Raiders Owner Davis Expects 10 Percent of Season Ticket Holders at Oakland Stadium to Buy Seats at Las Vegas Stadium

By ALAN SNEL
LVSportsBiz.com

 

Raiders owner Mark Davis says the majority of seats at the new Las Vegas football stadium that opens in 2020 will be occupied by Nevada residents, while about 10 percent of the fans buying seats will be from the Oakland area.

 

“We want the local fan base,” Davis told LVSportsBiz.com before the Las Vegas Aces-Atlanta Dream WNBA game at Mandalay Bay Events Center Sunday.

 

Davis said the percentage of Nevada residents vs. non-Nevada residents buying reserved seats at the new Raiders stadium in Las Vegas should be comparable to the 73 percent of people from Nevada who have purchased personal seat licenses for club seats at the palatial venue. About 27 percent who bought club seat PSLs are from outside Nevada.

 

Davis, who enjoys attending Aces games during the WNBA team’s first year in Las Vegas, said another 10 percent of the fans buying seats at the Raiders stadium in Las Vegas are coming from the Los Angeles area. The Raiders played in LA from 1982-1994 and have a sizable fan base in Southern California.

 

The Raiders’ move to Las Vegas is a process lasting more than two years as the NFL franchise has operations on two fronts these days. It’s a delicate balancing act that involves team staff in Oakland where the team has fostered a deep emotional fan base and in Las Vegas, where ticket sales staff have set up shop to sell personal seat licenses that give fans the right to buy seats at the domed, 65,000-seat venue on 62.5 acres on the west side of Interstate 15 bounded by Russell Road and Polaris and Hacienda avenues. It’s across the interstate from Mandalay Bay hotel-casino.

 

About a dozen cranes are already on site, including these.

 

Davis is a common sight at Vegas Golden Knights and Las Vegas Aces games. At Sunday’s Aces game, he was with former Raiders player Marcel Reese at courtside. It was the final Aces game of the season. The WNBA club lost to Atlanta and finished 14-20 in their first season in Las Vegas after moving from San Antonio.

 

Davis said the goal is to immerse himself into the Las Vegas scene as part of the NFL team’s move to Southern Nevada. At previous Aces games, Davis has also been with Laborers 872 union business manager and secretary-treasurer Tommy White, a big Raiders stadium supporter and member of the Las Vegas stadium authority board.

 

“You have to have the immersion into the community,” Davis said.

 

Davis stressed the Raiders will be deeply involved in Las Vegas.

 

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“Las Vegas is not just getting a football team. It’s getting a team 365 days a year. It’s like an Army is coming to town,” Davis said.

 

The Raiders will be playing at the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum in 2018, but there is no lease deal there for 2019 — yet.

 

While the old Baltimore Colts left for Indianapolis in the middle of the night in 1984 in what is the NFL’s most infamous team move, the Raiders’ transition to Las Vegas has been out in the open ever since the Nevada Legislature approved a $750 million subsidy for the $1.8 billion stadium in 2016 and the NFL owners in March 2017 approved the Raiders move to Las Vegas.

 

“We were transparent and open and honest with Oakland fans,” Davis said. “We never lied to them.”

 

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