ORLANDO, Fla. – NFL owners approved the Raiders application to move from Oakland to Las Vegas around this time last year, but it came with conditions.
They obviously had to bring back a viable stadium plan, and explain how they were going to pay for it. That happened Tuesday afternoon at the NFL owners meetings.
Raiders owner Mark Davis said the $1.8-billion project, which includes $750 million in public funds, a substantial Raiders investment and a $200 million G4 loan from the NFL, was approved.
Approval was more of a rubber stamp than anything else. The Raiders have kept the NFL apprised of their stadium plan, from design to financing, over the last year.
Tuesday's vote completes the process from the NFL side. Raiders president Marc Badain and executive vice president and general counsel will attend a Wednesday meeting of the Las Vegas Stadium Authority to finalize the deal and sign all pertinent documents.
Some stadium work is already underway, and has been for months now.
Davis was excited by the day's events but insists he won't jump for joy until a ribbon cutting, scheduled for Aug. 2020, is complete.
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"It's a big day," Davis said. "We have a few more things to do. Tomorrow is a big meeting (in Las Vegas). It's exciting to see a public/private partnership that has gone so well and so smoothly."
That isn't good news for Oakland Raiders fans, but they harbored no hopes the Raiders stadium plan would derail at this stage. The Raiders are going to Las Vegas in 2020, and plan to play in Oakland the next two seasons. They will exercise a one-year lease option for the 2018 season, and hope to strike a deal for 2019.
"We want to play there, but they have to be reasonable as well," Davis said on Sunday. "We'll see. We haven't gotten into serious taking stages. It's not a problem finding a place to play for a year, but we seriously want to play that in Oakland and bring a championship to that city."
The Raiders have taken 50,000 deposits for season tickets in the new Las Vegas stadium, though general tickets have not been made available. The team has started selling suites and is just now moving on to club seats.
Davis hopes to host a Super Bowl in the near future, but said Tuesday the NFL draft might come first. He ideally hopes to introduce his venue via the draft in 2020, with the stadium set to be football ready in August of that year.