Raiders pledge $500M for Las Vegas stadium

Raiders owner Mark Davis is finally putting his money where his mouth is.

During a presentation in front of the Southern Nevada Tourism Infrastructure Committee (SNTIC) on Thursday, Davis pledged to put $500 million toward a new stadium in Las Vegas if the rest of the funding is ultimately approved by the Nevada State Legislature.

“Together we can turn the Silver State into the silver and black state,” Davis told the SNTIC, via the Associated Press.

Davis’ money would go toward a $1.33 billion stadium project that’s been proposed by the The Las Vegas Sands casino group and Majestic Realty.

The domed-stadium would be built on an empty 42-acre lot that’s literally right next door to McCarran Airport and just blocks from the strip. In the clip below, you can see the airport, followed by the 42-acre stadium site, followed by the strip.

Initial plans for the new stadium call for a 65,000-seat dome that could be built with a retractable roof at an extra cost of about $55 million. The new stadium is tentatively planned to contain 100 luxury suites and 6,000 club seats.

Here’s four things to know about a possible Raiders move.

1. Davis seems dead serious about moving his team.

Davis has been talking about moving the Raiders for years, but for the most part, everything he said came across as an empty threat because there was no viable stadium plan in place.

That’s not the case in Vegas, where Davis is being backed by billionaire casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, the man who owns the Sands Casino group. The two have a viable plan in place that would call for $650 million of the stadium to be paid for with private funding.

Out of the $650 million, $150 million would come from Adelson’s group and the rest would come from Davis and the NFL. Of the $500 million that was committed to the project by Davis, $200 million of that would come from league.

Davis and the league offered a total of $600 million to Oakland (with $300 million from the NFL), but the Bay Area city hasn’t figured out a way to fund the rest of a possible new stadium. Oakland has made it clear that public financing isn’t an option there.

In Vegas, the final $680 million in stadium costs would be paid for by a proposed hotel tax that would mostly hit the pocketbook of tourists.

At the end of Thursday’s meeting, Davis made it clear that his team is serious about Vegas. …

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