The Raiders and the Las Vegas Stadium Authority "won’t have a lease agreement in place when NFL owners meet in Phoenix" at the end of the month, according to Richard Velotta of the LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL. The nine-member board "discussed details of a lease on Thursday but took no vote, and the authority board won’t meet again until after NFL owners gather March 26-29 to consider the team’s relocation." Authority Chair Steve Hill said that he "believes the Raiders are confident enough in what they completed earlier this week -- a loan agreement with Bank of America -- that they will be able to take their relocation request to owners as planned." Hill: "My sense is that the approval will probably come, if it comes, with some conditions around what’s important to the NFL around the content of what that lease would be." Representatives of the Raiders "did not attend Thursday’s meeting but issued a statement." The statement "affirmed what the Raiders said earlier this week -- that they had had reached a financing agreement with Bank of America for their share of construction costs." The Raiders "haven’t reported the amount of the loan" (LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL, 3/10). In Las Vegas, Adam Candee notes the absence of a stadium lease to play in Las Vegas is "not expected to impede the application" (LAS VEGAS SUN, 3/10).
LEGALLY SPEAKING: In Las Vegas, Ed Graney writes the city and state of Nevada have "made a great offer." The Raiders "obviously have a strong commitment to be here." That all "seems to be lining up pretty well." Hill: "We’re going to get this lease done. It’s going to work." Graney notes the lease process is "in the hands of attorneys" for the Raiders and Stadium Authority Board, leaving team Owner Mark Davis and those closest to him to "instead focus on ensuring they arrive in Arizona with the needed votes" (LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL, 3/10). The AP's Regina Cano noted the Las Vegas board on Thursday heard from Andrews Kurth Kenyon attorney Mark Arnold, the Houston-based attorney it hired for negotiations. Among the issues discussed were "provisions that could be included in the deal that would guarantee the stadium features branding" from UNLV's football team, which would "play home games there." Under the proposed lease agreement, the Raiders would "have to approve any field markings" (AP, 3/9). Las Vegas transportation officials on Thursday said that the Raiders "should help pay for a series of road and highway improvements that would accommodate football fans" headed to a proposed $1.9B domed stadium (LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL, 3/10).
VISITORS WELCOME: The WALL STREET JOURNAL's Chris Kirkham notes Las Vegas’s ability to "fill seats and succeed as a pro sports town still hinges on the idea that it is a market unlike others in the U.S." Underscoring the trickiness, officials from the Golden Knights and Raiders are "taking different approaches to the problem." The Golden Knights are "focusing hard on the local market while the still-developing plan for the Raiders focuses more on courting tourists." Stanford economics professor Roger Noll called tourist estimates for the sports teams "unrealistically optimistic." Noll: "It’s truly amazing that anyone would buy that. It’s just silly." Noll added that teams in other major tourism hubs like N.Y. or Miami "do not attract those kinds of visitors." Golden Knights Owner Bill Foley said, "The Raiders are going to have plenty of fans, but with their cost structure it’s going to be a big percentage of people coming from out of town to see the other team play. We’ve tried to make it very clear that we are the home team. We’re locals" (WALL STREET JOURNAL, 3/10).
