LVCVA Spent More Than $70,000 On Travel, Meals For College Football Championship Game Expenses; LVCVA Says Travel Part Of Research Protocol Of Staging Title Game In Vegas
(Publisher’s Note: Why did we report this travel expenses story? The Las Vegas market ranks low compared to its peer metropolitan areas in many categories like the number of health care and education workers, availability of public transportation resources, medical care, safe roads and public trail systems yet our government leaders have public money to spend on sports, stadiums and events. We hope this story informs you about how our public resources are spent and drives public debate among our elected political leaders about priorities in Las Vegas.)
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
By Alan Snel, LVSportsBiz.com Publisher-Writer
LAS VEGAS, Nevada — Las Vegas’ public tourism agency, the LVCVA, spent more than $71,000 on travel and meals for trips to Atlanta in December and January as part of staging college football’s national championship game in Las Vegas in 2027.
LVSportsBiz.com reviewed 191 pages of Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA) staff expense forms and receipts related to their work trips to Atlanta, which hosted the 2025 national title game at Mercedes-Benz Stadium four months ago.
LVCVA records showed travel and food expenses for multiple championship game-related business trips in Dec. 2024 and Jan. 2025 while also showing the LVCVA paid for hotel rooms and meals for executives of the Las Vegas Raiders, R&R Partners, MGM Resorts International, UNLV Athletics, the Las Vegas Bowl and even for a Good Morning America producer.
The LVCVA’s preliminary annual budget is $883 million and that includes $3 million for the College Football Playoffs, so the public agency has the money to pay for travel and meals related to the Jan. 2027 football event at Allegiant Stadium.
The LVCVA sent at least ten staff members on these trips, including Steve Hill, CEO/president; Brian Yost, chief operating officer; Lisa Motley, vice president of sports and special events; Kate Wik, chief marketing officer; and Molly Castano, vice president of public relations.
Before Tuesday’s LVCVA board meeting, Motley spoke to LVSportsBiz.com about the necessity of going to Atlanta with a travel party of up to 20 people to research how the College Football Playoff puts on its championship game.
“We need to figure out how you run a game in our venue,” Motley said. “We have to look at all the venues and how we do that in Las Vegas . . . We kept ourselves busy.”
Motley also pointed out that the LVCVA did not pay for the hotel rooms of Position Sports’ representatives who were part of the travel party. The LVCVA has hired Position Sports to work on team operations and game operations for the 2027 college football event.
The LVCVA’s time in Atlanta was needed, Motley added, because the public tourism agency is functioning as the college football championship game’s host committee and there will not be outside full-time workers hired like Sam Joffray, who was the executive director of the Super Bowl host committee in Las Vegas that also had 12 paid workers.
LVCVA staff will add championship game duties to their jobs and will hire consultants for specific specialized roles, Motley said. “It’s other duties as assigned,” she said of staff picking up college football title game assignments. Motley noted LVCVA COO Yost will serve as the executive director for the football title game organizing and committee efforts.
On the January trip to Atlanta, the LVCVA paid for hotel rooms and meals for non-agency people for the business purpose of “2027 College Football Playoff (CFP) National Championship.”
On. Jan. 19, the LVCVA and Hill spent $5,683.17 ($1,350 for a deposit and then $4,333.17 for the reminder) of a meal at Ray’s in the City in Atlanta. The attendees list included both LVCVA staffers and executives with sports marketing companies and events and also officials from hotels in Las Vegas like the Bellagio, Resorts World and Cosmopolitan.
Here’s what the food the LVCVA paid for with public dollars:
Motley explained hotel representatives were part of the meal because they’re among six hotels with designated roles for the 2027 championship game in Las Vegas.
The Bellagio and Resorts World are slated as the team host hotels, Four Seasons will be the game headquarters, Cosmopolitan will be the media hotel and Westin and Renaissance will be the band and cheer hotels. The Las Vegas Convention Center’s West Hall will also serve as the 2027 game’s fanfest center, Motley said.
