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http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/1...s-officials-regarding-potential-stadium-sites
Raiders owner Mark Davis to meet with Las Vegas magnate
Paul GutierrezESPN Staff Writer
ALAMEDA, Calif. -- Las Vegas Sands chairman and CEO Sheldon Adelson wants to build a $1 billion domed stadium on the UNLV campus and is meeting with the owner of the Oakland Raiders, company officials confirmed Thursday.
The Sands Corp. announced that it was lending its support behind a public-private partnership to build a 65,000-seat, domed stadium on a vacant 42 acres of land recently purchased by UNLV near the corner of Tropicana Avenue and Koval Lane across from McCarran International Airport.
Adelson has scheduled a Friday meeting in Las Vegas with Raiders owner Mark Davis. Sands spokesman Ron Reese didn't elaborate on the nature of their discussions, and the Raiders declined to directly address the meeting.
"In typical Raider fashion," Davis said with a laugh over the phone from the Bay Area, "I can neither confirm nor deny."
UNLV president Len Jessup wrote in a confidential memo leaked earlier Thursday that representatives of the Raiders will be in Las Vegas on Friday to check out potential stadium sites.
"Correspondingly, the Sands leadership team let us know that officials from the Oakland Raiders are scheduled to travel to Las Vegas and tour locations around the valley for a potential new home, and they have asked us to meet them at our 42-acre site on Friday morning to answer questions about that site," Jessup wrote in the memo, which was reported earlier by Nevada political reporter Jon Ralston.
UNLV is looking for a new home for its football program, which has played at 35,500-seat Sam Boyd Stadium some nine miles from campus on the eastern edge of the city since 1971.
According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Los Angeles-based Majestic Realty Co. and UNLV are involved in the conceptual plans, and Las Vegas Sands senior vice president of government relations and community development Andy Abboud said the project would be a "public-private" partnership, with the Sands or the Adelson family contributing a large portion of the financing.
"He said the casino company, which operates the Venetian and Palazzo [casinos], as well as casinos in Macau, Singapore and Pennsylvania, could also raise financing for the project," the Review-Journal reported.
Mark Davis was coy when questioned by ESPN about a reported meeting he will hold in Las Vegas on Friday. Rob Carr/Getty Images
Tony Sanchez, UNLV's football coach, said "having an on-campus, state-of-the-art stadium would be huge."
"We have a nice stadium now; the location is just a little further out," said Sanchez, who grew up a die-hard Raiders fan in the Bay Area. "To have something on campus, right in the heart of Las Vegas, would change the entire game-day atmosphere. We're right near the Strip. People can walk or take public transportation. It would be a great addition for the city."
Davis has long stated that remaining in Oakland is his primary goal, but after being rebuffed in an attempt to move to Los Angeles and join the Chargers in a joint-stadium project in nearby Carson, the Raiders do not have a lease for a home stadium for the 2016 season. They do have the option to join the Rams in Inglewood should the Chargers decline.
It is expected that the Raiders will play at least the 2016 season in Oakland. They also have been linked to San Diego, should the Chargers go to Los Angeles, for the following years as well as to San Antonio.
The NFL has had a hard line against Las Vegas, and it is hard to see the league signing off on allowing a team to relocate to the gambling capital of the country. The NFL did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
Las Vegas has chased a major league franchise for almost two decades, including MLB and NBA teams. The city appears close to getting an NHL team in under-construction T-Mobile Arena between the New York-New York and Monte Carlo casinos. The ambitious 20,000-seat T-Mobile Arena, set to open in April, was privately funded by casino company MGM, a Las Vegas Sands competitor.
And while Las Vegas might be a relatively small media market at No. 41 nationally, it is bigger than four other current NFL markets in Jacksonville (No. 48), New Orleans (No. 51), Buffalo (No. 52) and Green Bay (No. 68), per last year's Nielsen data.
Support from Adelson, who has consistently ranked as one of the world's richest people, could mean a better fate for the latest proposal.
