Oakland Raiders Trademark Names for Las Vegas

Are they one step closer to relocation or just trying to put a little bit of extra pressure on Alameda County?

Whatever their reason, the Oakland Raiders this week trademarked “LAS VEGAS RAIDERS” as a potential new name for the franchise. The trademark submitted to the United States Patent and Trademark Office was filed on August 20, 2016 by “The Oakland Raiders Limited Partnership California”

The Raiders have been long known to be looking for a new home stadium, whether that be in Oakland, Los Angeles, or Las Vegas. Los Angeles ended up getting the St Louis Rams (and possibly could still get the San Diego Chargers as well), Oakland is reportedly “behind-the-scenes” talking about a new Coliseum, and folks in Nevada are meeting this morning to discuss allocating resources for a new domed stadium to house a potential NFL team in Las Vegas.

The trademark filed by Oakland for the "Las Vegas Raiders" — The trademark filed by Oakland for the “Las Vegas Raiders”

It’s not common for teams to trademark names for a potential relocation that never happens but it has occurred in the past, a few years ago the Sacramento Kings trademarked several names for a phantom move to Anaheim all of which had the team named “Royals”.

A helmet tap to Clark Rasmussen for giving us the heads up on this story.