With all signs pointing to the Raiders securing at least 24 votes next week to relocate to Las Vegas, Oakland isn’t going down without a fight. Or at least without a random, awkward swing at air.
Via Daniel Kaplan of SportsBusiness Journal, Oakland claims that the investment firm trying to build a new Raiders stadium is willing to lend money to the Raiders on the same terms that Bank of America will do for the Las Vegas venue. If the terms don’t include at any level a path to equity in the franchise, maybe it would get the attention of owner Mark Davis.
It’s a slim maybe. Davis seems to be determined to move the team to Las Vegas, with a mindset hardened by the failure of Oakland to do anything until the Raiders were picking out drapes in their new house.
Kaplan also explains that a new Oakland stadium would be ready by 2021, only one year after a new stadium in Las Vegas. He likewise points out that Oakland regards concerns about baseball’s A’s being displaced by the project as a red herring, and that the site is large enough to allow an NFL stadium to be built without the A’s being disrupted or forced to move.
The last-ditch effort to secure at least nine votes to block the move could be too late. Albert Breer of TheMMQB.com recently reported that the Raiders have 27 or 28 votes in his pocket. And if it appears that Davis won’t have 24, the vote will likely get pushed to the quarterly meeting in May.
For now, the indications are that the vote is coming next week, and that the Raiders will secure the green light to head to the city where gambling is prevalent -- and no one connected to the NFL seems to be particularly seems to be troubled by that.