By Alan Snel of LVSportsBiz.com
For those keeping track, the Raiders stadium budget is officially at $1.976 billion after the spending plan was increased by $3.3 million during the May 2020 reporting period.
And the 65,000-seat, fixed-roofed stadium is still on target to be completed by July 31. It’s 98 percent done, according to Raiders stadium pointman Don Webb.
Where’s the money coming from to pay the stadium construction bills?
The public is contributing $750 million, and most of that has been spent on the project (The debt service is more than $1 billion over 30 years.) The Raiders raised a stunning amount of money in personal seat licenses, the fees charged to fans to obtain the right to pay for season tickets. The Raiders took in $549.2 million in personal seat license money — way above the original estimate of $290 million. And the Raiders borrowed $466.8 million, but keep in mind the NFL team did quite nicely in ticket sales and corporate sponsorships deals to cover a healthy chunk of that loan.
In fact, the Raiders PR staff sent an email Tuesday saying the NFL team has another sponsor for the stadium. Shift4 Payments (NYSE: FOUR), a leading provider of integrated payment processing solutions, is the Official Credit Card Processing Company of the Las Vegas Raiders and Allegiant Stadium and a sponsor of the stadium. That was a day after Lamar Advertising cut a deal with the Raiders to be the exclusive out of home advertising provider on the domed stadium site.
The information comes from the Las Vegas Stadium Authority board meeting documents prepared for Thursday’s 1 p.m. board session. It will conducted via video conference in light of the novel coronavirus pandemic.
When will anyone from the public get to attend an event at the Raiders stadium, now known as Allegiant Stadium? Your guess is as good as any.
UNLV’s football team lost two big non-conference games with California and Arizona State at the new stadium when the Pac-12 said it was scrubbing non-conference games. LVSportsBiz.com contacted UNLV about how much money it will lose because of those two lost home football games, but never heard back.
Here’s Webb strolling the 62.5-acre site months ago.
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