Small Market With Heavy Ticket Price Punch: Las Vegas Raiders, Golden Knights Charge Among Highest Ticket Prices In Their Leagues
By Alan Snel of LVSportsBiz.com
OK Las Vegas, you want to play in the major leagues?
Well, you’re going to pay to be in the major leagues.
The Las Vegas Raiders’ average home ticket of $153.47 is the most expensive in the NFL, according to Team Marketing Report’s Fan Cost Index (FCI), which tracks all costs to attend major league games. Consider that the average NFL game ticket is $107.05, according to the FCI data, with the NFL’s second-most expensive average ticket of $139.71 at San Francisco 49ers home games.
The Vegas Golden Knights just just announced a season ticket price increase of more than five percent, adding to the cost of what was the fifth most expensive average ticket in the National Hockey League in 2019-20, according to Team Marketing Report FCI.
The latest ticket prices that Team Marketing Report FCI have for the Golden Knights showed an average ticket cost of $104.36 two years ago for the 2019-20 season, according to the Chicago-based sports marketing organization. But that’s not including the recent ticket price increase.
TMR publisher Chris Hartweg noted Thursday, “We currently calculate the Golden Knights’ 2021-22 season weighted general ticket north of $124 and securely in the top 3 most expensive teams.”
Keep in mind Las Vegas is not even a Top 30 TV market with a population of 2.3 million — a small market that just happens to be the hottest sports market in the country with massive brand appeal. Two billionaires are in talks with Major League Soccer to create the 30th team in that soccer league in Las Vegas, while there’s always chatter of an NBA team finding a new home at T-Mobile Arena under a turnkey transition to the venue. As far as the Oakland Athletics moving to Las Vegas, you might want to cool that talk until the Oakland franchise actually explains a ballpark funding plan for this market because there is no public money available to help build an MLB venue.
Golden Knights owner Bill Foley, who is building a new 6,000-seat arena with the city of Henderson for his Henderson Silver Knights minor league team and a new indoor football league team, sent out ticket bills to Silver Knights season ticket holders that included ticket charges for the new Knight Hawks indoor football franchise.
Some Henderson Silver Knights season ticket holders said on social media they were caught off-guard by the Knight Hawks football game ticket charges in their bills. They needed to opt out of the football game ticket charges on their Silver Knights bills if they don’t want to pay to attend those indoor football games.
Even the WNBA Las Vegas Aces, owned by Raiders owner Mark Davis, have increased some season ticket prices. Here are the current season ticket prices:
LVSportsBiz.com spoke with a Henderson Silver Knights and Las Vegas Aces season ticket holder via email about the ticket prices. This was her comment:
“The new (Henderson Silver Knights) contracts automatically charge and add in the 8 Knight Hawks games. You have to opt out if you don’t want them included. Many don’t read their contracts so they will be paying several hundred dollars more for the arena football tickets. It feels so shady! Did you see how much the Aces increased their season ticket prices? My seats went from $799 each to $1,800 (!) each! The Vegas sports world has lost their minds.”
Aces spokesman John “Giggy” Maxwell explained the team’s ticket prices this way: “We altered ticket prices this season on the heels of refunding all season ticket members for the 2021 campaign, which allowed members to attend games last year for free. We’ve intentionally decreased pricing throughout the majority of the arena to ensure that there is a price point for every fan of the team.
“In all, 15.5 percent of our seats saw an increase in cost, and 84.5 percent saw a decrease. As an example, the upper level (~3600 seats in total in our 2019 configuration) previously cost either $324 or $468 per season ticket, and now the entirety of the upper bowl costs $180 per season ticket ($10 per game, as we added games to the schedule this year.) We expanded free parking to all of our season ticket members this season, and have increased benefits for most of our higher price points. These benefits consist of game day experiences and off-the-court elements for our members.”
LVSportsBiz.com contacted Foley teams’ representatives via email about the ticket topic and if they get back to us we will share their comments.
Fans have even mentioned that UNLV basketball’s lower bowl tickets are too expensive. The Runnin’ Rebels are now in their conference phase of their 2021-22 season, with lower bowl tickets selling from $60-$220.
Even the new National Lacrosse League team in Las Vegas, owned by sports heavyweights Wayne Gretzky and Joe Tsai, have contacted local sports fans to discuss selling seats. The pro lacrosse team hopes to start play at the arena at Mandalay Bay in 2022-23.
Las Vegas is a unique market with sports brand appeal. The Raiders are in a position to charge expensive prices for tickets at Allegiant Stadium because thousands of visitors are willing to pay the high price.
Many locals paid the personal seat license charges and the ticket costs as an investment to re-sell them on the secondary market to fans of opposition teams coming to Las Vegas from cities across the country. We saw that play out at Allegiant Stadium, where tens of thousands of fans from Chicago, Philadelphia, Denver, Kansas City, Washington DC and Cincinnati poured in to watch their teams play the Raiders in Las Vegas this NFL season.
While Las Vegas has 2.3 million residents in its market, it draws more than 40 million annual visitors — a high number of out-of-towners that explains why Las Vegas can punch above its weight category when it comes to charging high prices for tickets to games.
The Golden Knights’ high prices have not hurt attendance because the majority of seats inside T-Mobile Arena are already paid for by season ticket holders. Indeed, the Knights rank fifth in the 32-team NHL in attendance with 18,065 fans a game at T-Mobile Arena and have the highest attendance capacity percentage at 104 percent. The Knights count capacity as 17,367 for the number of fixed seats for hockey in the arena. They sell hundreds of standing room only tickets per game that count toward the attendance numbers and help the franchise lead the league in attendance percentage of capacity.
The Knights enjoy the advantage of being the first major league team to plant its flag in the Las Vegas market in 2017 and quickly established an emotional bond with the market with a historic run to the Stanley Cup Final while playing its first regular season home game only nine days after the Oct. 1 mass shooting on the Strip. That convergence of new team, civic bond and on-ice performance is still in play, driving fans to buy tickets.
While the average Golden Knights ticket is well over $100, some fans who can’t afford those prices find cheaper tickets on the VGK Ticket Exchange site where tickets can be had for $20-$30 an hour before puck drop at T-Mobile Arena.
