By Alan Snel of LVSportsBiz.com
The COVID-19 pandemic was brutal on the hotel room tax revenues paying for Southern Nevada’s $750 million contribution to build the Raiders’ Allegiant Stadium.
But now that Las Vegas visitors are back and paying for hotel rooms, the room tax dollars are reaching pre-pandemic marks.
Take a look at the projected stadium authority room tax revenues for fiscal year 2022 and 2023. The $51 million in projected room tax money for next year would be more than the previous high of $49.5 million of fiscal year 2019.
The public stadium authority plans on using $40.2 million under the 2023 fiscal year budget to help pay off the annual debt service on the public’s $750 million contribution toward building the domed stadium. It’s interesting to note that the stadium authority has budgeted $2.4 million in staffing, legal and accounting expenses. In all, the public stadium panel is planning on collecting $51 million in hotel room tax dollars for the 2023 fiscal year.
The pandemic meant a drastic decrease in Las Vegas visitors, room nights and room tax dollars for the stadium authority. As LVSportsBiz.com has reported, the stadium authority had to oversee two debt reserve withdrawals totaling $23.3 million. It’s a stark example how public agencies that run on tourist room dollars are at the mercy of pandemics and economic downfalls.
Now, the debt reserves must by restored to comply with the county bond ordinance. Take a look:
As you can tell by the monthly bar chart numbers, the hotel room tax dollars are rebounding over last year’s monthly numbers. In March, for example, the hotels in Southern Nevada collected $4.5 million in room tax money — more than double the number from March 2021.
Where is the money coming from to pay for the construction of the Raiders’ $2 billion stadium project? (Officially speaking, the stadium authority “owns” the stadium. But the Raiders run the place, hiring ASM Global to manage the venue. As you can see, the Las Vegas Stadium Authority — that’s you, the public of Southern Nevada — is the number one funding source at $750 million. It should be noted that the Raiders used a stunning $549.2 million in personal seat licenses from the people who bought Raiders season tickets to help pay their share.
The stadium authority hires local attorneys and companies to do legal and accounting work.
Here are the folks getting paid for the legal work.
And the billing rates.
Applied Analysis is also a consultant for the stadium authority:
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My friends at the Sports Business Journal did some nice work showing the difference between the tickets distributed for a Raiders home game at the stadium and the actual attendance, which is you actual numbers of people going through the turnstiles and present at the game. A no-show rate of 14.3 percent for the Raiders home season is rather high. Here’s the work of SBJ’s Ben Fischer showing the game-by-game actual attendance and tickets distributed.
Nice work, Ben.
PSA