If reports are accurate, the Raiders could be leaving Oakland a little sooner than expected.
With word out that the Oakland City Council is preparing an anti-trust lawsuit against the Raiders and the NFL, the Raiders are apparently threatening to take their home games elsewhere in 2019 – even beyond the international game they’ve been handing over to the NFL for years.
If the Raiders end up leaving early (who’s betting against that?), would Las Vegas become an early option? It wouldn’t be ideal, but there is a chance the Raiders could play a year at UNLV’s 40,000-seat Boyd Stadium. And while the stadium isn’t up to NFL standards, it at least seats 10,000 more than what the Chargers have in Los Angeles.
As for Las Vegas, Clark County Commissioner Steve Sisolak does believe the city could accommodate the Raiders a year sooner than expected.
The #Oakland City Council has authorized lawsuit against @Raiders and @NFL over Las #Vegas move. As a result, team might leave Oakland sooner. Cmsr. @SteveSisolak says steps could be taken to welcome #Raiders before 2020.
Background from @sfchronicle – https://t.co/3IchLwiYPu pic.twitter.com/yTWFZnqvTC
— Clark County Nevada (@ClarkCountyNV) September 5, 2018
If it somehow happens that the Raiders would move to Nevada in 2019, players would see a significant raise in their paychecks a year sooner. Nevada does not have a state income tax and California offers a whopping 13.3 percent – the highest figure in the country.
It would also mean the Raiders could have offered Khalil Mack another year of tax free earnings over the state of Illinois, which has a relatively low income tax rate of around 5 percent. That probably wouldn’t have been enough to sway the deal, but it wouldn’t have hurt.
Whatever the case, if the move to Las Vegas gets put on the fast track, the good news is the Raiders will be armed with cap space and tax-free income at the state level to lure any free agents Jon Gruden might happen to fancy – regardless of how old they might be.
twitter: @raidersbeat
Stay in Bay Area whether it be Levi’s, Stanford, or Cal til team’s practice facility is done in Las Vegas.
We’ve had enough of the city of Oakland, they have had 10 years to build the Raiders a stadium and haven’t done anything to kept them. Now they want to sue them? That’s BS!!! I say start now getting the collage stadium ready for the Raiders. Hell, the collage kids play there one Saturday, so we can handle it on Sunday. They could still have their camp in Napa. GO RAIDERS, GO Raider fan until I die (then maybe after that). Phil