No move planned

Don’t expect the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo to move from the Thomas & Mack Center to Allegiant Stadium ▶

Don’t even think about Allegiant Stadium becoming a potential site for the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo.

The Raiders said long ago that the 65,000-seat venue would not be used for the event, even though its capacity is roughly four times that of the Thomas & Mack Center, which has been sold out every performance for years.

The rodeo occurs during the home stretch of the NFL season, and the logistics scheduling around at least two Sundays in December, when the Raiders would most want home games, makes that idea nearly impossible.

The Rebels take a Thomas & Mack hiatus every year in early December, playing road games or occasional local contests at the Orleans or T-Mobile arenas, early in the college basketball season.

But would the NFL schedule around NFR to avoid traffic problems or visitors scrambling for hotel rooms? Rodeo leaders have split views. “It’s only here for one Sunday,” said South Point owner Michael Gaughan, noting that the last performance of NFR is on a Saturday night. “I believe Las Vegas Events has talked to the Raiders, and they want to try to avoid having a game on that Sunday.”

But Jonathan Jossel, CEO of the Plaza, feels there’s enough room for everybody.

“I would hope that there isn’t games over the 10 days just because the city is so busy for those 10 days,” Jossel said. “But that said, this is a town with a lot of hotel rooms and a lot of infrastructure and I wouldn’t be surprised if there was no issue of combining the events.”

Pat Christenson, president of Las Vegas Events, said he thinks Gaughan is being optimistic if he thinks the NFL would listen to arguments about capacity issues and traffic if the NFL and NFR would ever intersect.

He suggested that NFR could move its start time later for the Sunday performance if the Raiders were playing at Allegiant Stadium that day.

But if the Raiders were playing the late Sunday home game, which is often rescheduled to that time slot late in the season as a broadcast “flex game” with an irresistible national TV matchup, hello traffic jams.