Raiders Front Office Stabilized As Team Prepares For 49ers In Preseason-Opener At Allegiant Stadium Sunday
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By Alan Snel, LVSportsBiz.com Publisher-Writer
The youthful golf cart operators hauling guests at the Las Vegas Raiders practice politely warned the media to watch their backs as they drove along a paved path next to the NFL team’s practice fields.
The San Francisco 49ers are in town to practice with the Raiders as a warmup act Friday before Sunday’s 49ers-Raiders preseason opener at Allegiant Stadium. It’s a 1 PM start.
Storylines about new Raiders quarterback Jimmy Galoppolo — a former 49ers QB who took them to a Super Bowl — abound and his tosses intended for Raiders players were critiqued and analyzed.
A year ago during Raiders coach Josh McDaniels’ rookie season in Las Vegas his old team, the New England Patriots, were in town to practice with the Raiders. Lots of Boston-area media packed the press room at the Raiders HQ at the time and the same can be said of the San Francisco Bay area media corps filling the room today.
The Raiders are coming off a 6-11 season, punctuated by some epic blown leads. The Raiders won all four of their preseason games in 2002 when the backups in those games showed an ability to close out the exhibition game wins. Sadly for the Raiders, that did not carry over to the regular season.
From a business side, the front office has been stabilized. More than a year ago, Raiders owner Mark Davis hired Sandra Douglass Morgan to instill stability in the team’s front office.
The business side of the Raiders was rocked by a previous team president who resigned because of a financial issue, an interim president who was fired after he said the blew the whistle on hostile work environment issues and several other executives who left amid controversy.
Morgan last week announced several executive updates, including hiring a new senior vice president for marketing. Kristen Banks worked for Las Vegas-based UFC as vice president for digital products.
The fact that the Raiders were able to perform financially quite well even without a marketing chief underscores the power of an NFL brand that remains popular in the face of a dismal winning percentage during the last 20 years.
Sellouts for Raiders home games are the norm at about 62,500, with the Raiders tickets still selling for impressive amounts on the secondary market. Reports say the Raiders’ secondary market ticket prices ar the highest in the NFL for the third straight season.
Many local Las Vegas residents bought Raiders season tickets and paid the personal seat licenses as an investment to sell the tickets on the secondary market. That’s why the Raiders’ home stadium, Allegiant Stadium, is filled with literally tens of thousands of fans from the visiting teams.
Those visiting fans who buy hotel rooms during their Las Vegas visits are helping pay off the Southern Nevada public’s debt for the construction of the domed stadium that sits across Interstate 15 from Mandalay Bay hotel-casino. A hotel room tax generates about $4 million a month in revenues to pay off the debt on Southern Nevada’s $750 million contribution to the stadium’s construction bill.
