By Alan Snel of LVSportsBiz.com
Today is history in Las Vegas.
A new $2 billion stadium project opens Monday. The Las Vegas Raiders — yes, there’s a “Las Vegas” in front of “Raiders” — will inaugurate their new palatial building with a Monday Night Football game with the New Orleans Saints.
It’s a stunning feat that this domed sports and entertainment edifice built with $750 million in public dollars from Southern Nevada is opening.
“Tonight marks the completion of almost five years of hard work by a community that knows how to get things accomplished,” Raiders President Marc Badain told LVSportsBiz.com Monday. “It is a proud day for the Raiders, the leaders of this community, the incredible workforce that built Allegiant Stadium and for all of Las Vegas and Nevada.”
At first, the Raiders were going to move to Los Angeles — not Las Vegas — to find a new stadium that they planned to share with division rival San Diego Chargers.
But then a funny thing happened.
Las Vegas hotel tycoon and billionaire Sheldon Adelson got involved and the Chargers found a stadium partner in Los Angeles with the LA Rams, not the Raiders.
In 2016, Adelson’s money and political muscle pushed through state legislation in Carson City, Nevada creating a hotel room tax increase in Southern Nevada to fund the public’s share of the stadium construction. Then-Gov. Brian Sandoval signed the bill into law that earmarked $750 million toward construction. And the subsidized stadium found a big supporter in Sandoval’s successor, current Gov. Steve Sisolak, who has been known to wear a Derek Carr number 4 Raiders jersey at public events.
And in November 2017, a groundbreaking on the 62.5-acre site on the west side of I-15 across from Mandalay Bay kicked off an ambitious 31-month stadium building process that culminated in the Raiders winning a temporary certificate of occupancy in late July 2020.
At that 2017 groundbreaking, team president Badain thanked Adelson for his role in launching the stadium. Adelson was nowhere to be seen, though. He dropped out of the stadium process after pledging $650 million because of negotiations he didn’t like. It’s perhaps the oddest thing about the birth of the Raiders stadium — the man responsible for politically making the $750 million public money available has been nowhere to be seen. But the Raiders forged ahead with a loan to make up for Adelson’s $650 million that were taken off the stadium funding table.
Badain told LVSB today, “We’ll always be grateful and indebted to Mr. Adelson, Dr. Adelson and all the people at the Sands Corp. who were the driving force behind the project.”
Only a few weeks ago, Raiders owner Mark Davis called the glassy, glimmering, black-veneered venue “The Death Star” during one of two team practices inside the stadium. Take a look at the making of a stadium here.
Even a novel coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic that has claimed the lives of 200,000 Americans this year did not stop stadium construction during a time when Las Vegas’ famed hotels from the Bellagio to the Venetian to Caesars had to close in April and May this year.
The stadium-building team of Mortenson/McCarthy was fined by local OSHA officials for having workers be too close to each other after several construction workers tested positive for COVID-19 this year.
The pandemic, however, caused other problems for Davis. He made the tough decision to keep fans out of the stadium because of the COVID-19 coronavirus.
That’s why Davis will not be attending today’s inaugural game at the new stadium.
Davis said in early August: “What really sealed it though was the health aspect of this and the uncertainty created by the Coronavirus, and how vicious it’s been — especially in our valley here; it’s growing. It just didn’t seem safe to put fans in the stadium at this time. There’s so many variables involved.”
So, if fans are not allowed to attend, then the owner of the team would not attend either.
“Since fans are not allowed to be in the stadium they helped build, he did not feel it was appropriate to be there himself,” Badain explained.
The season ticket holders might not be in the stadium this season, but their personal seat license payments to the tune of an amazing, record-setting $549.2 million in PSL money are in the Raiders’ bank accounts and helping the team pay for its share of the stadium. The $549.2 million is a record for personal seat license revenue to start a new NFL stadium.
But even with fans not allowed in the domed building they certainly came to gawk at the stadium, which is very different in design than the NFL’s other new stadium in Los Angeles. Fans came from Bakersfield and Fresno and from other cities all across California because the Raiders brand has mass appeal to Raiders fans in both Northern and Southern California.
So, today starts a new era. The Las Vegas market has flirted with a new stadium to eclipse Sam Boyd Stadium for decades. There was an effort to build a stadium on the UNLV campus that failed because MGM Resorts International — the biggest hotel owner on the Strip — said the public contribution was too much for that venue more than five years ago.
But when the Raiders entered the equation, the stadium dynamic fundamentally changed. Las Vegas wanted an NFL team and a new stadium in the worst way and is now raising more than $1 billion over the life of the 30-year debt repayment period to inject $750 million into the construction of this palatial football playground that makes its debut on Monday Night Football.
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