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By Alan Snel, LVSportsBiz.com Publisher-Writer
LAS VEGAS, Nevada — It looks like there’s a competitive horse race for a high-profile sports marketing event job in Las Vegas.
The LVCVA consultant job for the 2027 college football national championship game in Las Vegas has attracted no less than seven bidders in a second Request For Proposal (RFP) round after the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA) said nearly two weeks ago there were problems with the first round of bids in February.
The seven bids include the four companies that vied for the LVCVA consulting job five months ago in February to work on the College Football Playoff title game at Allegiant Stadium in Jan. 2027. Those original four companies included sports marketing company Position Sports, which was originally awarded the $1.236 million game production services job by the LVCVA in March.
But after a series of LVSportsBiz.com stories highlighted irregularities in the bidding process, the LVCVA decided in June to put the job out to bid again. The LVCVA deadline to submit bids was July 18 and the bid will be awarded July 26.
This time, three more bids were added to the original four: bdG Sports, LLC, which has put on college basketball and other sports events in Las Vegas; Forum Group LLC; and Las Vegas Events (LVE), the LVCVA’s non-profit events promotional arm that puts on the National Finals Rodeo in Las Vegas every December.
Position Sports also puts on a Hall of Fame Series college basketball event in Las Vegas.
Besides Position Sports, bdG Sports, Forum Group and Las Vegas Events, the other three bidders were companies that submitted bids in February: Norton National, Propyrion and Smart Tyme Agency.
Las Vegas Events is an intriguing bidder because the LVCVA funds the organization. In fact on June 10, when the LVCVA told LBVSportsBiz.com that it was rebidding the contract for the CFP championship game, the LVCVA board approved a Las Vegas Events production services deal for July 1 to June 30, 2026 for $6,793,000.
Las Vegas Events is busy promoting and marketing the National Finals Rodeo in December so it would interesting to see if the organization also has the time and bandwidth to work on the college football national championship game a month later.
The bidders also know that $1.236 million was the winning bid for the job in March. This time around, the companies can submit a bid with that number in mind.
Here is the LVCVA’s CFP game job description, focusing on a vendor who would “provide comprehensive team and game management, as well as event production services. . .”
The winning company will also “serve as the primary liaison between the LVCVA, CFP officials, participating teams, venue management, sponsors and other stakeholders . . . ”
The owner of Las Vegas-based entertainment and sports marketing firm Propyrion, Richard Manhattan, had raised issues with the LVCVA in March after it picked Position Sports for the consulting job March 11.
Just three days later on March 14, the LVCVA’s former VP for sports and special events, Lisa Motley, told a group at a women’s sports forum that her former husband and close friend, Jeff Motley, was going to work as chief media officer for Position Sports.
In a July 7 memo to LVCVA board members, LVCVA CEO Steve Hill included a “summary of findings” that investigated the CFP game bidding process. The Hill memo said LVCVA Chief Strategy Officer Ed Finger is leading the bid evaluation process and that Lisa Motley’s employment with the LVCVA ended June 5.
The LVCVA had used a host committee to handle work to promote the Super Bowl in Las Vegas in Feb. 2024, but decided this time to take the job for the CFP national championship game in-house.