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The Las Vegas Stadium Authority board today unanimously approved a lease for the Raiders to use a new $1.9 billion stadium.
The vote ends concerns raised at last week’s meeting that a delay in approving the lease could push back the Raiders arrival in Las Vegas by a year until 2021. With today’s go-ahead, the lease will be sent to NFL owners for their approval at next week’s league spring meeting in Chicago.
The latest version of the lease offers the Raiders and their designated events company more confidentiality for their financial information during required audits.
Updated language reads that “the Authority shall keep the data provided to it under this ... confidential to the extent (the stadium events company) can demonstrate to the satisfaction of the Authority that such data contains proprietary or confidential information.”
It also extends from 18 months to two years the deadline before the end of the 30-year lease for the authority to object to the team extending the agreement by another five years.
The new version of the lease also gives the team discretion to relocate certain utilities on the stadium site as needed and agreed to by the authority and the holder of the utility.
In addition to those protections for the Raiders, the lease now clearly lists gaming among the prohibited uses for the stadium, going so far as to list specific card games that cannot be conducted at the facility.
Raiders President Marc Badain said at last week’s board meeting that if the lease could not be settled before the NFL meetings on Monday and Tuesday, the team would delay its move to Las Vegas until the 2021 season. It now plans to start playing here in 2020.
NFL owners must vote to ratify the lease and after next week, they will not meet again until October, significantly delaying an already tight schedule for stadium approvals and construction.
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