Raiders owner to meet with Vegas magnate, per report
8:04 PM ET

Paul GutierrezESPN Staff Writer

ALAMEDA, Calif. -- While a leaked memo from UNLV president Len Jessup said representatives of the Oakland Raiders will be in Las Vegas on Friday to check out potential stadium sites, team owner Mark Davis would offer only a cryptic comment.

"In typical Raider fashion," Davis said with a laugh over the phone from the Bay Area, "I can neither confirm nor deny."

Sources, though, have confirmed to ESPN.com that Davis will be in Las Vegas, and he reportedly will meet with Las Vegas Sands chairman and CEO Sheldon Adelson.

The Sands Corp. announced Thursday that it was lending its support to build a $1 billion domed stadium on a vacant 42 acres of land recently purchased by UNLV near the corner of Tropicana Avenue and Koval Lane across from McCarran International Airport.

"Correspondingly, the Sands leadership team let us know that officials from the Oakland Raiders are scheduled to travel to Las Vegas and tour locations around the valley for a potential new home and they have asked us to meet them at our 42-acre site on Friday morning to answer questions about that site," Jessup wrote in the memo, which was first reported by Nevada political reporter Jon Ralston.

UNLV is looking for a new home for its football program, which has played at 35,500-seat Sam Boyd Stadium some nine miles from campus on the eastern edge of the city since 1971.

According to the Las Vegas Review-Journal, Los Angeles-based Majestic Realty Co. and UNLV are involved in the conceptual plans and Las Vegas Sands senior vice president of government relations and community development Andy Abboud said the project would be a "public-private" partnership, with the Sands or the Adelson family contributing a large portion of the financing.

"He said the casino company, which operates the Venetian and Palazzo [casinos], as well as casinos in Macau, Singapore and Pennsylvania, could also raise financing for the project," the Review-Journal reported.

Davis has long stated that remaining in Oakland is his primary goal, but after being rebuffed in an attempt to move to Los Angeles and join the Chargers in a joint-stadium project in nearby Carson -- the Raiders do have the option to join the Rams in Inglewood should the Chargers decline -- the Raiders do not have a lease for a home stadium for the 2016 season.

It is expected that the Raiders will play at least the 2016 season in Oakland. They have also been linked to San Diego, should the Chargers go to Los Angeles, for the following years as well as to San Antonio.

The NFL has had a hard line against Las Vegas, and it is hard to see the league signing off on allowing a team to relocate to the gambling capital of the country. The NFL did not respond immediately for comment.

Las Vegas has chased a major league franchise for almost two decades, including MLB and NBA teams. The city appears close to getting an NHL team in under-construction T-Mobile Arena between the New York-New York and Monte Carlo casinos.

http://espn.go.com/nfl/story/_/id/146691...eaked-memo