Raiders President Marc Badain Resigns, Replaced By Raiders EVP/General Counsel Dan Ventrelle; Badain Went From Intern To President During 30-Year Raiders Career, Guiding Team To Vegas, New Stadium
By Alan Snel of LVSportsBiz.com
Raiders president Marc Badain, the man who helped steer the Raiders’ move from Oakland to Las Vegas and oversaw the construction of the Las Vegas Raiders’ stadium for Raiders owner Marc Davis, has resigned.
It was stunning news Monday as Badain was the crucial point man for the NFL team to make the transition from the Bay area in Northern California to Southern Nevada for the 2020 NFL season. Under Badain’s leadership, the stadium was open for business a few days before the July 31, 2020 completion date and the team was transplanted into its headquarters in the city of Henderson..
The news came in a press release and read in part, “I Wish Marc, His Wife Amy, Daughter Ali, And Sons Bernie And Zach All The Best In Whatever The Future Holds.. Once A Raider Always A Raider..-Mark Davis.” Here’s the complete press release (the first letter of every word is capitalized via Mark Davis.)
Badain texted this statement: “The successful construction and operation of Allegiant Stadium has been unequivocally the most challenging part of my 30 years with the organization. Seeing it through to the end has been rewarding beyond measure. Together the Raiders and Las Vegas accomplished what seemed impossible.
“Now that the project is complete it is time for me to focus on my family and look ahead to new pursuits. I am forever grateful to MD for his unwavering support and friendship. I wish him and the Raider family the best. I will always feel a part of the team because everyone knows . . . Once a Raider Always a Raider.”
Davis said in the press release that Dan Ventrelle “will assume the role of president of the Las Vegas Raiders on an interim basis.”
Ventrelle has worked for the Raiders for 17 years, serving as executive vice president and general counsel.
Badain just appeared before the Las Vegas stadium authority board Thursday, giving them a report on the first two major events at the stadium, concerts on July 3 and 10. Badain said traffic issues on local roads outside the stadium would be addressed and improved.
A Queens, NY native, Badain grew up in Rochester, NY about two hours east of Buffalo and earned his undergraduate degree at Emory University in Atlanta in 1992. Badain did an internship at Raiders training camp in Oxnard, California when the team was based in Los Angeles between his junior and senior years at Emory, assisting coaching staff and football operations departments at training camp.
Badain then moved to California to work full time for the Raiders after his 1992 Emory graduation.
He has worked for the Raiders ever since.
Until his resignation announced Monday.
After his modest start as an intern, Badain worked his way up the Raiders’ business ladder, becoming the team’s chief financial officer in 2004, three years after earning an MBA from the University of California, Berkeley’s Haas School of Business in 2001.
“Everyone in school then was figuring out how they were going to leave their current job, join a dot-com, and make millions,” Badain told the Haas business school publication in 2014. “When they asked me what I was doing after I graduated, I said, ‘I’m staying with the Raiders.’ ”
Badain had worked for the Raiders for 23 years by the time Mark Davis owner told him in January 2015 that he was officially the team’s president, charged with finding a new stadium for the Raiders.
Badain was the right man for the job. The Raiders’ old numbers man as CFO was also effective at publicly representing the Raiders interests before the Las Vegas stadium authority board as team president.
It was a pressure-filled job, yet he found the touch to add some humor to stadium board meetings and Raiders announcements.
When the Raiders stadium agreement was finally sealed and stadium board chairman Steve Hill was giving a speech that was going a bit long at a board meeting, Badain joked that the Hill speech might not have made it to the end if it was given at an Oscars broadcast.
He struck the right chord with the public and the stadium board, finding the right words to get his points across.
Keep in mind, Badain worked on a stadium deal initially with the late Las Vegas Sands Corp. CEO Sheldon Adelson, who had a distinct personality to put it diplomatically.
Adelson did use his political clout to convince the Nevada Legislature to approve a $750 million public subsidy for the Raiders’ $2 billion stadium project in 2016. The $750 million is a record subsidy for a pro team’s venue in the U.S. and southern Nevada will spend the next 30 years collecting more than $1 billion in hotel room fees to cover the debt for the $750 million.
During the Raiders’ lavish Nov. 13, 2017 stadium groundbreaking event, Badain thanked Adelson for his help — even though the billionaire casino tycoon had dropped out of helping fund the venue when he took his $650 million commitment off the table in January 2017 because he said at the time that Sands was not involved in the discussions behind the lease agreement between the team and the local stadium board.
Even though Adelson, who died in January, dropped out of the stadium deal, Badain always made sure to mention his name at Raiders event announcements.
Here’s a photo of Badain and former UNLV President Len Jessup at a stadium board meeting when the Raiders and UNLV finally were on their way for the Rebels football team to be a tenant at the Raiders stadium.
During Badain’s tenure as president, the Raiders generated a stunning $551 million in personal seat licenses, plus more than $300 million in stadium founding corporate sponsors and partners. That’s not even counting Raiders ticket sales. The team’s value skyrocketed thanks to the new stadium.
Below are Badain along with Congresswoman Dina Titus and Davis at an announcement that said Allegiant Air in Summerlin would be the naming rights holder for the stadium.
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