Las Vegas a finalist for NFL draft in 2019, 2020

Thursday the finalists to host the NFL draft in 2019 and 2020 were announced. Among them were the Raiders’ future home of Las Vegas.

Vegas is one of five different cities who will be bidding to host the NFL Draft in the upcoming years. The others are Cleveland/Canton, Kansas City, Tennessee, and Denver.

Raiders president Marc Badain said Thursday that the team had just received the news that Las Vegas was among the finalists and they were going to submitting a bid package to the league.

The stadium isn’t expected to be ready for the Raiders until at least 2020, so if Las Vegas were to get the bid for 2019, they would host it without an NFL team. They are the Oakland Raiders until they’re no longer playing in Oakland.

The winners will be announced at the Spring League Meeting in May. A winning city cannot host the draft in both years.

The NFL has moved the draft around in recent years after formerly having it at Radio City Music Hall in New York every year. That stopped in 2014. Since then it has been held in Chicago twice and last year in Philadelphia

This year, it’s being held at the home of the Dallas Cowboys; AT&T Stadium in Arlington Texas April 26-28.