"Projects like this need a lot of very, very strong leadership, a lot of conviction, a lot of focus and great resources,'' said Craig Cavileer of Majestic Realty, the project's development partner. "Certainly, Sheldon and his team have proved time and time again that they produce great projects."
Information from ESPN's Kyle Bonagura and The Associated Press was used in this report.
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http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2016/01/28/nfl-likely-wont-let-raiders-move-to-las-vegas/
NFL likely won’t let Raiders move to Las Vegas
Posted by Mike Florio on January 28, 2016
Getty Images
As Oakland continues to show no willingness to subsidize a new Raiders in stadium, the Raiders keeping looking for ways to squeeze the the town’s acorns.
San Antonio didn’t make Oakland flinch. And no one currently is taking a move to San Diego seriously.
Enter Las Vegas.
Via Howard Stutz of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Raiders owner Mark Davis and Las Vegas Sands Chairman and CEO Sheldon Adelson are scheduled to meet on Friday, possibly to discuss stadium details.
The Sands is proposing a $1 billion stadium on 42 acres near UNLV, where the school’s team — and an NFL franchise — would play.
“We are moving forward with the stadium concept with or without an NFL team,” Sands’ senior vice president of government relations and community development Andy Abboud said Thursday. “We see a lot more opportunities — conference championships, bowl games, NFL exhibition football, boxing, soccer, neutral site games, and music festivals. There is an entire segment out there.”
It all sounds intriguing, intriguing enough to make “Las Vegas Raiders” into a Thursday night trending topic on Twitter. However, the NFL previously has made clear that it has no interest in moving a team to Las Vegas, due to the legality of sports gambling there. The league consistently has opposed the expansion of legalized gambling in states like New Jersey and Delaware, and the NFL said in 2013 that it’s unlikely that the league would stage the Pro Bowl or sanction any other game to be played in Las Vegas.
The NFL has yet to throw water on the idea of the Raiders moving to Las Vegas, possibly in an effort to get Oakland’s attention. But last year the NFL shut down an effort by Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo to host a fantasy-football convention at a non-gambling facility owned by, you guessed it, the Las Vegas Sands. It’s likely just a matter of time before the league makes it clear that the Raiders won’t be permitted to move to Las Vegas.
So the folks in Oakland, who have played this game of poker very well so far, aren’t about to freak out over the Raiders’ latest empty threat.
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http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.co...comment-on-the-raiders-las-vegas-flirtations/
NFL has no comment on the Raiders’ Las Vegas flirtations
Posted by Mike Florio on January 29, 2016
Getty Images
Given the NFL’s attitude toward gambling, along with the league’s past statements regarding staging games in Las Vegas, the knee-jerk reaction to the prospect of the Las Vegas Raiders is that it will never happen. Curiously, the league isn’t willing to say that, yet.
“We do not have a comment,” NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy told PFT via email. In 2013, McCarthy had a comment; he told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that legalized gambling in Las Vegas would likely keep the NFL from putting the Pro Bowl or preseason games there.
As many have pointed out, the league hardly has had consistent positions when it comes to gambling. The NFL gradually has expanded its presence in London, where betting parlors are as commonplace as sandwich shops, taking a “when in Rome” approach to the cultural acceptance of wagering there. Likewise, the league has embraced daily fantasy football for money, which the federal government says isn’t gambling — but which a growing number of states says is.
Ultimately, it doesn’t have to make sense or be consistent. It just has to get 24 of 32 votes from the league’s owner. The location of any team reflects a collective decision of NFL ownership, and there’s no rule or policy that automatically makes Las Vegas or any other location off limits. Plenty of factors go into the decision regarding whether and where a franchise moves.
One of the factors that likely has gone into the league’s position on the Raiders’ nascent flirtations with Las Vegas is this: The Raiders need a way to squeeze Oakland into helping build a stadium. Slamming the door preemptively on Vegas will make it harder to get money for nothing from the folks who currently are willing to do nothing to keep the Raiders.
So even if the NFL would never approve a move of the Raiders to Las Vegas, there’s no harm in withholding final judgment to see whether Oakland will continue withholding taxpayer money as more and more potential destinations for the franchise emerge.
