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By Alan Snel, LVSportsBiz.com Publisher-Writer
LAS VEGAS, Nevada — Lisa Motley’s job at Las Vegas’ public tourism agency is to attract and promote all the big sports events like the Super Bowl in Las Vegas in hopes tourists would visit Vegas and spend money in this growing sports market.
Motley, vice president of sports and special events for the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA), has another mega-event coming up — the College Football Playoff (CFP) title game at Allegiant Stadium in Jan. 2027.
Motley was chatting about sports in Las Vegas in March at a meeting of local sports-business women put on by a group called WISE, Women In Sports Events. She made an interesting comment at that forum three month ago about her former husband and best friend, Jeff Motley, according to an email contained in a public record. Lisa Motley said her ex-husband, Jeff Motley, was leaving his communications post at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and joining a Phoenix-based sports marketing company called Position Sports to be chief media officer. A few days before, the LVCVA had just awarded Position Sports a $1.236 million contract in March to work on PR/game production for the 2027 CFP championship game in Las Vegas.
A member of another marketing company that had competed for the LVCVA 2027 CFP game contract was at that same WISE meeting. That person was Richard Manhattan of Propyrion, a Las Vegas-based marketing company. According to public records obtained by LVSportsBiz.com, Manhattan wrote emails to Clark County Commissioners Jim Gibson and Michael Naft raising concerns over the bid process that ended with the LVCVA picking Position Sports over Propyrion and two other companies in March. One of those emails described the scene at the WISE meeting where Lisa Motley talked about her husband, Jeff, getting hired at Position Sports and being her best friend.
In his emails to the county commissioners and to the LVCVA contained in the public records, Manhattan raised an array of issues related to the LVCVA bidding process for the consulting job of promoting the 2027 college football championship game in Las Vegas.
But here was the news that nobody talked about at the time in March and that LVSportsBiz.com broke last week: Both Position Sports president Melissa Grossman and Jeff Motley were part of the LVCVA hotel room block and LVCVA meals at restaurants in Atlanta in mid-January when the LVCVA had a travel group at the CFP game to research the college football championship in Atlanta.
To be clear, the LVCVA booked rooms for Grossman and Motley and invited them to meals for the college football championship game trip in January as part of its travel party. If the LVCVA had Grossman and Jeff Motley as part of the LVCVA hotel room block and at the LVCVA meals as part of the LVCVA travel party in January to study the college title game in Atlanta, it looked like it may have been a done deal to hire Position Sports for the Las Vegas CFP game consulting job in March even though there was supposedly a competitive bid process in February. Here’s both Grossman and Jeff Motley listed on an LVCVA meal expense receipt at a restaurant in Atlanta in January as part of the public agency’s travel party:
If the deadline for the LVCVA consulting job was in February and the LVCVA picked Position Sports in March, what were Position Sports’ Grossman and Jeff Motley being part of the LVCVA travel group in Atlanta in January?
The LVCVA has not responded to LVSportsBiz.com’s questions about Position Sports getting the consulting job.
LVSportsBiz.com interviewed Lisa Motley about the LVCVA travel expenses in May for our story on the LVCVA spending more than $70,000 on costs related to attending college football’s title game in Atlanta. At that time a month ago, LVSportsBiz.com asked Motley why was Position Sports showing up on the LVCVA expenses documents. Motley told us last month that Position Sports was the LVCVA’s consultant for the CFP title game in Las Vegas.
But Position Sports was not the LVCVA consultant at the time of the LVCVA trip to Atlanta in January. The deadline to bid for the job was Feb. 24 with the LVCVA awarding the seven-figure contract to Position Sports in March.
By attending the Atlanta game and hanging with LVCVA staff in January, Position Sports had the advantage of seeing the CFP operation to craft a request for proposal suitable a month later to meet the LVCVA’s needs for the 2027 championship game in Las Vegas. There were only 18 days in February between the LVCVA request for proposal announcement (Feb. 6) and a bid deadline (Feb. 24), which would have helped Position Sports because its president, Grossman, was with LVCVA people in Atlanta and could have learned details on how to fashion a bid to meet the needs of the request for proposal.
The LVCVA ended up in March awarding the $1.236 million contract to Position Sports over Propyrion, which had submitted a $4.8 million bid. Manhattan explained why his company’s bid was much higher: “Our proposal reflects feedback from the LVCVA during the pre-bid conference inviting us to include subcontractors in our bid for contingency planning. We bid higher than the other firms for this reason.”
In his email to the two county commissioners, Gibson and Naft, Manhattan also said his company had more local workers on its team: “The fact that Propyrion had more Las Vegas-based key team members (both by count and by percentage) than Position Sports in our proposals is just the beginning of our concerns about fair, unbiased evaluation by the Committee.”
Later in March, records show a person from Gibson’s county commission office contacted Manhattan to advise him that the LVCVA’s explanation of the bidding process was satisfactory to the county commissioner, who chairs the LVCVA board. We learned from the commissioner’s email to Manhattan that Lisa Motley did not choose Position Sports; instead, it was the LVCVA Purchasing Department.
Susan Gersh, Gibson’s assistant, wrote to Manhattan that, “Both Commissioner Gibson and Commissioner Naft are in receipt of your email dated March 17, 2025 regarding the LVCVA’s issuance of the College Football Playoff (“CFP”) RFP award to Position Sports. Commissioner Gibson contacted executive leadership at the LVCVA to receive clarity on your concerns. Following is information that the LVCVA has provided to Commissioner Gibson:
- Propyrion’s bid was exorbitantly higher (millions more) compared to the other 3 bidders.
- The chosen bidder, Position Sports, has an office in Las Vegas and is licensed in Clark County. Their office here is one of 5 of their “headquarters” offices. However, they were founded outside of Nevada.
- Lisa Motley was not a part of the selection committee that chose Position Sports. She did act as the subject matter expert on the pre-bid call; however, the entire decision process was conducted by the LVCVA’s Purchasing Department.
- Position Sports’ experience and past performance did weigh into their selection, however that was just one of several factors.
“After Commissioner Gibson’s receipt of the above information from the LVCVA, he is confident that the LVCVA Purchasing Department followed all procedures required when awarding the CFP contract to the winning bidder,” Gersh wrote.
Only one problem.
Nobody brought it to the attention of Gibson, the county commissioner who chairs the LVCVA board, that Position Sports was part of the LVCVA group at the CFP title game in Atlanta in January two months before the LVCVA awarded Position Sports the consulting job.
The LVCVA board has its monthly second-Tuesday-of-the-month meeting tomorrow.
PSA