The Raiders are "close to securing bank financing from lenders including U.S. Bank, potentially reinvigorating the team’s effort to secure a stadium in Las Vegas," according to sources cited by Daniel Kaplan in next week's SPORTSBUSINESS JOURNAL. The move "comes with NFL committee meetings scheduled for March 6-8 in Palm Beach, Fla., when key owners will review the Raiders’ Vegas plans, once thought almost surely sunk after key financial backers" in Las Vegas Sands Chair & CEO Sheldon Adelson and Goldman Sachs pulled out. Bank of America, which has "lent to the Raiders in the past, is also expected to be part of the debt syndicate." BofA is the NFL’s lead bank. U.S. Bank has "lent to several large stadium projects," including those for the Vikings, 49ers and Falcons. But Kaplan notes bank financing does not "necessarily cement a Vegas relocation." The Raiders must "still secure a lease" with the Las Vegas Stadium Authority, a process that "already bitterly soured the relationship" with Adelson, who had once pledged $650M and shepherded the state of Nevada's approval of $750M in tax money for a $1.9B stadium. Given Adelson’s "power in Las Vegas, finance and league experts have privately speculated that no one would want to lend to the Raiders, but that does not appear to be the case." The NFL is "not even insisting that the Raiders have their key financing and lease terms nailed down by the early March meeting when the finance and stadium committees meet." The committees "might tell the Raiders to achieve certain goals to ensure a recommendation, but that apparently can wait until the March 26-29 full ownership meeting, when a relocation vote could occur" (SPORTSBUSINESS JOURNAL, 2/20 issue).
