Game over? State exec tries to offer hope on Raiders’ move to Las Vegas

By Ric Anderson

Thursday, Feb. 2, 2017 | 2 a.m.

A little good news on Las Vegas’ proposed NFL stadium would have gone a long for way for Steve Hill as he stood before 420 Las Vegas business professionals and community leaders on Wednesday.

But Hill, the executive director of the Governor’s Office of Economic Development, essentially had nothing. And that says about everything you need to know about the stadium proposal, which by all appearances is dead in the water.

If there had been any encouraging news to toss out, you can bet Hill would have offered it when he took the stage at the Las Vegas Global Economic Alliance’s annual outlook event. The victim of awful timing — his appearance at the event came two days after Sheldon Adelson and Goldman Sachs announced they were withdrawing from the stadium deal — Hill needed something positive to report like Carrot Top needs his props.

But about the best he could offer was that the Raiders hadn’t given up, which everybody knew already.

“They are confident they can secure the funding necessary to move this project forward, and they remain committed to making this project happen,” Hill said.

The crowd reaction — silence. The skepticism in the air was as thick as the carpet in the Four Seasons, where the event was held.

It got worse when a member of the audience asked Hill if there were any chance of Adelson getting back into the negotiations and, if not, what was the likelihood of the deal coming together.

“I’m just going to dodge (the question), is the short answer,” he said, chuckling.

You had to feel for Hill, who kept things light and made a valiant effort at making the best of a lousy situation. He said that under the deal approved by the Nevada Legislature, the principals in the deal still had 15 1/2 months to make it work. He said state, local and team officials were fully committed to making it work.

But if he persuaded anyone to be optimistic — a pretty big if — here’s hoping they didn’t catch what NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said Wednesday afternoon about the stadium deal. He said the league would never allow a casino operator to have an ownership stake in a team.

So what now? Well, hope isn’t completely dead. This week’s developments could be a matter of the league, Adelson and the Raiders jockeying for leverage. But that seems unlikely given the firmness of the statements.

Whatever the case, what happened Wednesday in Las Vegas and Houston wasn’t good. Goodell’s comment suggests that it will be difficult if not impossible for the Raiders to find another funding partner in Las Vegas, since it seems to rule out potential investors like Steve Wynn and the Fertitta family, owners of Station Casinos.

Granted, there are other people with money in Las Vegas and Nevada, but not Adelson money. Adelson, who ranks No. 22 on Forbes’ list of the world’s richest people, and Goldman Sachs had pledged to contribute $650 million to the project before they backed out. The Raiders are offering $500 million, and the Legislature approved $750 million in public funding, and Sachs had offered to chip in if the private funding came up short.

Hill deserves an attaboy for delivering the non-news in a stand-up way as opposed to calling in sick or claiming to have been called away to handle a pressing matter. But judging on what little he said and how much he didn’t say, the Raiders' move is at a standstill. If not dead.