By Alan Snel of LVSportsBiz.com
The Las Vegas Raiders are pitching Allegiant Stadium tours (“coming soon,” according to the stadium website) as the Raiders’ two home preseason games, the UNLV football games and a soldout Garth Brooks concert are all scrubbed from the August calendar.
On Saturday morning, two workers were doing maintenance on a tree and several workers were heading into the domed stadium.
There was publicity to get people to apply for stadium jobs, but it appears the Raiders have pumped the brakes on that because the Allegiant Stadium home page mentioned tours, owner Mark Davis’ decision to not have fans at Raiders games in 2020 because of the pandemic and the Raiders game schedule at the 65,000-seat venue.
But no big stadium website stories on hiring people for 4,500 part-time jobs ranging from concessions to janitorial.
Southern Nevada has a massive financial investment in Raiders stadium, which was completed July 31. More than $1 billion in hotel room tax revenue will be collected during a 30-year debt service repayment period in order for the public to contribute $750 million to the stadium’s $1.976 billion project budget. That budget included the $1.4 billion for the stadium construction, while the other nearly $600 million went for expenses like land acquisition and design costs.
It’s obvious that the pandemic has hit the hotel room tax revenues hard. Occupancy rates are probably in the 50 percent range with a novel coronavirus pandemic still limiting people from travelling and buying hotel rooms on the Strip.
I took a bicycle ride Saturday morning on the Strip and all was quiet.
Downtown Las Vegas, which us receiving a jolt from the opening of the Circa hotel-casino, was also very quiet. In fact, mostly cones and barriers on Las Vegas Boulevard at the Fremont Street Experience.
The parking is open at Allegiant Stadium. Plenty of space Saturday morning. Even for a lonely bicycle.
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