Outdoor temperatures are not the only things heating up in Las Vegas, where efforts to land NFL and NHL franchises are gaining steam.
Billionaire Bill Foley II has been pressing the flesh with NHL officials to bring an NHL franchise to Las Vegas, where more than 14,000 locals signed up for season tickets for hockey franchise that does not exist but would play in the newly built T-Mobile Arena.
Las Vegas and Quebec City are the only two cities under consideration for a potential NHL franchise, but the professional hockey league has yet to agree on an expansion plan, if any.
The NHL has, however, reached a tentative agreement on how it might proceed with an expansion draft if the league agrees to add one or two teams.
That puts Foley and Las Vegas hockey fans in a strong position to land an eventual franchise team within the next five years, especially if the league agrees to grow by two.
While hockey talk is heating up in the summertime, so is talk of bringing the NFL Oakland Raiders to Las Vegas, which team owner Mark Davis said will happen if the city builds a $1.4 billion, 65,000-seat domed stadium.
Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman says Davis isn’t using Las Vegas as leverage to get a better deal someplace else and genuinely wants to move the popular NFL team to Las Vegas.
Goodman recently told the hosts of ESPN Radio’s Capital Games podcast that Davis made a genuine offer to provide $500 million in funding to build a stadium on the UNLV campus, and Las Vegas Sands and Majestic Realty said they would contribute a combined $150 million.
The remaining funds likely would come from room taxes collected by the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority or a taxpayer-backed funding initiative, according to early proposals.
Diverting room taxes to build a stadium would require approval by the Nevada Legislature, which isn’t scheduled to meet until next year.
Even if a stadium were built, 24 of 32 NFL franchise owners would have to vote in favor of the proposed move to Las Vegas. Whether any of that remains to be seen, and will take several years to accomplish, if ever.
