Oakland Raiders get NFL nod for Las Vegas relocation

The Raiders are all set to leave Oakland – for the third time in 35 years.

The National Football Leave (NFL) gave its approval on March 27 for the Oakland Raiders to move to Las Vegas, casting aside decades of fears that putting a team in the US sin city would corrupt the sport.

At a meeting of the team owners in Phoenix on Monday, the Raiders received 31 of 32 votes to approve the move. Only 24 votes were needed. The historic decision allows owner Mark Davis to uproot his team for the third time.

It is believed that having a team in Las Vegas would allow the league to capitalize on the city’s booming tourist trade and image of excitement. Another key factor to the decision is the Raiders’ willingness to contribute hundreds of millions of dollars toward the construction of a new stadium.

The Raiders are likely to begin playing in Las Vegas by 2019, in temporary sites, with the lease at their current stadium expiring after the 2018 season. In 2020, they are expected to move into a brand new $2 billion dome-roof stadium near the famous Las Vegas Strip.

The stadium will be built with $750 million in public financing. The rest of the money was expected to come from a $600 million loan from Bank of America to the team, $200 million from the league and revenue from naming rights and other deals. The financial arrangement helped attract the league’s interest and the Raiders’ final call to move to Vegas.

The Raiders’ stadium project will be one of the key highlights at Coliseum Summit AMERICAS, April 19-20, 2017 at Las Vegas, Nevada, where more details are expected to be revealed.

Continue to follow Coliseum Summit, a global series of stadium and arena business conferences, for latest updates from around the world.

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