Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman told ESPN’s Andy Katz on Tuesday that she’s confident that the city would get an MLS franchise if the NFL’s Oakland Raiders construct a stadium in and move to the Sin City.
“What I see too is Major League Soccer. To me, that is huge. It’s the most popular sport in the world, it’s the biggest sport in the world,” Goodman said on ESPN’s Capital Games podcast.
The Raiders, who lost out in a bid to move to LA earlier this year, are considering a move to Vegas, with team owner Mark Davis meeting with the Southern Nevada Tourism Infrastructure Committee last month and pledging $500 million toward the construction of a proposed $1.4 billion, 65,000-capacity domed stadium.
Goodman told Katz that she’s confident the Raiders will move to Vegas unless the deal is mismanaged.
“The Raiders will come if Nevada handles this properly,” she said.
“Mark Davis has assured us that Las Vegas is not getting played in a Raiders stadium deal. I know we will have a team.”
Las Vegas has been in the running for an MLS team before, and was considered for the expansion slot that ended up being awarded to Minnesota in March 2015.
The Las Vegas City Council even approved in December 2014 a stadium subsidy deal that would’ve used $56.5 million in public funds to help pay for a $200 million soccer stadium proposed by the Findlay Sports & Entertainment group. That deal was nixed when MLS informed Las Vegas last February that they would not consider the city as an expansion market until after 2018.
MLS announced in December that it plans to eventually expand to 28 teams.
Commissioner Don Garber confirmed last month during an expansion-related visit to Sacramento that MLS plans to add four teams to expand to a total of 24 clubs by 2018. Atlanta United FC are scheduled to join the league next year and LAFC will debut in 2018, while Minnesota United FC are expected to enter the league in 2017 or 2018.
Garber also expressed to a group of Associated Press sports editors in April that David Beckham’s proposed ownership group was making progress in his efforts to bring an MLS team to Miami.
In addition to Las Vegas, Sacramento, Detroit, St. Louis, San Diego, San Antonio and Austin have been mentioned as potential candidates for the round of expansion that will see MLS grow to 28 teams. Garber said in his visit to Sacramento that the next round of expansion will “likely” happen in 2020.
