Staff finally gets together in new Nevada facility
The Raiders officially moved into their new training facility in Nevada this week, meaning the only thing tying them to the Bay Area now are decades of memories and monthly lease payments at their old Alameda headquarters.
The Raiders were able to open their new, $75 million training facility and headquarters in Henderson, Nevada, on Monday. Coach Jon Gruden and general manager Mike Mayock were among about 70 team members — no players are allowed unless they are rehabilitating injuries — on hand at the Intermountain Healthcare Performance Center, a 335,000-squarefoot complex near their new home in Las Vegas.
It marked the first time the Raiders have gotten their football operations personnel in the same building since late March when NFL commissioner Roger Goodell ordered team facilities shut because of the coronavirus pandemic. In the Raiders’ case, “home” then was their building in Alameda.
Team officials were thankful to be able to get back to working around each other.
“To me that was the biggest thing,” Mayock told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “As much as I love this new building and how much I want to get used to it and get comfortable with it, the biggest thing is just being around the guys. We’ve seen each other on Zoom calls for too long now.
“And all that was cool and it was awesome, but there’s nothing like the energy you have when you’re together. Then you combine that with the energy of the new building and everybody’s so excited. It’s really cool.”
As laid out by the NFL’s phased plan for reopening team facilities, everyone must have their temperature taken and wear masks when entering the Raiders’ Henderson complex, located 11 miles away from their new $1.9 billion Allegiant Stadium home, scheduled to open in Las Vegas in early August.
Meanwhile, back in Alameda the Raiders old facility has been shut down since March 24 due to CO
VID-19. Before the pandemic hit, the team had planned on spending one final spring and part of the summer in Alameda, their headquarters since 1996, before heading to Napa for training camp.
Although the Raiders are still making their monthly $43,750 payments
for the Alameda facility after exercising their lease for 2020, the city of Oakland and Alameda County are impatiently waiting to sell the property to help with budget shortfalls.
And, they conceivably could be waiting longer to get control of the facility since the Raiders have
a three-year lease option there.
One source with direct knowledge of the city of Oakland’s thinking said “It’s going to be challenging” to get out of the Alameda facility lease with the Raiders in order to get a developer on that site as soon as possible.
Even with the Raiders stationed in Nevada, there could still be an annual chance to see the team around Napa during the summer months. Although the Raiders’ lease at the Napa Valley Marriott and adjoining Redwood Middle School is up this year, team owner Mark Davis hasn’t ruled out the Raiders returning to their training camp home of the last 24 years.
“I love it here,” Davis said last summer while in Napa. “I have no problem with it, and it makes sense. No matter where we go, we’ll have to fly to Las Vegas from training camp. If we were to go to Reno, or anywhere else in the world to train, we would still have to fly there. Then, why not just fly from here?”
If the Raiders choose not to come back to Napa, it’s likely another NFL team would quickly take their place since the setup there is desirous — with the luxurious hotel and playing facility next to each other, not to mention the appealing Napa Valley experience.
The Associated Press contributed to this report