*
At a $603.61 meal Jan. 19 at the Mellow Mushroom in Atlanta, some of those people included Clark County Assistant Fire Chief Steve DePue, LVMPD Event Planning Lieutenant Kendall Bell, Raiders Ticket and Sales Ops VP Adam Feldman, MGM Resorts International Global Sports VP Dan Rush, UNLV Deputy Athletics Director Mike Newcomb who handles sports facilities and UNLV Athletics Director Erick Harper.
The 12-guest Mellow Mushroom bill included six Titos Vodka at 11 bucks each — or $66.
Motley said Bell and DePeu needed to attend to check out the safety and security issues related to the championship game.
*
A big chunk was hotel rooms for five nights, Jan. 17-21., for more than $48,000. The LVCVA paid for rooms for non-LVCVA people like Melissa Grossman of Position Sports, Dondero, Harper and many others. But as stated, Position Sports then paid for Grossman’s room.
Here are a few examples of the LVCVA hotel expenses at the Atlanta Hotel four months ago:
*
The LVCVA board, in January, approved $40 million in spending to host the college football’s national championship game at Allegiant Stadium in Jan, 2027. Hill told LVSportsBiz.com the $40 million included $15 million in contingency money that was required by college football playoff officials, but he does not expect that money to be spent and believes the title game budget is closer to $25 million.
The LVCVA spent more than $34 million on the Super Bowl, according to the LVCVA budget.
On Jan. 24, 2025, the College Football Playoff said its 2027 championship game will be played at Allegiant Stadium in two years on Jan. 25, which is a Monday. Allegiant Stadium also hosted Super Bowl 58 in Feb. 2024, while the Raiders’ home stadium is scheduled to stage college basketball’s Final Four championship in 2028.
The LVCVA is already working on the Final Four at Allegiant Stadium in three years.
The LVCVA is no stranger to spending tens of thousands of dollars of public money on trips for big sports events. In early 2022, LVCVA spent nearly $165,000 on trips to Los Angeles to study Super Bowl 56 at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California in the LA area.
With the college football title game in Las Vegas two years away, the LVCVA was already in planning mode by having staffers at the championship game in Atlanta.
One expense voucher shows Motley spent $14,400 for 16 tickets to the college game.
Other trips showed expenses for meals of $732.07 that included Wik, Castano and LVCVA PR employee Heidi Pretty with Erin McCleskey, PR group account director of R&R Partners, which is the LCVA’s longtime advertising company in Las Vegas.
The LVCVA spends millions of dollars on sports in hopes of driving tourists to the Strip corridor. The tourism agency is public and oversight is provided by a stadium board that has monthly meetings like today’s session at 9 AM at the Las Vegas Convention Center.
The board members, however, rarely engage in spirited public debate on the LVCVA’s expenditures and include two county commissioners — Jim Gibson and Michael Naft — who typically approve sports events like the LVCVA-based and controversial F1 Las Vegas Grand Prix. At Tuesday’s LVCVA board meeting, Hill again pumped up the road race, noting an Ellis Island hotel-casino sponsorship deal with F1. Ellis Island had sued F1 only a year ago, alleging the race event cost its hotel-casino millions of dollars.
The LVCVA’s and public’s steep public expenditures on sports stadiums like the Raiders’ football venue, ($750 million in public money to help construction), the A’s ballpark on the Strip ($380 million for construction) and even the minor league Aviators ($80 million for naming rights) come at a time when Las Vegas ranks low in many categories from health care and education to public transportation and trails.
The LVCVA will likely spend more on travel costs to the 2026 college football championship game in Miami because its travel party is allowed by the College Football Playoff to double from 20 this year to 40 in 2026, Motley said.
More people will be traveling to Miami because more police and fire personnel will be on hand to look at safety and security issues, while others will look at game logistics and stadium operations.
PROMO
