Las Vegas Sun

March 18, 2024

Fans receive pitch at newly renamed Las Vegas Raiders bar

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Ricardo Torres-Cortez

Oakland Raiders fans gather Saturday at the Las Vegas Raiders Nation Cantina, 4660 Boulder Highway, to watch the first home game of their team’s preseason.

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Raiders-themed cars are seen during a pregame event Saturday outside the Las Vegas Raiders Nation Cantina.

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A Raiders-themed car is seen during a pregame event Saturday outside the Las Vegas Raiders Nation Cantina.

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A man shows off his Oakland Raiders tattoo Saturday at the Las Vegas Raiders Nation Cantina.

Call it working the home-field advantage.

Representatives of Sands Corp., seeking support for $750 million in public financing for a domed football stadium to lure the NFL’s Oakland Raiders to Las Vegas, made a pitch Saturday evening to likely and loud allies: fans who’d gathered at the newly renamed Las Vegas Raiders Nation Cantina to watch a the team’s preseason home opener.

The 100 or so people, most of them decked out in silver and black jerseys, at the cantina at 4660 Boulder Highway were greeted upon arrival by artist’s renditions of the proposed domed stadium.

“Contact your state legislator. Tell them you want the stadium so we can have the Raiders here,” Andy Abboud, Sands’ senior vice president of government relations and community development, said to one of the attendees as he passed out a free hat. Sands is pushing for $750 million in public financing as part of a nearly $2 billion infrastructure project that would include the stadium.

Abboud said stadium proponents wanted to pitch the “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” of a Raiders move to Las Vegas in a new stadium that also would serve as UNLV football’s home field. As part of the pitch, fans were invited to sign a petition from stadium proponents and the event’s organizer, Support Las Vegas Dome. Rallying videos flashed on the screens depicting what football Sunday would look like in the city.

For hours before the game’s 5 p.m. kickoff, fans stood at the parking lot admiring hot rods, which were part of a car contest. Trophy pillars were made of Raiders-themed aluminum cans. Some held Las Vegas Raiders flags. Most wore team apparel.

Leonard Lopez, a 44-year-old pharmacy technician, said he moved to Las Vegas 15 years ago from Arizona and has never cheered for the Cardinals.

He described “Raider Nation” as a family he likes being around. About his team possibly moving to the valley, he said it would be dream come true.

“It’s going to happen,” Lopez said Las Vegas landing the Raiders. “It is going to happen.”

Tony Curiel, 50, president of the local group Sin City Raiders, said the stadium project looked promising. Until recently, the decades-long fan never thought a team would move to Las Vegas, where he has lived for 10 years.

A woman who identified herself as Cynthia interjected to say she has been hearing football fans say they would change their allegiances and cheer for the Raiders.

Robert Magdaleno, 46, who has the Raiders’ logo tattooed on his forearm, and watches his team play in Oakland, said he would rather the team not move from California, but that it needed a new stadium. He says he flies to San Francisco, eats, takes public transportation to Oakland, spends the night, goes to the game and flies back to go to work the next day.

“Now, if they could be here,” he said. “Oh, man.”

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