UPDATE: NFL officials have pushed the Oakland Raiders one step closer to their new Las Vegas stadium by approving the conditional lease deal for the $1.9 billion venue, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Raiders' President Marc Badain said the team will now work with Clark County officials to complete the environmental review process and begin to assess financing for the project. Construction on the stadium could begin as early as January 2018 in order to open in time for the team's 2020 season.

Dive Brief:

• The Las Vegas Stadium Authority has conditionally approved the Raiders lease for the team's new 65,000-seat, $1.9 billion stadium on May 18, according to ESPN.
• The LVSA approval allowed the team to present the lease deal at the NFL owners meeting this week rather than at the next scheduled one in October, thereby avoiding a potential year-long delay in starting construction.
• There are other questions that the team and officials must still work out before the LVSA can officially finalize the lease agreement, such as how many local, minority and low-income workers the project will use; a use agreement between the Raiders and the University of Nevada Las Vegas; naming rights; and Clark County and Nevada Department of Transportation (NDOT) impact and environmental reviews.

Dive Insight:  

NDOT officials had to reshuffle about $900 million of infrastructure projects in order to meet the expected traffic demands of the stadium in time for its opening, but said the projects were already planned so reprioritizing them wouldn't require any additional funding.  

If everything goes as planned and the project obtains all approvals on schedule, construction should begin in January 2018 and finish in June 2020, in time for the Raiders' first official home game. The 30-month construction schedule is extremely ambitious, compared with previous stadium project timelines.

Earlier this month, the Raiders announced that it intended to award the construction contract for the stadium to Mortenson Construction — which most recently completed the Minnesota Vikings U.S. Bank Stadium — and McCarthy Building Companies.