Raiders, Stadium Founding Partner America First Team Up To Help Small Business In Las Vegas

          Story by Alan Snel              Photos by J. Tyge O’Donnell

In a mere three months, the Las Vegas Raiders will celebrate the five-year anniversary of a day that changed the course of their franchise’s history. It’s the Oct. 2016 day when former Gov. Brian Sandoval signed a stadium bill that literally paved the way for the NFL team’s palatial 65,000-seat domed stadium and bought owner Mark Davis a one-way ticket out of Oakland to a new venue that would deliver hundreds of millions of dollars in new revenues in Southern Nevada.

After Sandoval signed the stadium bill into law, the Raiders then sent their boots on the ground, as team president Marc Badain likes to say, team staffers dispatched to Las Vegas to plant the seeds of an NFL franchise in the Southern Nevada market.

Southern Nevada delivered $750 million in public money to help build the swanky, climate-controlled sports playground and the Raiders began cultivating new relationships and activating their founding corporate partnerships like the team’s multi-million-dollar stadium sponsorship deal with Utah-based America First Credit Union.

That activation came to life at a fancy stadium club Tuesday evening when the Raiders worked with America First to pick a small business in metro Las Vegas to win a juicy prize — $100,000 worth of marketing/advertising assets to help the business.

The winner: an at-home business called, Any Occasion Baskets, co-founded by Felicia Parker, who lives in the southwest valley.

Parker was ecstatic over the increased exposure for her business, which will receive stadium signage, ads on the Raiders website and spots on the radio.

Her message: “Don’t listen to the naysayers.”

Former Raiders offensive lineman Lincoln Kennedy, who owns several restaurants, was the emcee for the small business event. Any Occasion Baskets was picked from seven small business finalists.

Christian Howard, Raiders VP of corporate partnerships, said because America First works with small businesses on loans the “small business showcase” event was a logical move.

“Like us, the Raiders are interested in the community and interested in paying back,” said Thayne Shaffer, the new CEO of America First.

The Raiders-First America small business initiative was arranged before the COVID-19 pandemic, but the winning business was named today.


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Alan Snel

Alan Snel brings decades of sports-business reporting experience to LVSportsBiz.com. Snel covered the business side of sports for the South Florida (Fort Lauderdale) Sun-Sentinel, the Tampa Tribune and Las Vegas Review-Journal. As a city hall beat reporter, Snel also covered stadium deals in Denver and Seattle. In 2000, Snel launched a sport-business website for FoxSports.com called FoxSportsBiz.com. After reporting sports-business for the RJ, Snel wrote hard-hitting stories on the Raiders stadium for the Desert Companion magazine in Las Vegas and The Nevada Independent. Snel is also one of the top bicycle advocates in the country.