Tom Hanks going on ‘NFL moratorium’ over Raiders move

OAKLAND – Tom Hanks says he’s going on a pro football “moratorium” for two years after his hometown Oakland Raiders leave for Las Vegas, but he didn’t explain what that entails.

The NFL approved the Raiders’ plan to move last month. A $1.9 billion stadium is slated to be built for the team with the help of $750 million in public money.

“You cannot take the Silver and Black, put them in an air-conditioned dome in the desert, make them play on artificial turf within a stone’s throw of the fountains of Caesar’s Palace, and call them the Raiders,” Hanks said Monday at a charity event.

The San Francisco Chronicle reports Hanks told author Dave Eggers on Monday that the NFL is a billion-dollar industry and NFL owners are billionaires. Yet, he says, when the owners want to build a stadium, “they expect the city taxpayers to buy the building.”

Hanks sees one positive in the Raiders’ exit: the possibility of a new baseball stadium for his Oakland Athletics.