- This is the Raiders’ first season in Las Vegas after a 60 year run in Oakland and Los Angeles.
- The Las Vegas Raiders will play in the brand new $1.9 billion Allegiant Stadium.
- The Raiders’ preseason schedule has been announced though it remains tentative due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The city of Las Vegas is completely stoked for their long overdue entry into the roster of National Football League markets. In fact, the 2020 Las Vegas Raiders home schedule at the city’s state of the art new stadium is completely sold out. The full allotment of season tickets is gone and so is all of the tickets available on a single game basis. We saw how the city supported the Vegas Golden Knights in their first NHL season a couple of years back–if the Raiders can put a competitive team on the field it’ll be more of the same here.
If you want to catch the Raiders at Allegiant Stadium but got shut out of the regular season ducats your best chance will likely be one of their two NFL preseason games. Not that they’re not going to be tough tickets–particularly the August 27 game against the Arizona Cardinals which will be the official opening of the new $1.9 billion stadium–but for now they’re not completely sold out. They actually aren’t on sale yet due to the uncertainty caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The Raiders will open the regular season on the road as the play at Carolina on Sunday, September 13. They’ll make their home debut the following week when the New Orleans Saints come to town for a nationally televised ESPN Monday Night game.
Here’s the Las Vegas Raiders’ tentative preseason schedule. They’ll open the preseason on the road at Seattle in Week 1 and play at San Francisco in Week 2. Neither game has a date set yet due to the uncertain status of the NFL schedule this season. The expectation is that the game against the Seahawks will be played in the Jet City between August 13 and 17 while the game in San Fran between August 20 and 24.
The remaining two preseason games will be played in Las Vegas and although they’ve got dates set for both they’re still ‘subject to change’. August 27 will see the Arizona Cardinals come to town and the Raiders will conclude the preseason on September 3 against the Los Angeles Rams. The excitement is building in Las Vegas as the reality of being a NFL city starts to set in–in the latest development, workers have started to lay down grass for the Allegiant Stadium field.
The NFL is hoping that the pandemic situation will have improved enough by then to allow them to maintain their schedule. There’s obviously no guarantees of that. The league has yet to allow any teams to open facilities and won’t allow any teams to open their facilities early for competitive reasons. This means that until all 32 NFL teams get the all clear from the relevant government functionaries none of the teams will be allowed to start preparing for the 2020 season.
The first issue the NFL is likely to face is the status and nature of training camp. Some teams will be able to conduct their preparations as planned in their usual training camp location. Other teams from areas that have been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic will likely have to relocated their training camp for this season.
