Visions of Raiders stadium in Las Vegas come alive in another desert town
GLENDALE, Ariz. — Marc Badain was in Las Vegas recently — a place he finds himself often now — and went shopping for a present. His friend also has a dog.
“They had all these sweaters for dogs with NFL teams on them, but there were none for the Raiders,” Badain said. “I asked why, and they said, ‘We can’t keep them on the shelves.’ ”
Translation: If you see a canine trotting around the neighborhood wearing a No. 4 with CARR on its back, you’re not crazy.
Badain stood in the press box at University of Phoenix Stadium on Saturday night a good 90 minutes before the Raiders opened their preseason schedule against the Cardinals with a 20-10 loss, staring out at a structure that in some ways could resemble the team’s Las Vegas home, set to open in 2020.
Other than, well, the retractable roof, all the exposed steel and red seats.
In any other year, the team’s president would know each Raiders player personally by now, would have spent nearly every day at training camp in Napa, would have a much deeper grasp on pending transactions and how the roster will be shaped before the season opens at Tennessee on Sept. 10.
But this isn’t any other year.
This won’t be any other next three years.
Badain’s charge is to ensure the Russell Road stadium project continues to move forward at a responsible and prudent pace, which means his calendar always has a meeting in Southern Nevada pending and he has heard more about potential parking issues the past few months than the CEO of Ace Management.
The team is negotiating with land owners whose sites are ample size to resolve the issue at hand, which is to say 14,000 off-site spaces are needed to comply with county code.
Should important questions be answered when Clark County commissioners meet this week to vote on advancing things, a shovel could be in the ground by January.
“I’m hoping it’s sooner,” Badain said.
It’s all relative, anyway. Already, soil samples at the site are being studied and there’s every chance earth will be moved sometime in November, meaning the January timeline could be more about the typical photo op with suits wearing hard hats.
More than here, the new home of the Vikings is a comparative peer for what the Raiders want, given U.S. Bank was recently completed, done so on time (31 months) with no works-in-progress upon the doors opening and the same firm (Mortenson Construction) that built it will also oversee things in Las Vegas.
The Raiders will have a retractable grass field like the one at University of Phoenix Stadium, and they’re big on similar concession areas built deeper into walls so that long lines don’t interfere with the flow on a concourse.
Some good news: When you roll the field into the stadium, it opens up a few hundred parking spaces.
Hey, you would think anything helps in that area at this point.
When it comes to some fans, desires for the new home appear fairly simple.
“More bathrooms, better food and having them sell beer up and down the aisles,” said Thomas Jaurigue, a Phoenix resident and season-ticket holder in Oakland. “I probably spend $3,000 to $4,000 a year on flights to see games now, so I can’t wait for a five-hour drive to Las Vegas. Already put down my deposit for seats.”
He will make those journeys in a 2016 black Denali, complete with a Raiders hood cover and flags and Raiders Nation scrawled across the spoiler.
Jaurigue is all-in on the Las Vegas stadium.
He wasn’t the only one Saturday, Raiders fans either from Arizona or elsewhere arriving to catch a first glimpse of the 2017 version.
Ricardo Camarena — an Arizona resident wearing one of those non-NFL licensed Las Vegas Raiders T-shirts — has his own hopes for the new stadium.
“I just want it look like it does in the pictures,” he said.
Badain has similar visions and dreams, one of those within the organization who has waited decades to know the reality of building such a state-of-the-art facility, in this case from the first soil test to what will be large, operable glass doors with a view of the Las Vegas Strip.
The thought of it even has 35-year-old Raiders fan Stephanie LaSasso thinking about moving from Monrovia, California, to Las Vegas. Yeah, like for good.
“More beer is always fine with me, but I just want the stadium to be perfect,” she said.
It’s a lot to ask, but if they fall short, at least she knows there will be a store selling Raiders sweaters for her dog.
Once it orders more, of course.
More Raiders: Follow all of our Oakland Raiders-to-Las Vegas coverage online at reviewjournal.com/Raiders and @NFLinVegas on Twitter.
Contact columnist Ed Graney at egraney@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4618. He can be heard on “The Press Box,” ESPN Radio 100.9 FM and 1100 AM from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Monday through Friday. Follow @edgraney on Twitter.