Owners approve move:
In a 31-1 vote, NFL owners pass the Las Vegas deal.
PHOENIX — NFL owners approved the Oakland Raiders’ move to Las Vegas on Monday in a 31-1 vote at the league’s annual spring meeting in Phoenix. The NFL was not satisfied with Oakland’s proposals for a stadium, and couldn’t pass up Las Vegas’ offer of $750 million in public money for a $1.9 billion facility in Nevada.
Raiders owner Mark Davis came out of Monday’s meetings with “mixed feelings,” excited about the bright lights of Vegas but sad for local fans. “The Raiders were born in Oakland, and Oakland will always be part of our DNA,” he said.
The move to Las Vegas in 2020 will mark the team’s second departure from Oakland, following the Raiders’ move to Los Angeles 35 years
ago.
“We, and the Raiders, have worked earnestly for over a decade to find a viable option in Oakland,” said NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. “We believe we went the extra mile to find that solution in Oakland.
“I wanted to thank (Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf ) for her effort to find a viable solution. ... We’re particularly disappointed for the fans. We worked as tirelessly and as hard as we could to try to find that solution. We just couldn’t get that done.”
The Raiders plan to play in Oakland for two more seasons; they have an option to renew the lease at the Coliseum in 2018. After they decide where to play in 2019 — sharing Levi’s Stadium with the 49ers is a possibility — the Raiders would move into a 65,000-seat domed stadium in Las Vegas for the 2020 season.
“My father used to say that the greatness of the Raiders is in the future,” said Davis, referencing his late father, former Raiders owner Al Davis.
Davis said he loves Oakland and understands there will be “some disappointment, and anger. It’s going to be up to me to talk to them,” he said. “Hopefully we can work things out.”
He added that he would ask Oakland fans whether they want the team to stay through 2019, until the Las Vegas stadium is ready.
That facility, which the Raiders would share with the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, would be located west of Interstate 15 and the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino on a 62-acre plot on Russell Road.
Davis’ application to move his franchise to Las Vegas gained steam when he secured $750 million in public funding toward the new stadium — a route that Schaaf was unwilling to pursue. She and Raiders officials haven’t met in over a year.
After a letter she wrote to Goodell on Friday was largely rejected by the NFL — Goodell called the last-minute financing plan from Fortress Investment Group not a “viable solution” — Schaaf sent more letters Monday morning, asking NFL owners to delay voting on a proposed move so that the city could continue negotiating with others who want to build a stadium on the current Coliseum site.
The uncertainty surrounding the future of the Oakland A’s baseball team also clouded the picture. The NFL was reluctant to make a deal without a clear plan for the A’s in place, and the A’s and Raiders have never agreed on a division of the land at the current site.
“We need certainty,” said Goodell after Monday’s vote. “You don’t have a certainty when the A’s are leaving the site.”
The A’s issued a statement Monday:
“We commend the city’s and county’s efforts to keep the Raiders in Oakland. The Mayor and her team have worked incredibly hard to save the franchise. We are focused on, and excited about, our efforts to build a new ballpark in Oakland and look forward to announcing a location this year.”
Davis, frustrated at the conditions of the 51-year-old Coliseum and the lack of progress toward getting a new stadium in Oakland, pledged his full attention to Las Vegas a year ago.
He has been building support from owners for years — unlike his father, who sued his colleagues for the right to move to Los Angeles in 1982 (only to return to Oakland 13 years later) — and sources say the NFL is expected to seek a relocation fee of only $325 million from the team. By comparison, the Rams and Chargers were each charged $650 million to relocate recently.
“Mark finally gets a chance to play in a legitimate stadium,” Patriots owner Bob Kraft said.
Originally, Davis partnered with Las Vegas casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, who helped secure the $750 million from a Clark County hotel room tax. NFL owners weren’t enthusiastic about Adelson’s gambling ties, but that issue was resolved when Davis and Adelson had a falling out and Bank of America stepped in to finance the deal and replace the $650 million that the Nevada tycoon had pledged.
The Raiders, who will remain the Oakland Raiders as long as they play there, will become the third NFL team in the last year to move, after the Rams moved from St. Louis to Los Angeles before last season and the Chargers from San Diego to Los Angeles earlier this year.
Davis and his Raiders franchise were passed over last year when the owners approved the Rams’ relocation and the Chargers were granted an option to join them. The Raiders had explored the possibility of moving back to the Los Angeles area at the time.
Davis said Monday that he lost faith in Oakland officials last year on the eve of league meetings about the Los Angeles move. He said officials made a presentation to the NFL with a “five-page letter that didn’t say anything” and then raised the rent at the Coliseum on the Raiders.
Raiders quarterback Derek Carr said he was overcome with emotion when he heard that the Las Vegas vote went through.
“I don't know how we should feel,” he posted on Twitter. “I feel the pain of our fans in Oakland. I also see the joy on the faces of our new fans in Las Vegas.
“As players, we will show up and give everything we have. We will compete and we will do
our best to bring a championship to the entire Raider Nation.”
The Raiders would become the second professional sports franchise to call Las Vegas home, following the NHL’s Golden Knights, who begin play in the fall in the newly built T-Mobile Arena.
While UNLV’s existing 35,500-seat Sam Boyd Stadium is not an option for the Raiders in 2018 at this point, there is some thought among owners that security and locker-room issues could be addressed by then. There were even whispers at the owners’ meeting about the Raiders playing in San Diego, as they have historically drawn well there.
With the move approved, the Raiders will exercise their option to purchase the Russell Road land. While there is no current lease agreement with the Las Vegas Stadium Authority board, team executives answered questions from the league’s stadium and finance committees two weeks ago at meetings in Florida.
The Raiders were planning a news conference near the UNLV campus Wednesday, but that has been postponed pending a lease agreement, which is considered a formality.
The Miami Dolphins were the only team to vote against the move.
As far as Oakland’s efforts, NFL Executive Vice President Eric Grubman didn’t like Hall of Famer Ronnie Lott and the Fortress Group’s two proposals this past year. An effort two years ago by San Diego developer Floyd Kephart was similarly discounted.
“We’ve repeatedly told the city not to put a real estate developer between the Raiders and the city,” Grubman said.
Oakland and Alameda County are still paying off the Coliseum face-lift that brought the Raiders back to Oakland from Los Angeles in 1995. The remaining $83 million is set to be paid off by 2025.