By Alan Snel of LVSportsBiz.com
The Raiders are not selling Las Vegas Raiders T-shirts and hats yet. But they have closed the book on playing in Oakland and have begun sending emails to their new season ticket holders based in Las Vegas. The Raiders like their PSL holders and here’s why — the team generated a stunning $478.3 million in personal seat license (PSL) revenues. The PSLs must be purchased in order to buy season tickets — which generated tens of millions of dollars in more revenue for the Raiders’ Season 1 in Las Vegas.
Let’s see what the Raiders have been sending their season ticket holders.
There’s parking issues that need to be ironed out. The Raiders say they will have more than 25,000 parking spaces. But nobody know where exactly all the parking spots will be despite the fact that Raiders President Marc Badain told the Las Vegas stadium authority board that the team has spent $50 million on acquiring space for parking.
The Raiders say there will 7,000 parking spots for tailgating. But where will those parking spaces be? We don’t know.
The team is also saying it will be a “special fan experience” to walk over the closed Hacienda Avenue overpass, which spans Interstate 15, allowing fans to hoof it from the Strip to the stadium.
The Raiders will gather information from their personal seat license holders on how they plan to pay for food, drinks and merchandise. And they want to know how their PSL holders feel about parking and tailgating preferences, too.
The Raiders are also trying to sell bricks to fans at the main entrance to raise money for their foundation — something that’s common at new sports venues.
The Raiders say they have a media announcement Wednesday at 2:30 p.m. They’re just not saying what the announcement is. The Raiders know they have so much clout and influence in the Las Vegas market that Las Vegas’ NFL team can tell the media about an announcement on an unknown topic and the media will still come even though journalists don’t even know what they’re reporting on.
It’s interesting that the Raiders use the media for free advertising for their sponsorship announcements. But the public is in the dark on NFL-related issues that affect the community. For example, look at the planning for the NFL draft event in Las Vegas in 14 weeks in April. The NFL is scheduled to discuss the draft event at a Clark County Commission meeting Tuesday and here’s the backup info for the agenda item:
That’s it. That’s the entire background offered to the public. NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said at a Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce event Friday that the draft brings a major economic impact, though he didn’t explain the methodology behind how the NFL comes up with the spending numbers.
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