Raiders’ move to Las Vegas is ‘going to go through’
Will NFL owners on Monday allow the Oakland Raiders to relocate to Las Vegas? You betcha. Mark Murphy, president and CEO of the Green Bay Packers, told Postmedia on Sunday that reports in recent days and weeks are true, that league owners likely will vote in support of the Raiders.
“I think it’s going to go through,” Murphy said in the lobby of a posh hotel, where owners, executives, GMs and head coaches are holding their annual meeting through Wednesday morning.
“I think there will be some discussion, but I don’t anticipate that there’s going to be any real strong challenges to say, you know, ‘What are we doing?’ I think the process has worked.”
Murphy represents the publicly owned Packers at league owners meetings.
Under the proposal submitted by Raiders owner Mark Davis, the club and the NFL would kick in $500 million toward the cost of a new 65,000-seat, $1.9-billion stadium in Las Vegas. Bank of America would chip in $650 million, while the state of Nevada has approved a $750-million contribution via a hotel-room tax in Clark County — which would constitute the largest public contribution yet toward construction of a replacement NFL stadium.
Under Davis’ previous plan, which unravelled two months ago, casino mogul Sheldon Adelson and his family, plus investment firm Goldman Sachs, would have covered the $650-million portion. The league had publicly stated its displeasure with any casino magnate having so huge a financial stake in so important an NFL enterprise.
The Raiders currently play in the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum, built in the mid 1960s. It is in a state of disrepair. The Raiders likely would have to play two lameduck seasons there, until the new stadium in Vegas is ready in 2020.
The city of Oakland since early this century has refused to engage in serious replacement-stadium discussions, at least according to the Raiders and the NFL.
The city of Oakland’s last-minute $1.3-billion stadium pitch on Friday was immediately deemed by the NFL to be too little, too late.
Per ProFootballTalk.com on Saturday, the East Bay Times obtained portions of a copy of a letter commissioner Roger Goodell sent to Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf on Friday.
The commissioner told Schaaf that despite efforts by Oaklandarea politicians, the Raiders and the league, “we have not yet identified a viable” new stadium plan for the East Bay market.
“It is disappointing to me and our clubs to have come to that conclusion,” Goodell wrote.
Specifically, he pointed to the fact the league had “been prepared for nearly two years to work on finding a solution based on access to land at a certain cost, without constraints on the location of the stadium or timing of construction, and clarity on the overall development,” according to the East Bay Times.
Asked Sunday if in his opinion there is any last-minute curveball that could derail approval of the Raiders’ relocation, Murphy said: “I don’t think so. The only thing would be a last-ditch effort from Oakland. But it sounds like they’ve already gone there.
“And our stadium committee and the league officials who have looked at it have said there’s no merit to it. It’s not a serious proposal.”
At least 24 of 32 owners (75 per cent) must approve any significant league change, including franchise relocations.