air, but things could move fast. The Chargers are lobbying for a new stadium in Los Angeles and have been given a year to work out a deal with the city. However, this idea has now officially moved from “Unlikely” to “Actually Might Happen”.

Sure, the Raiders sold out season tickets in Oakland for the first time.

Team could possibly stay and play in Oakland for as long as three seasons while a state-of-art stadium was being built in Las Vegas.

Watch Bleacher Report NFL insider Jason Cole discuss the Raiders in the video above.

On the morning of the NFL Draft, Oakland Raiders owner Mark Davis told reporters in Las Vegas that “The Las Vegas Raiders are now undefeated”.

The Rams ultimately won out and will play at the L.A. Coliseum until their new Inglewood Stadium opens in 2019. More importantly, they are offering a lot of funding for a stadium.

“Let’s give them an offer they can’t refuse”, Davis said. “We’ll fight for it”. “It’s now a matter of working with the community there to get the funding right and the project going”.

This put the Raiders back on the hunt.

Raiders and Oakland have been synonymous with each other for many years.

The Raiders owner seems to be serious about getting the other owners to allow the move from the city of Oakland to Las Vegas. Davis doesn’t think he’ll be waiting another 50 years to see his team play there again.

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Davis approached the Southern Nevada Tourism Infrastructure Committee, a committee formed past year by Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval (R) to “prioritize tourism improvement projects in southern Nevada, explore potential funding mechanisms to support new tourism-related initiatives” and make official recommendations on those subjects by this summer.

ASSOCIATED PRESS           Fans held up a sign for the Oakland Raiders to stay in Oakland before a Dec. 24 game between the Oakland Raiders and the San Diego Chargers in Oakland Calif. Raiders owner Mark Davis said he wants to move