Adelson looking to bring NFL’s Raiders to Vegas
Jewish billionaire proposes a 65,000-seat stadium for the Oakland team on University of Nevada-Las Vegas campus
Sheldon Adelson met with Oakland Raiders team owner Mark Davis, who also toured the site where the casino mogul wants to build a billion-dollar stadium for the team.
Adelson’s proposed 65,000-seat stadium would be built on the University of Nevada-Las Vegas campus, and the UNLV football team would share it with the professional franchise, which would become the National Football League’s first Las Vegas-based team.
Hours after Davis’ meeting with Adelson on Friday, the NFL sent a memo to all 32 team owners that said the league has no rule against moving to any particular market, the Las Vegas Review-Journal daily newspaper, which is owned by the Adelson family, reported. The memo comes in the wake of questions as to whether the league would bar a team move to Las Vegas because of the state’s legalized gambling.
“[T]he Sands leadership team let us know that officials from the Oakland Raiders are scheduled to travel to Las Vegas and tour locations around the valley for a potential new home, and they have asked us to meet them at our 42-acre site on Friday morning to answer questions about that site,” UNLV President Len Jessup said in a memo leaked on Thursday.
The Raiders’ lease on their current stadium has ended. The team will likely negotiate a short-term lease to remain in Oakland next season, but it made a bid to move to Los Angeles. The bid was rejected earlier this month after NFL owners voted to let the St. Louis Rams relocate there.
Adelson’s Sands Corp. could fund the stadium through a mix of private and public funds, such as hotel room taxes earmarked for tourism promotion.
Andy Abboud, Las Vegas Sands’ senior vice president of government relations and community development, told the Review-Journal that a group led by the Adelsons’ Sands organization is moving forward on the stadium project with or without an NFL team.
Adelson, who is a major Republican donor, has recently offered $1 billion to support Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system. He purchased the Las Vegas Review-Journal for $140 million last month.
