NFL owner says Las Vegas is tough sell but not impossible for Raiders
At least one NFL owner is perhaps warming to the idea of the Oakland Raiders moving to Las Vegas. Or realizing that there’s basically no shot of them getting a new stadium built in Oakland. Or finally figuring out that having an NFL team in Las Vegas would be no different than having teams play in London or Mexico City, because sports gambling is legal in all of those places.
“I think it would be a tough sell, but I don’t think it’s impossible,” an unnamed but “influential” NFL owner told Gary Myers of the New York Daily News. “If they put such a good deal in front of the Raiders, it has a chance of getting support. I would prefer not to have the Raiders there.
”I would prefer they stay where they are. Oakland is a great market, but if there is no opportunity to put a stadium there, it would be hard to blame them for moving. I wouldn’t necessarily be opposed to it if it’s the best alternative. If it’s between Las Vegas and being stuck in an awful stadium, there is nowhere else to go.”
Also Wednesday, Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones told ESPN that Las Vegas is “one of the real crown jewels of communities in the United States.”
Speaking at a sponsors’ golf tournament at Cowboys Golf Club in Grapevine, Texas, Jones would not discuss which club he would like to see test the market.
“It has a flair for entertainment, and it has two million people, and they’re avid sports fans, the full-time residents,” Jones said. “They have a huge visiting contingent that more often than not are fans of some NFL football teams. You add all that together, and it’s certainly in a conversation about the future relative to the NFL.
“As you well know, you have to have the right situation. You have to have the right ownership, want to and then a lot of other considerations that have to come into play. For me, I think that certainly the fact that Las Vegas has a gambling aspect to it is far overshadowed by the entertainment value, if you will, family appeal, that you have, the convention appeal. So it does not have disfavor with me, in my opinion, relative to being an NFL city.”
Late last month, Raiders owner Mark Davis appeared before the Southern Nevada Tourism Infrastructure Committee to lobby for the proposed $1.4 billion domed Las Vegas stadium, which in theory would be paid for via a mix of private funds ($500 million from the Raiders/NFL, $150 million from the Las Vegas Sands Corp.) and a 1 percent hotel-tax hike (the other $750 million). The committee must approve the use of public funds before the stadium proposal can move forward.
Officials in the Oakland area have long said that no public funds would be used to build the Raiders a new stadium. The team recently agreed on a one-year lease extension to play this season at the nearly 50-year-old Oakland Coliseum, with team options for two seasons after that. The Raiders also could have an option to move to Los Angeles should the Chargers decide to remain in San Diego after this season.
The NFL owner told Myers that his compatriots would have to be convinced that a team could operate in Las Vegas without any illicit influence from gamblers (an issue that never really seems to come up when the league talks about how thrilled it is to play games in London or Mexico City).
“It would be a concern to have exposure to all these people out there, more so than any other area,” the owner said. “It would have to be discussed and everybody would have to be comfortable with it.”
Appearing Tuesday on ESPN’s Capital Games podcast, Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman seemed optimistic about the prospect of a Raiders move to her city and said she’s received feelers from other possible investors “who might be interested in putting some more private money into the pot.”
“I know we will have a team,” she said. “Now whether it’s going to be on this go around or another go around, I don’t know, but this city has grown into such maturity over these past 15 years.”
The Review-Journal is owned by the family of Las Vegas Sands Chairman and CEO Sheldon Adelson.
ESPN report contributed to this story.
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