After Two Decades Of Mediocrity, Raiders Rely On Culture Of Nostalgia, Impressive Stadium Revenues To Pack Las Vegas Stadium Game After Game; Raiders Lose To 49ers In OT Sunday

Raiders star running back Josh Jacobs signs a fan’s sign that says, “show him the money”

 

Raiders President Sandra Douglass Morgan, pregame

 


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By Alan Snel, LVSportsBiz.com Publisher/Writer

Wayne Mabry fell in love with the Raiders in 1970 when he lived in Mississippi and the NFL franchise run by Al Davis was based in Oakland.

“It was love at first sight,” Mabry told LVSportsBiz.com before a recent Raiders home game at Allegiant Stadium

In that 1970, Daryle Lamonica, nicknamed, “The Mad Bomber,” was tossing footballs to Fred Biletnikoff and Raymond Center. Stalwarts Jim Otto, Art Shell and Gene Upshaw anchored the line on offense. Bruiser Hewritt Dixon rumbled between the tackles. Ben Davidson rushed the quarterback from his defensive end position, while George Atkinson roamed the secondary. A 43-year-old quarterback, George Blanda, backed up Lamonica. John Madden coached the club to a first place 8-4-2 record back in the days when the schedule was 14 games.

The Raiders went on to win three Super Bowls in 1976, 1980 and 1983. In 17 seasons from 1967 through 1985, the Raiders missed the postseason only four times.

Conversely, since the Raiders were demolished by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the 2002 Super Bowl, the Raiders have not won a single playoff game in 20 years and have lost more games in the National Football League than just about any team in the league in the past two decades.

Mabry is now 66 years old and lives in Moreno Valley, just east of Riverside, after retiring as a union carpenter a decade ago. The Raiders have thrown in the towel on this season, marked by embarrassing blown leads and the benching of nine-year quarterback Derek Carr.

Since being drafted from Fresno State, Carr has been an above-average NFL quarterback. But his team has been dogged by a defense that renders too many points, yards and touchdowns to compete for a Super Bowl championship. The going narrative about Carr is that he will not be worth the salary cap hit and he likely played his last down for the Raiders.

Derek Carr in January 2019 at the Raiders HQ groundbreaking event in Henderson.

The Raiders’ loss to the San Francisco 49ers today was like many others this disappointing season for the Las Vegas franchise.

In a wildly entertaining game, the Raiders dropped 34 points on the NFL’s premier defense, but yielded 37 points to a red-hot San Francisco team that has won its ninth game in a row and will compete for a Super Bowl championship when the postseason begins.

Raiders starting quarterback Jarrett Stidham gets readyu to emerge onto the field before the Raiders-49ers game Saturday

Raiders quarterback Jarrett Stidham, who took over for Carr, passed for 365 yards in his first career start while gifted receiver Davante Adams made several sensational catches. The exciting game went to overtime, but Stidham tossed an interception and 49ers placekicker Robbie Gould booted a chip-shot field goal to end the game in anticlimactic fashion. The Raiders’ 37-34 loss dropped the team’s record to 6-10, with the season finale against the powerful Kansas City Chiefs at Allegiant Stadium either Saturday or Sunday.

“I just wanted to go out and play free today,” Stidham, a four-year player from Auburn, said after the game. “The thing about the NFL, everybody is a good player. I tried to continue to stay grounded and be ready whenever my number was called.”

Former Raiders great Ted Hendricks, in his Hall of Fame blazer, (left) and Raiders owner Mark Davis (right)

Meanwhile, the Raiders continue their business model that is built on nostalgia — and the revenue geyser of a subsidized domed stadium that has increased the franchise’s value.

The Raiders’ former Hall-of-Famers adorn game program covers; old stars like Biletnikoff, Otto and Ted Hendricks are seen before home games; and an aging Superfan base with fans in their 50s and 60s that includes the likes of Mabry keep finding the cash to make their way from California to Allegiant Stadium.

Through all the losses, Mabry keeps attending Raiders home games.

And he keeps dressing in his character known as the “Violator” — his alter ego. The Raiders are a unicorn franchise, a team that piles up losses season after season and doesn’t compete for a league championship yet use their memories of yesteryear and stadium revenues to fill seats and fatten the team’s bank accounts.

“Even through 20 years of mediocre performances we remain loyal,” Mabry said. “I honor the shield for what it represents in my heart and will never lower my expectations for the men who wear the uniform. For me personally, being at a Raiders home game is like therapy for fellowship with family. You can’t get that anywhere else.”

LVSportsBiz.com reported earlier this season that fans continue to pack Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas even though the team has been a model of mediocrity for 20 years, with only two playoff appearances. Both came when Carr was quarterback, including last season’s roller-coaster season when the team achieved a 10-7 record that qualified the Raiders as the AFC’s top-ranked wild card team. The Raiders lost their playoff game against the Cincinnati Bengals, a rising team that went on to upset the Chiefs in the AFC title game only to lose to the Los Angeles Rams in the Super Bowl in SoFi Stadium in February.

With the stadium in Las Vegas jolting the Raiders’ revenues skyward thanks to personal seat license money, stadium founding corporate partnerships and NFL-leading ticket sales revenues, the franchise is on solid financial ground.

Allegiant Stadium hosts the Final Four in 2028. Photo credit: Daniel Clark/LVSportsBiz.com

But the new stadium also radically changed the demographic of the Raiders games’ attendees.

LVSportsBiz.com talked with local Las Vegas residents who bought PSLs and tickets for the sole purpose of unloading them in the secondary ticket market, which, in turn, would often sell them to out-of-town fans. Today’s Raiders game that hosted the San Francisco 49ers was a great example where it appeared that easily more than half of the 62,367 fans were 49ers faithful.

49ers co-chairman John York (right)

The Raiders’ game tickets are also much more expensive here in Las Vegas than those at the Raiders’ old stadium in Oakland.

In fact, Mabry said he had to give up the season tickets because the costs were too high in Las Vegas.

“I’m retired and on a fixed income and I can’t afford the season tickets I’ve had for 37 years. It feels like I was evicted when the Raiders moved to Vegas,” Mabry said.

Allegiant Stadium is sold out for Raiders home games and the franchise soared to near the top in corporate sponsorship revenues in the NFL thanks to the opening of the venue on the west side of Interstate 15, across from the Mandalay Bay hotel-casino. Thanks to the revenue-generating stadium, the Raiders are now valued at a stunning $5.1 billion, according to Forbes. Southern Nevada contributed $750 million to help build the $2 billion stadium project, though the Las Vegas area still owes $1 billion on the debt for the $750 million subsidy to help build the venue.

“At the end of my journey,” Mabry said, “I want it to be said that I am a Raiders fan.”


Alan Snel

Alan Snel brings decades of sports-business reporting experience to LVSportsBiz.com. Snel covered the business side of sports for the South Florida (Fort Lauderdale) Sun-Sentinel, the Tampa Tribune and Las Vegas Review-Journal. As a city hall beat reporter, Snel also covered stadium deals in Denver and Seattle. In 2000, Snel launched a sport-business website for FoxSports.com called FoxSportsBiz.com. After reporting sports-business for the RJ, Snel wrote hard-hitting stories on the Raiders stadium for the Desert Companion magazine in Las Vegas and The Nevada Independent. Snel is also one of the top bicycle advocates in the country.