The biggest news of the day in the NFL has a decidedly college football connection.
By a 31-1 vote, NFL owners approved the Raiders move from Oakland to Las Vegas later this decade. The new stadium that will eventually serve as the home for the NFL club is expected to be ready for play for the 2020 season.
As expected, it will also serve as the new home for Sin City’s FBS team, a fact that UNLV’s hierarchy was quick to point out and highlight in the hours after the vote was officially confirmed. Below are the statements from the three main characters involved with the football program.
Len Jessup, UNLV President
“UNLV and the entire Rebel family welcome the Oakland Raiders to Las Vegas. We look forward to a long-term partnership with the Raiders and the Stadium Authority Board to give UNLV football access to a world-class stadium and accompanying game day experience that will rival the best in college football. We also recognize and thank the numerous stakeholders - including the Adelson family - who invested their time and energy toward this vision. This is an historic day for Nevada and another example of how Las Vegas continues to reinvent itself.”
Tina Kunzer-Murphy, UNLV Athletics Director
“We are very excited to welcome the Raiders to our great city of Las Vegas. Our community is on the rise and that has clearly been recognized by the NFL owners with today’s vote. We can’t wait for the day our UNLV football program has a new home, sharing the new world-class stadium with the Las Vegas Raiders. What a great day for the NFL, our city and our university.”
“Today is a huge development for UNLV Football and the city of Las Vegas. Sharing a state-of-the-art stadium with the Raiders is another thing that will allow us to recruit at a high level. The combination of an NFL stadium and our upcoming Fertitta Football Complex brings so much energy to this program and campus. As someone who has lived here for eight years, I’m also excited for this community. This is a great place to live and the pride of being an NFL city will make it an even better place.”
Big day for Las Vegas. Excited to share our new home with the #LasVegasRaiders! pic.twitter.com/4IAKAickYN
— UNLV Football (@unlvfootball) March 27, 2017
In addition to being tenants in a new state-of-the-art stadium, the university will soon begin construction on an on-campus football practice facility.
There are five FBS teams that will share stadiums with NFL teams on at least a part-time basis in 2017 -- UMass (New England Patriots, Gillette Stadium), Miami (Miami Dolphins, Sun Life Stadium), Temple (Philadelphia Eagles, Lincoln Financial Field), Pitt (Pittsburgh Steelers, Heinz Field) and USF (Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Raymond James Stadium). Georgia State had shared the Georgia Dome with the Atlanta Falcons but are moving to the new Turner Field this season, while San Diego State will still call Qualcomm Stadium home even as the Chargers have bolted the facility for Los Angeles.
There has been chatter that both Temple (HERE) and USF (HERE) could find themselves in a position to build an on-campus stadium at some point down the road -- although the latter could extend its agreement with its current home as it continues to evaluate its long-term plans.
The Los Angles Rams are also temporarily crashing at the home of the USC Trojans, Memorial Coliseum, until their new stadium is completed.