Relocation fees detailed
What a bargain: $385 million.
That’s the reported relocation fee that the league is charging the Oakland Raiders to move to Las Vegas in three years. Compare that to the $645 million that ESPN is reporting the Rams and Chargers are having to fork over to move to Los Angeles.
Those fees are significantly more for the Rams and Chargers — and less for the Raiders — than had been expected. In January 2016, when all three teams were expected to file going-to-Los Angeles papers, the NFL Network said the fees for such a move would be $550 million.
Relocation fees are weighted based on the value of a team’s new market.
The Raiders will pay the $385 million over 10 years, starting when they formally move, which the team hopes is 2020. (After this season, though, the team holds only another option to play in the Oakland Coliseum in 2018.)
In March, the NFL approved the Raiders’ move from Oakland to Las Vegas with a 31-1 vote from the league’s owners.
The Raiders will get one-31st of each of the Rams’ and Chargers’ relocation fees starting in 2019.
Between the three teams’ relocation fees, each of the league’s other teams will receive in excess of $50 million.
Including the Raiders, Rams and Chargers, there have been nine relocations since the AFL-NFL merger in 1966 — and three of them involve the Raiders. Prior to the Las Vegas decision, the team moved from Oakland to Los Angeles in 1982 and back to Oakland in ’95.