Raiders owner Mark Davis to meet with Las Vegas magnate
Paul GutierrezESPN Staff Writer
ALAMEDA, Calif. -- Las Vegas Sands chairman and CEO Sheldon Adelson wants to build a $1 billion domed stadium on the UNLV campus and is meeting with the owner of the Oakland Raiders, company officials confirmed Thursday.
The Sands Corp. announced that it was lending its support behind a public-private partnership to build a 65,000-seat, domed stadium on a vacant 42 acres of land recently purchased by UNLV near the corner of Tropicana Avenue and Koval Lane across from McCarran International Airport.
Adelson has scheduled a Friday meeting in Las Vegas with Raiders owner Mark Davis. Sands spokesman Ron Reese didn't elaborate on the nature of their discussions, and the Raiders declined to directly address the meeting.
"In typical Raider fashion," Davis said with a laugh over the phone from the Bay Area, "I can neither confirm nor deny."
UNLV president Len Jessup wrote in a confidential memo leaked earlier Thursday that representatives of the Raiders will be in Las Vegas on Friday to check out potential stadium sites.
"Correspondingly, the Sands leadership team let us know that officials from the Oakland Raiders are scheduled to travel to Las Vegas and tour locations around the valley for a potential new home, and they have asked us to meet them at our 42-acre site on Friday morning to answer questions about that site," Jessup wrote in the memo, which was reported earlier by Nevada political reporter Jon Ralston.
UNLV is looking for a new home for its football program, which has played at 35,500-seat Sam Boyd Stadium some nine miles from campus on the eastern edge of the city since 1971.
According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Los Angeles-based Majestic Realty Co. and UNLV are involved in the conceptual plans, and Las Vegas Sands senior vice president of government relations and community development Andy Abboud said the project would be a "public-private" partnership, with the Sands or the Adelson family contributing a large portion of the financing.
"He said the casino company, which operates the Venetian and Palazzo [casinos], as well as casinos in Macau, Singapore and Pennsylvania, could also raise financing for the project," the Review-Journal reported.
Mark Davis was coy when questioned by ESPN about a reported meeting he will hold in Las Vegas on Friday. Rob Carr/Getty Images
Tony Sanchez, UNLV's football coach, said "having an on-campus, state-of-the-art stadium would be huge."
"We have a nice stadium now; the location is just a little further out," said Sanchez, who grew up a die-hard Raiders fan in the Bay Area. "To have something on campus, right in the heart of Las Vegas, would change the entire game-day atmosphere. We're right near the Strip. People can walk or take public transportation. It would be a great addition for the city."
Davis has long stated that remaining in Oakland is his primary goal, but after being rebuffed in an attempt to move to Los Angeles and join the Chargers in a joint-stadium project in nearby Carson, the Raiders do not have a lease for a home stadium for the 2016 season. They do have the option to join the Rams in Inglewood should the Chargers decline.
It is expected that the Raiders will play at least the 2016 season in Oakland. They also have been linked to San Diego, should the Chargers go to Los Angeles, for the following years as well as to San Antonio.
The NFL has had a hard line against Las Vegas, and it is hard to see the league signing off on allowing a team to relocate to the gambling capital of the country. The NFL did not respond immediately to a request for comment.
Las Vegas has chased a major league franchise for almost two decades, including MLB and NBA teams. The city appears close to getting an NHL team in under-construction T-Mobile Arena between the New York-New York and Monte Carlo casinos. The ambitious 20,000-seat T-Mobile Arena, set to open in April, was privately funded by casino company MGM, a Las Vegas Sands competitor.
And while Las Vegas might be a relatively small media market at No. 41 nationally, it is bigger than four other current NFL markets in Jacksonville (No. 48), New Orleans (No. 51), Buffalo (No. 52) and Green Bay (No. 68), per last year's Nielsen data.
Support from Adelson, who has consistently ranked as one of the world's richest people, could mean a better fate for the latest proposal.
"Projects like this need a lot of very, very strong leadership, a lot of conviction, a lot of focus and great resources,'' said Craig Cavileer of Majestic Realty, the project's development partner. "Certainly, Sheldon and his team have proved time and time again that they produce great projects."
