It's Official: Raiders Will Train in Nevada
by Tom LaMarre
There were reports earlier this week that the Las Vegas Raiders planned to move training camp to their new headquarters in Henderson, Nev., this summer, but now it’s a sure thing and they don’t have a choice.
The National Football League sent out a league-wide directive for all teams to hold training camp at their home headquarters in order to cut down on travel to help mitigate the spread of the Coronavirus.
The Raiders have held training camp at the Napa Marriott Hotel and Redwood Middle School in Napa, Calif., since 1996 and until recently were planning to return late in July.
The team issued the following statement after the NFL directive became public: “The Raiders are in receipt of the league’s memo dictating that all 2020 training camps must be held at each team’s home facility. We will follow the league’s protocol accordingly and begin preparations to host training camp at Raiders Headquarters in Henderson, Nevada. The Raiders would like to thank and acknowledge the city of Napa and the Napa Valley Marriott, which has been our summer home for 24 years. We will evaluate future training camp locations at a later date.”
The Raiders are one of 10 NFL teams who held training camp at a site away from their primary headquarters last season, and in fact, they have done that throughout their 60-year history—whether they were located in Oakland or Los Angeles, with every camp held in California.
The other nine teams are the Dallas Cowboys, the Pittsburgh Steelers, the Kansas City Chiefs, the Buffalo Bills, the Indianapolis Colts, the Carolina Panthers, the Washington Redskins, the Los Angeles Rams and the Green Bay Packers—who have held training camp at St. Norbert College in De Pere, Wis., since 1968.
The Raiders’ other training camp sites were the Radisson Suite Hotel in Oxnard from 1987-95, the Oxnard Hilton in 1985-86, the El Rancho Tropicana Motel in Santa Rosa from 1963-1981, and the Raiders headquartered at the Palomar Hotel while working out at Santa Cruz High School from 1960-62.
The Raiders also had hoped to host a minicamp this month at their old headquarters in Alameda, not far from the Oakland International Airport, but they have begun packing up there and moving everything to the Henderson site, which reportedly is all but finished.
The NFL also ordered that teams not hold joint practices with other teams, something that had become increasing popular in recent years during training camp.
