Adelson planned to spend $650 million of his own money toward a new stadium that would cause the Raiders to relocate from Oakland to Las Vegas, and keep the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority from using what he believes is an unfair amount of public money to expand the Las Vegas Convention Center.
On top of all that, the casino mogul spent millions on lobbyists and campaign contributions to make a political path toward passage of the controversial Southern Nevada Tourism and Improvements Act (SNTIA). UNLV’s dreamed-for new stadium is directly mentioned in the SNTIA, and in such a way that the new law calls for the Raiders and UNLV to share what will be a giant, 65,000-seat, enclosed stadium.
UNLV Football tweeted:
Big day for Las Vegas. Excited to share our new home with the #LasVegasRaiders! pic.twitter.com/4IAKAickYN
— UNLV Football (@unlvfootball) March 27, 2017
The word “share” is one used by many UNLV representatives and alumni, but it’s not one that the Oakland Raiders employ when describing the role of UNLV. Indeed, Adelson and his Las Vegas Sands Corporation split from the partnership with the Raiders earlier this year, and after a proposed lease that the Donald Trump donor claimed showed “disregard” for UNLV: ““In addition to being discouraged by the surprise submission, I was deeply disappointed for the disregard the Raiders showed our community partners, particularly UNLV, through the proposed agreement,” Adelson said in his statement.
Since the release of that statement, and even with the NFL’s approval of the Raiders right to move to Las Vegas from Oakland, the problem created by the Raiders less-than-open-arms treatment of UNLV has not gone away. Indeed, a look at the recently approved draft of the lease between the Las Vegas Stadium Authority and the Oakland Raiders reveals a structural language change which says “issue not resolved” without spelling out the fact.
With respect to UNLV, The SNTIA has a number of paragraphs governing how the football team should fit into plans for the NFL stadium. While it essentially places UNLV in a sublease position with respect to the owner of the “Stadium Events Company” (The Raiders), the SNTIA also places safeguards that, when considered, add up to making sure the ‘Raiders’ stadium becomes the UNLV college football stadium. Read Sec. 29, 3(i)(1) of the SNTIA: “The University must be given such access to the project and its facilities and amenities as is reasonably necessary to create an environment reasonably consistent with a home game for a college football team in Division I Football Bowl Subdivision, or its successor division, of the National Collegiate Athletics Association or its successor organization; and
(2) The National Football League team must have simultaneous access to such areas of the project as are needed by the team to prepare for a home game of the team that occurs on the day following the date of the home game of the University football team, provided that such access must not impede or interfere with the use of, or access to, the project by the University; “
The clause “ The University must be given such access to the project and its facilities and amenities as is reasonably necessary to create an environment reasonably consistent with a home game for a college football team in Division I Football Bowl Subdivision” can also be taken to mean signage, and even sponsorships. That concern for UNLV sponsorships could cause a conflict with Raiders and NFL sponsors in those instances where the sponsor organizations are not one and the same.
The SNTIA is also not silent on the issue of UNLV sand revenues, allowing what it refers to as the “University” to collect money from the sale of personal seat licenses, but after negotiating with the Stadium Authority and not the Stadium Events Company.
That’s a mess.
Given that the Oakland Raiders organization has not shown a pattern where it wants to share significant revenues with any Nevada-related organization, and is forced to set-aside money to pay the debt service on the much-talked-about Bank of America financing, it’s not hard to determine that this is an issue in negotiations between the Raiders, UNLV, and Las Vegas Stadium Authority representatives. But the simple that is that problem has to be solved, and UNLV’s in the driver’s seat.
Why?
Because the SNTIA does not allow for UNLV to be removed from the lesse unless it asks the Las Vegas Stadium Authority to be removed, and in writing. Thus, UNLV’s in a position to drag talks out for months and perhaps past any deadline set or reset with respect to the completion of the sublease agreeemnt, and even declare that its issues with the Raiders are so unresolvable that the entire stadium project should be stopped.
Just how the Raiders and the Stadium Authority deal with the UNLV issue is the one topic the Las Vegas media will not touch: stay tuned to Zennie62.com.