By Alan Snel of LVSportsBiz.com
Las Vegas Raiders have contacted their season ticket holders to give them a chance to watch the team’s players practice for the first time at new Allegiant Stadium via a live-look-in from their laptops and devices Friday.
The NFL team is not allowing fans, including season ticket holders, to attend its home games this year at the new 65,000-seat domed stadium on the west side of Interstate 15 across from from Mandalay Bay hotel-casino. It’s about a 15-minute walk from the Strip via Hacienda Avenue, which spans the interstate.
This is what the Raiders told season ticket holders Thursday in an email:
The Raiders left Oakland for Las Vegas because Southern Nevada contributed $750 million in public dollars to build the stadium, which cost $1.4 billion to construct. The debt service on the $750 million public subsidy is more than $1 billion over 30 years. The overall stadium project budget is $1.976 billion, which includes costs like the land acquisition and design expenses above the stadium construction costs. The $1.976 billion — or $2 billion – is what you typically hear in the media.
The team has been practicing early mornings at the Raiders’ new training center and headquarters in Henderson, about 10 miles or so south and east of the new stadium in Las Vegas.
The media Thursday asked defensive coordinator Paul Guenther about the benefits of holding practice at Allegiant Stadium.
Guenther responded: “I think it’s important. Me personally, I haven’t been in the stadium. A lot of the players haven’t been there yet. See the locker room and go through the routine and see your locker, see what it looks like, what the walk is coming out. It’s good for the stadium people to get ready for a game-like atmosphere. So, we’re going to treat this like a game, coming out of the locker room, stretching, doing all those things and then we are going to get into practice and do some different things. So, it’s a good routine to see where we are going to be playing our home games at because a lot of our guys haven’t seen it yet.”
It’s good for the stadium people to get ready for a game-like atmosphere. So, we’re going to treat this like a game, coming out of the locker room, stretching, doing all those things and then we are going to get into practice and do some different things.
It’s unknown when fans will be allowed to go in the stadium in person for an event. No fans will be allowed in the new stadium for Raiders home games. And the Mountain West Conference has cancelled all fall sports, so the UNLV football team will not play in the new stadium either.
And the Pac-12 conference has cancelled its football season because of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has claimed the lives of more than 170,000 Americans. That means no Pac-12 title game in Allegiant Stadium this year.
A sold-out Garth Brooks concert was rescheduled from August to February. But will fans be allowed in the domed stadium by then?
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