Story by Alan Snel Photos by Hugh Byrne
The Super Bowl hype is moving into high gear in Las Vegas.
The National Football League has settled into the Raiders’ Allegiant Stadium and its work to transform the Raiders’ venue into a showcase for Super Bowl 58 is underway.
This is new territory for Las Vegas, which is hosting the NFL’s premier event for the first time. So, the starry-eyed public officials of Las Vegas at the Clark County and tourism agency are like kids on Christmas Eve. Steve Hill, CEO of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA), mentioned during a local stadium board meeting that the Super Bowl is hitting town only eight years after the Raiders stadium funding law became an approved bill in 2016.
With the Raiders season in the books, the NFL has taken over the 62,500-seat domed stadium — and the “road closed” and Super Bowl signs are sprouting all over the stadium area on the west side of Interstate 15 across from Mandalay Bay hotel-casino-convention center.
The stadium will fit nicely into the NFL’s logistical Super Bowl plans because of its location. It’s only a 15-minute car drive from the airport. Plus, it’s a doable walk on the Hacienda Avenue bridge spanning the interstate from Mandalay Bay and MGM Resorts International’s other properties like Luxor, New York New York and Excalibur. The stadium is a 20-minute walk from the Strip and I expect many fans and media to hoof it on that Hacienda Avenue bridge to the stadium.
The NFL creates a perimeter around its Super Bowl venues and the barriers and closed roads have already been set,
Las Vegas has to pay to play to host a Super Bowl.
The public LVCVA tourism agency approved $40 million for this market to host the Super Bowl. Its offshoot, the Las Vegas Super Bowl Host Committee, is charged with raising another $20 million.
The host committee has gathered 7,000 volunteers, who got a pep rally at UNLV’s Thomas & Mack Center Friday when Raiders officials like team President Sandra Douglass Morgan offered some words for the volunteers. Chief Operating Officer Michael Crome gave four Super Bowl tickets to Mario’s Westside Market. The business serves Las Vegas’ Historic Westside neighborhood.
The NFL is treating Las Vegas much differently than Formula 1’s Las Vegas Grand Prix, which held hardly any community events and took over 3.8 miles of roads including the Strip without bonding with the Las Vegas community. The NFL is big on photo opp events like planting trees and giving away free trees, too. There’s a tree event Sunday morning for a beautification project at 9AM at Caesar Chavez Park at 1450 Radwick Drive near north Hollywood Boulevard and East Owens Avenue.
Speaking of growing trees, how about new grass, too? The NFL is preparing a new field outside the Raiders stadium and it will be rolled into the venue for the game. Take a look.