By Alan Snel of LVSportsBiz.com
It’s not every day the governor of your state visits your city for a big announcement and yells the name of the new hometown NFL team over and over again.
“Raiders. Raiders. Raiders. Raiders.”
Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak did that not once but twice on a stage installed on the Raiders stadium construction site Wednesday afternoon with the massive black stadium looming as the backdrop.
Sisolak officially declared today, “Las Vegas Raiders Day,” in Nevada and let all those be informed: the NFL team is now officially known as the Las Vegas Raiders.
Raiders owner Mark Davis signed the hard hats of construction workers, Raiders President Marc Badain lugged around the framed Raiders Day proclamation and current Raiders players like quarterback Derek Carr and old ones like former Super Bowl champ Jim Plunkett mingled with a few hundred construction workers who were wrapping up their 3 p.m. shift.
LVSportsBiz.com interviewed Sisolak about the official Las Vegas Raiders. He’s a big Raiders fan who received the backing of the Laborers Local 872 union.
LVSportsBiz.com also chatted with team president Badain, who is busier than a quarterback trying to escape a blitz these days. Badain said the official Las Vegas Raiders merchandise will be sold when the NFL Draft event hits Las Vegas April 23-25. Here’s that interview:
After the Las Vegas Raiders name was officially declared, the gathering turned into a pep rally. And the Raiders also had a video ready to go.
Construction workers lined up to get their hard hats signed by Davis, who joked with the workers that they would get steak and lobster dinners if they finished the $1.97 billion stadium project before the expected completion date of July 31.
Of the $1.97 billion total project budget, $1.4 billion is going toward construction of the domed, 65,000-seat venue that will sit on 62 acres on the west side of Interstate 15 across the highway from Mandalay Bay hotel-casino. Southern Nevada is giving the Raiders $750 million in public money to help build the stadium, which will be run by the Raiders. While the stadium will be near the Strip, the team headquarters is being built in Henderson near the Henderson airport.
The Raiders also planting roots in Southern Nevada and the Silver State. The team pledged $500,000 toward eliminating meal debt which will be allocated through the Nevada Community Foundation (NCF). Nevada schools participating in the National School Lunch and Breakfast Programs will be working with NCF to eliminate existing school meal debt. “Today, we want to make a donation to the Nevada Department of Agriculture meal service program, which feeds kids lunch and breakfast at the schools. We are hoping to eliminate the debt that the entire state of Nevada has to do that project, and in that regard we are donating $500,000 to the program,” Davis said in a release.
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