By Alan Snel of LVSportsBiz.com
Of all the corporate partnerships the Las Vegas Raiders have been racking up, this one was as a no-brainer as you can get.
Las Vegas-based MGM Resorts International is the Raiders’ official gaming partner.
MGM Resorts, the company with the most hotel-casinos on the Strip, has backed the Raiders’ $1.97 billion stadium project from the start of the public discussion. After all, as Raiders President Marc Badain put it accurately — Nothing happens in Las Vegas if MGM Resorts isn’t behind it.
Officially speaking, the deal calls for MGM Resorts International to be named a founding partner of Allegiant Stadium and an Official Home of the Raiders Pre and Post Game Party.
Naturally, MGM Resorts — as the Raiders’ gaming partner — will have marketing and promotional presence at the NFL team’s Allegiant Stadium, the 65,000-seat, domed venue being built right across Interstate 15 from Mandalay Bay hotel-casino, one of MGM Resorts’ properties on the Strip. Caesars Entertainment is also a stadium partner. But as the NHL Vegas Golden Knights have shown in the sponsorship world, the gaming and hotel category will not be an exclusive one.
Badain discussed the new sponsorship here:
MGM Resorts International CEO Jim Murren and Mandalay Bay President Chuck Bowling both said they were “jazzed” about the Raiders’ business relationship and the stadium. The venue will be reached by fans on the Strip via Hacienda Avenue, the east-west road that spans the interstate and will be a pedestrian link between MGM Resorts’ hotels like Mandalay Bay and Luxor and the stadium site.
In an interview with LVSportsBiz.com, Bowling said he expects Mandalay Bay and other MGM Resorts sister properties on the Strip’s south side to be pre-game gathering and party points before fans hoof it to the stadium on Hacienda Avenue, which will be closed to vehicular traffic on Raiders game days.
“We want to be the gathering place, where people can watch the early games and place bets,” Bowling said after the press conference at Mandalay Bay Thursday.
While Badain is fattening the Raiders’ sponsorship portfolio with deals worth in the tens of millions of dollars, MGM Resorts has an impressive roster of gaming partners like the NBA, NHL, MLB and Major League Soccer. Murren, very bullish on sports for MGM Resorts, played a direct role in MGM Resorts acquiring the WNBA San Antonio franchise, which was re-branded into the Aces and uses the Mandalay Bay Events Center as its home court.
Here’s the Raiders press release on the gaming partnership with MGM Resorts.
It’s been a busy three days for Badain, who attended the Clark County Commission meeting Tuesday to hear the NFL discuss the 2020 NFL Draft that is set for Las Vegas April 23-25 He also spoke at the Raiders announcement Wednesday on the team officially changing its name to the Las Vegas Raiders.
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