ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
By Alan Snel of LVSportsBiz.com
UNLV is expected to spend more than $150,000 per game during the 2021 college football season to use Allegiant Stadium.
“The cost last season was $50K to $150K per game, but we only had a couple thousand fans in attendance because of Covid-19. We know the costs will be higher this year,” said Vince Alberta, UNLV chief marketing officer and vice president of brand integration.
In two of the three UNLV football games at Allegiant Stadium in 2020, there were only 2,000 fans allowed at each of those two games. There were no fans in the third game.
ADVERTISEMENT: This story presented by #SameHere
ADVERTISEMENT
For Thursday’s game at the stadium, UNLV announced announced attendance at 21,970. The Rebels lost a heartbreaker to Eastern Washington in two overtimes.
The number of people attending the game at 65,000-seat Allegiant Stadium determines the exact cost to the university. When attendance goes up, it means more workers inside the stadium like ushers and security and more police outside the venue on local streets for traffic.
“The costs are dictated in large part by attendance because it determines the amount of stadium staff, public safety and traffic control required.” Alberta said. “We won’t have final figures until October.”
UNLV is a tenant in the building, which was built by the NFL Las Vegas Raiders. The overall budget for the stadium project was $2 billion, including $1.4 billion for the construction of the domed stadium. Southern Nevada contributed $750 million to help construct the stadium, which took only 31 months to build to open in late July 2020 after a November 2017 groundbreaking.
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
UNLV is among a handful of university football teams that play at the local NFL stadium. University of Miami, University of Pittsburgh and University of South Florida in Tampa all play at NFL stadiums.
UNLV and the Raiders are taking different approaches to coping with the COVID-19 pandemic at home games at Allegiant Stadium in 2021. UNLV requires all fans to wear masks to comply with the local indoor mask mandate in Clark County.
But the Raiders are starting a new policy for the Monday Night Football season-opener Sept. 13 when all fans will have to show proof of vaccination to attend home games at Allegiant Stadium. The coronavirus death toll in the U.S. is nearing 650,000, according to Johns Hopkins.