Raiders Open Allegiant Stadium To Fans For First Time; Waves Of Fans Swarm Palatial Domed Venue For Raiders-Seahawks Preseason Game Saturday; Raiders Win, 20-7, Before 50,101
Story by Alan Snel Photos by Daniel Clark
At 3 PM, they came in waves, hundreds, no, make that thousands of Raiders fans, swarming and barging into the palatial 65,000-seat stadium that was off-limits to them last year because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Raiders owner Mark Davis welcomed Raider Nation and the ribbon-cutting for Allegiant Stadium was painlessly quick because the first of the 50,101 fans wanted in Saturday.
So, in metro Las Vegas, the first fans passed through the turnstiles and they started filling a venue that cost the Southern Nevada public a record $750 million subsidy to help the construction of the $2 billion stadium project. The stadium by itself cost $1.4 billion to build and the other $600 million went for land acquisitions, design costs and equipment.
It’s weird that the former team president, Marc Badain, the man who guided the team’s move from Oakland to Las Vegas and got the stadium built on budget and on time, stepped down from his job July 19, is not here today to participate in the ribbon cutting and today’s historic event in Las Vegas.
Badain was replaced by Dan Ventrelle, who is serving as interim president. Ventrelle has a lot of experience with the Raiders as the former general counsel and was at Badain’s side at all local stadium meetings here in las Vegas.
Here’s an interesting duo — Laborers Local 872’s Tommy White and Ventrelle.
Raiders superfan, The Violator, was on hand, too.
Carlos Santana was here for the ribbon cutting and performed during halftime.
And before the ribbon cutting, there was famed Raiders fan Jack, who arrived via his Raiders hearse.
This Raiders fan was playing the team theme song on his trumpet along Polaris Avenue on the stadium’s west side.
LVSportsBiz.com checked out the main concourse during the second quarter. The lines from the concession stands were too long and interfering with the flow of walkers around the concourse.
There were too many chokepoints on the main concourse at the 100 level.
On the 200 level, the concession lines were much shorter.
Meanwhile, the Raiders led, 13-0, at halftime after the Raiders marched more than 80 yards on their first possession of the game. They gobbled up about half of the first quarter on the touchdown-scoring drive.
It was game of back-ups and third-stringers. But the fans reveled in live football in a stadium they waited so long to see in person for a game.
“It was like a playoff game for me. Getting back to the real raider atmosphere,” Raiders coach Jon Gruden said. “It was great to see the Raiders fans out there,”
Marie Osmond was your national anthem singer, while Santana was the halftime performer. The Las Vegas Aces’ four gold-winning Olympic players — A’ja Wilson, Chelsea Gray, Kelsey Plum and Jackie Young — were also honored by the Raiders during the first half.
The Raiders scored a fourth quarter touchdown to seal the 20-7 win.
Before the game, the Raiders gave Miriam Adelson — the wife of the late Sheldon Adelson — the honor of lighting the Al Davis torch to get the game off and running.
Adelson was a major force is getting the Raiders to move to Las Vegas and supplied the political lobbyists to convince the Nevada Legislature to approve the stadium hotel room tax that is paying for the public’s $750 million contribution to the stadium’s construction. Adelson died in January.
Fans enjoyed themselves. By the late fourth quarter, many had left with the game’s result determined. But before that, there was lots of entertainment, with live music, a nice touch.
The Raiders’ totaled about 40 minutes of possession and pleased the crowd with the fourth period score. Here’s a nice photo sequence of the play and crowd reaction.
LVSportsBiz’s FOUR quick takeaways:
1 – Live music was great, with 70s/80s songs appealing to fans from the Raiders’ glory years
2 – Fix the stadium concourse congestion, as fan flow was clogged by long concession lines
3 – Nothing replaces real crowd noise
4 – Weak WiFi. Fans voiced displeasure over poor internet service and I also could not download photos and update this story during the game.
People heading out:
