It’s Official – Raiders will file paperwork to relocate

I hope “Sin City” is ready for the Raider Nation, because according to NFL Media’s Ian  Rapoport’s 3:00am tweet this morning, the team  “WILL file relocation papers to move from Oakland to Las Vegas. Pending a vote of the owners, the NFL enters a new world.”   It has been known for a while that Raider’s owner Mark Davis has not been happy with the lack of progress in getting things moving forward in Oakland, and it seems now there is little left that can be done to keep the team in Oakland.  The Raiders will need 24 of 32 votes from the league’s owners to formerly make the move, a vote that will come in March.

The city of Oakland has made no progress to keep the team, sources say. It has not come up with a stadium proposal that league or independent sources believe is credible. The news come just days after the San Diego Chargers have officially made their move to Los Angeles.  NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said that “if the Raiders decide they can’t make it work in Oakland and they decide that they want to file for relocation, then their window is from when they get eliminated from the playoffs to Feb. 15.”   With last weeks lost to the Texans in the AFC Wild-Card games, their window to file is now open.

There are still questions, including whether or not Raider’s owner Mark Davis will do the deal for the $1.9 billion Las Vegas Stadium project with the help of casino magnate Sheldon Adelson or not. That was the original plan — the Adelson family would contribute $650 million, the Raiders would contribute $500 million, and there would be $750 million in Clark County hotel room tax revenue. Terms of this deal have yet to be finalized.

When the team officially files, the NFL and its owners will begin a process that will probably take several weeks. The owners just went through a similar process before the formerly St Louis Rams moved operations to Los Angeles.  This one will be familiar.  The official filing is to include a statement explaining the Raider’s decision, and possibly some words from the commissioner as well.  Then comes the committee meetings to analyze all sides of the move, likely to take between 4 to 6 weeks.  Finally a vote of all the teams owners will take place during the late-March league meeting in Arizona.

Stay tuned to WWW.RAIDERSGAB.COM for more updates on the Raiders move to Vegas!! – ML

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