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Report: As expected Raiders will file for Las Vegas relocation

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We’ve been headed here for months. But I guess the ‘news’ is that Mark Davis has gone from being ‘expected’ to file for the Raiders to move to Las Vegas to that he ‘will’ file.

That was the report today from NFL media from “Sources familiar with their thinking.”

Plenty of sources familiar with Davis’s thinking including, on several occasions, Davis himself, have confirmed he would be filing for relocations this week, but I suppose it’s not for real real until one of the national media guys says it is, so here we are.

Davis was first eligible to apply for reinstatement the moment the Raiders’ season was over, which was a week ago. Last Wednesday, he formally made his Vegas pitch to the league for the planned $1.9 billion stadium.

We still are a couple months away from the NFL owners vote on the move, which is expected to happen at the owners meetings on March 26, though Goodell has given the city of Oakland until February 15 to make their pitch to keep the team. Thus far, the league has not liked what they’ve seen from the new framework given to them, calling it a “carbon copy” of the previous plans that weren’t seen as viable.

There are still unresolved issues on the Vegas side of things — namely the partnership with Mark Davis and casino magnate Sheldon Adelson which has him kicking in $650 million — as well as the noted issues on the Oakland side which reports say they view as “unsalvageable.”

Between the time Oakland makes their final pitch to the league and they vote in late March, the league owners will each have to decide whether they are ok with the arrangement in Vegas as opposed to the situation in Oakland.