Raiders

Sheldon Adelson Says He’s Willing To Walk Away From Stadium Deal If Raiders Don’t Improve The Terms

October 27, 2016

Update:

Jason Cole of B/R reports that negotiations between the NFL, the Raiders and casino owner Sheldon Adelson have “hit a snag” in recent days.

This comes after the recent comments from Adelson, in which he made it clear he’s willing to walk away from the deal, despite recently Nevada passing legislation to contribute $750 million of public money to the project.

Cole’s sources mentioned that Adelson’s interest in the project has been “tenuous” all along and he nearly walked away from the project a month ago.

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Casino owner Sheldon Adelson mentioned that he is prepared to walk away from the stadium deal to build a new facility for the Raiders in Las Vegas unless the terms of the improve.

“I negotiated to bring in the Oakland Raiders, an NFL football team from Oakland, because they don’t have a stadium there, that I would build a stadium and rent it out to the Oakland Raiders,” Adelson said on Wednesday, via Ari Rabinovitch of Reuters.

Adelson added that the Raiders are asking for too much right now and even though he helped gain approval for the project last week, it sounds like he’s prepared to move on.

“They want so much,” Adelson said. “So I told my people, ‘Tell them I could live with the deal, I could live without the deal. Here’s the way it’s gonna go down. If they don’t want it, bye-bye.”

Adelson has committed $650 million to the Las Vegas stadium project, but NFL bylaws prevent him from owning a piece of a franchise. Albert Breer previously mentioned that Adelson could still get revenue from non-NFL events, but there’s also question whether this would be a worthwhile investment for him.

The Raiders would need 24 votes to relocate the team to Las Vegas and Raiders owner Mark Davis is expected to file for relocation in January.

The city of Oakland is still expected to make another attempt to keep the Raiders in the Bay Area.

We’ll have more regarding the Raiders and Las Vegas as the news is available.