Raiders would play exhibitions at Sam Boyd Stadium if domed stadium is built

The NFL’s Oakland Raiders plan to play some preseason games at Sam Boyd Stadium, and possibly one regular-season game per year, to help build their fan base in Southern Nevada if a deal is reached to build a new domed stadium near the Las Vegas Strip, multiple sources said this week.

But the Raiders don’t plan to fully relocate to Las Vegas before a new stadium is ready, the sources said on the condition of anonymity.

Raiders owner Mark Davis toured Sam Boyd Stadium with UNLV officials on April 1, his second visit to Las Vegas in the past three months, to assess the stadium’s suitability for NFL games. Davis met with Las Vegas Sands Chairman and CEO Sheldon Adelson and Wynn Resorts Chairman Steve Wynn in late January, when Las Vegas Sands first proposed building a $1.3 billion, 65,000-seat stadium near UNLV.

Sam Boyd Stadium, which opened in 1971 as the Las Vegas Silver Bowl, needs to boost its seating capacity of 35,500 before it could become the de facto Silver-and-Black Bowl. Mike Newcomb, Sam Boyd’s executive director, said an expansion in the north end zone could increase capacity to 45,000, but that would still leave Sam Boyd as the smallest stadium to host an NFL game since 1998, when the then-Tennessee Oilers played at 40,550-seat Vanderbilt Stadium while Nissan Stadium was being built in Nashville.

The Raiders currently play in O.co Coliseum, which seats 53,250, the lowest capacity in the NFL, and is the third-oldest venue in the league behind Chicago’s Soldier Field and Green Bay’s Lambeau Field. The Raiders have agreed to play the 2016 season in Oakland on a one-year lease, but have no home beyond this season.

The Raiders applied to the NFL for relocation from Oakland, but were rejected in January when the Rams were allowed to move from St. Louis to Los Angeles.

Asked via text message this week what it would take to make Sam Boyd Stadium NFL-ready, Newcomb replied “that would be a question for the NFL or the Raiders.”

Ron Reese, a spokesman for Las Vegas Sands, said the company had no comment on this report. Davis didn’t return a phone call from the Review-Journal seeking comment.

After Davis’ tour last week, Las Vegas Sands posted a photo on its Twitter account of the Raiders owner standing outside the stadium with UNLV adviser Don Snyder, football coach Tony Sanchez, school president Len Jessup and athletic director Tina Kunzer-Murphy.

Sanchez said he arrived late at the stadium after football practice that day and thus didn’t have any details of the tour.

“Obviously I was with those guys the other day when they did the walk-through,” he said. “I did not even have a conversation with them about whether or not it was NFL-ready.”

Sam Boyd underwent a renovation in 1999 that included a new press box, luxury suites, club seats and other amenities, and last year a new $1.2 million artificial turf field was installed. About the only area of the stadium that hasn’t been renovated is the locker rooms, which were built 45 years ago.

“They would definitely have to make the players’ locker room bigger. If the Raiders go over there now and see the players’ locker room, they might be a little disappointed,” said former UNLV running back Bradley Randle, who played for the Minnesota Vikings in the 2013 preseason. “It’s good for the UNLV football team, but when it comes to NFL players and coaches and the Raiders going there, there’s a standard.

“Some of the (NFL) lockers have little TVs in them and phone chargers and pretty much the works. That’s what they expect. Five-star treatment is a must.”

Former UNLV running back Frank Summers, who played parts of three seasons for the Buffalo Bills and Pittsburgh Steelers, disputes that notion. He said the locker rooms at Sam Boyd are suitable for NFL teams.

“A locker room is a locker room,” he said. “There’s not much you need in a locker room other than a hot tub and a shower. The only thing I can think of adding is a hot tub. A lot of people don’t know that a college team is double the size of an NFL team. There are (105) guys on a college team and 53 on an NFL team.

“There’s plenty of room for the NFL. Every player would have two lockers to themselves.”

The venue has housed pro football teams in the past. The Posse of the Canadian Football League played there in 1994, the Outlaws of the now-defunct XFL in 2001 and the Locomotives of the defunct United Football League from 2009 to 2012.

There are precedents for NFL teams playing at college football stadiums. The Arizona Cardinals called Arizona State’s Sun Devil Stadium home from 1988 to 2005, dealing with Phoenix’s September heat by playing their first few games on the road and their home openers at night.

Before Tennessee played at Vanderbilt Stadium — where the NFL waived its rule requiring its venues to have at least 50,000 seats — it spent the 1997 season at the University of Memphis’ 62,380-seat Liberty Bowl, where it averaged a league-low 28,028 fans per game.

The Seattle Seahawks played at the University of Washington’s 72,500-seat Husky Stadium in 2000 and 2001 while CenturyLink Field was being built. The Chicago Bears played at the University of Illinois’ 69,249-seat Memorial Stadium in 2002 while Soldier Field was being renovated. And the Vikings played at the University of Minnesota’s 52,525-seat TCF Bank Stadium the past two seasons while awaiting the completion of U.S. Bank Stadium.

In addition to reportedly paying up to $3 million a year to rent TFC Bank Stadium, the Vikings paid for $6.6 million in renovations, with most of the money going to a new hydronic heating system that was installed under the field.

Other renovations to the Golden Gophers’ stadium — which features the largest home locker room in college or pro football and one of the largest video boards in the nation — included the addition of 1,700 temporary seats, expanded concessions and improvements to the restrooms.

In 2002, the Fighting Illini used part of the more than $1 million in revenue generated by the Bears playing at their football field to install a new video board and locker rooms at Memorial Stadium.

The meeting at Sam Boyd took place one week after NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said the league would consider allowing a franchise to play in Las Vegas. Previously, the league has strongly opposed the idea of America’s gambling capital hosting a team. But Goodell said the league would have to address gambling if Davis wanted to move the Raiders to Las Vegas.

“Those are things we’d have to deal with,” Goodell said at the end of the league meetings. “We would have to understand the impact on us. Each owner would have a vote; it would be a factor many owners would have to balance, the league would have to balance.”

Goodell didn’t reject the idea of an NFL franchise in Las Vegas.

“I think their ultimate decision is a long ways off,” Goodell said. “There are several cities that have a tremendous interest in the Raiders. I’m hopeful also that Oakland will be one of those and that we can avoid any relocation to start with. … But until we’ve got a hard proposal that really put that in front of us, we’d have to understand what the ramifications of that are.”

The Review-Journal is owned by the family of Las Vegas Sands Corp. Chairman and CEO Sheldon Adelson.

Contact reporter Todd Dewey at tdewey@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0354. Follow him on Twitter: @tdewey33