If Plan A doesn’t work out and Plan B doesn’t work out, and Plan C and D don’t look so good, then it’s always smart to have a Plan E, and it looks like the Raiders have that in their relocation playbook: Las Vegas.
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With stadium talks not progressing in Oakland, San Antonio has courted the team and San Diego also could be in play if the Chargers move to Los Angeles.
The lack of an updated facility is what has the team looking to leave Oakland, whose municipal authorities have thus far resisted allocating public funds to such a project. UNLV President Len Jessup and Las Vegas Sands executives confirmed the meeting to 8 News NOW.
Andy Abboud, Las Vegas Sands’ senior vice president of government relations and community development, said the stadium will be built, even if the Raiders do not move to Las Vegas.
According to a story on Thursday in the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Raiders owner Mark Davis is scheduled to meet Friday with casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, “possibly to discuss stadium details”, the story said. “We see a lot more opportunities – conference championships, bowl games, NFL exhibition football, boxing, soccer, neutral site games, and music festivals”.
And while Las Vegas may be a relatively small media market at No. 41 nationally, it is bigger than four other current National Football League markets in Jacksonville (No. 48), New Orleans (No. 51), Buffalo (No. 52) and Green Bay (No. 68), per last year’s Nielsen data.
Las Vegas has been overlooked by professional sports franchises because it is home to legalized sports betting.
The stadium would be built on 42 acres of land near Tropicana Avenue and Koval Lane that is now owned by UNLV. Get wined and dined by the Las Vegas elite, of course!
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The Raiders do not have a lease at Oakland’s O.co Coliseum but are in discussions to play at the stadium in 2016.