Information from ESPN's Kyle Bonagura and The Associated Press was used in this report.
---------
http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2016/01/28/nfl-likely-wont-let-raiders-move-to-las-vegas/
NFL likely won’t let Raiders move to Las Vegas
Posted by Mike Florio on January 28, 2016
As Oakland continues to show no willingness to subsidize a new Raiders in stadium, the Raiders keeping looking for ways to squeeze the the town’s acorns.
San Antonio didn’t make Oakland flinch. And no one currently is taking a move to San Diego seriously.
Enter Las Vegas.
Via Howard Stutz of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Raiders owner Mark Davis and Las Vegas Sands Chairman and CEO Sheldon Adelson are scheduled to meet on Friday, possibly to discuss stadium details.
The Sands is proposing a $1 billion stadium on 42 acres near UNLV, where the school’s team — and an NFL franchise — would play.
“We are moving forward with the stadium concept with or without an NFL team,” Sands’ senior vice president of government relations and community development Andy Abboud said Thursday. “We see a lot more opportunities — conference championships, bowl games, NFL exhibition football, boxing, soccer, neutral site games, and music festivals. There is an entire segment out there.”
It all sounds intriguing, intriguing enough to make “Las Vegas Raiders” into a Thursday night trending topic on Twitter. However, the NFL previously has made clear that it has no interest in moving a team to Las Vegas, due to the legality of sports gambling there. The league consistently has opposed the expansion of legalized gambling in states like New Jersey and Delaware, and the NFL said in 2013 that it’s unlikely that the league would stage the Pro Bowl or sanction any other game to be played in Las Vegas.
The NFL has yet to throw water on the idea of the Raiders moving to Las Vegas, possibly in an effort to get Oakland’s attention. But last year the NFL shut down an effort by Cowboys quarterback Tony Romo to host a fantasy-football convention at a non-gambling facility owned by, you guessed it, the Las Vegas Sands. It’s likely just a matter of time before the league makes it clear that the Raiders won’t be permitted to move to Las Vegas.
So the folks in Oakland, who have played this game of poker very well so far, aren’t about to freak out over the Raiders’ latest empty threat.
-----------
http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.co...comment-on-the-raiders-las-vegas-flirtations/
NFL has no comment on the Raiders’ Las Vegas flirtations
Posted by Mike Florio on January 29, 2016
Given the NFL’s attitude toward gambling, along with the league’s past statements regarding staging games in Las Vegas, the knee-jerk reaction to the prospect of the Las Vegas Raiders is that it will never happen. Curiously, the league isn’t willing to say that, yet.
“We do not have a comment,” NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy told PFT via email. In 2013, McCarthy had a comment; he told the Las Vegas Review-Journal that legalized gambling in Las Vegas would likely keep the NFL from putting the Pro Bowl or preseason games there.
As many have pointed out, the league hardly has had consistent positions when it comes to gambling. The NFL gradually has expanded its presence in London, where betting parlors are as commonplace as sandwich shops, taking a “when in Rome” approach to the cultural acceptance of wagering there. Likewise, the league has embraced daily fantasy football for money, which the federal government says isn’t gambling — but which a growing number of states says is.
Ultimately, it doesn’t have to make sense or be consistent. It just has to get 24 of 32 votes from the league’s owner. The location of any team reflects a collective decision of NFL ownership, and there’s no rule or policy that automatically makes Las Vegas or any other location off limits. Plenty of factors go into the decision regarding whether and where a franchise moves.
One of the factors that likely has gone into the league’s position on the Raiders’ nascent flirtations with Las Vegas is this: The Raiders need a way to squeeze Oakland into helping build a stadium. Slamming the door preemptively on Vegas will make it harder to get money for nothing from the folks who currently are willing to do nothing to keep the Raiders.
So even if the NFL would never approve a move of the Raiders to Las Vegas, there’s no harm in withholding final judgment to see whether Oakland will continue withholding taxpayer money as more and more potential destinations for the franchise emerge.
