By Alan Snel, LVSportsBiz.com Publisher-Writer
LAS VEGAS, Nevada –Well, that was fast.
The NFL Las Vegas Raiders are $75 million richer after the Las Vegas Stadium Board Wednesday approved the public money to help the Raiders build a $158 million entrance plaza on the north side of the six-year-old stadium. The stadium board meeting lasted about 20 minutes.
“That was the fastest meeting in the history of $75 million giveaways,” longtime Las Vegas lawyer and media commentator Dayvid Figler told LVSportsBiz.com after he was one of two public members to speak during a public comment period that came after the stadium board’s unanimous vote.
The $75 million in public funds are on top of the then-record $75o million stadium subsidy approved by Nevada legislators in 2016 for the stadium that opened in 2020.
So, the Raiders are now receiving $825 million in public money to help build their stadium, which is the highest-grossing stadium in the U.S.
Apparently, the Raiders never built a plaza for their stadium or formal entrance way when it opened six years ago. A plaza or entrance area for stadiums and arenas are common features of new sports venues.
And apparently, the Raiders were caught off guard by the surge of fans coming over the Hacienda Avenue bridge from the Strip and parking garages on the east side of Interstate 15. The Raiders stadium is on the west side of I-15.
That was the fastest meeting in the history of $75 million giveaways — longtime Las Vegas lawyer and media commentator Dayvid Figler
For a previous LVSportsBiz.com story on the Raiders stadium, stadium economics expert and University of Colorado-Denver professor Geoffrey Propheter said, “It is atypical for a team to seek a major improvement so early into a facility’s life. It’s a clear sign the team did a poor job of planning crowd movements, and the authority did a poor job of monitoring the team’s plans. That being said, congestion is a common economic problem, and there are certainly cheaper ways to reduce congestion than the $158 million price tag.”
The Raiders did know that they could tap a public fund of money that grew to $80 million in extra hotel room tax revenues collected on every room night at a hotel on the Strip and in Southern Nevada.
But it’s not like the Raiders gamed the system.
They helped create the system — the 2016 stadium funding law that created the hotel room tax that is raising the money to pay off a public debt of more than $1 billion. The Raiders worked with Las Vegas consultant Jeremy Aguero and others to fashion the law that created the waterfall fund.
The extra waterfall fund money could be used for three purposes: stadium improvements, paying down the public debt and county infrastructure improvements. In fact, the county will use $5 million of this waterfall fund to build electric signs above the streets at the stadium to display messages.
Figler was one of two speakers during the public comment period after the vote.
The other was local resident Richard Kreps who asked why the Raiders’ billionaire owners like Mark Davis, Egon Durban and Michael Meldman need a $75 million public subsidy to improve the stadium on top of the $750 million already contributed by the public.
“The billionaires that own the Raiders can afford 100 percent of the improvements,” the resident told the stadium board.
The stadium board, technically a public panel that is administratively run by the publicly-funded LVCVA, approved the $75 million for the Raiders’ plaza project with no comments from the board members. Figler, during the public comment period, questioned why there was no conversation by the board members about the $75 million approval. He also asked why the stadium board meeting was not streamed so that the public can see the meeting if they did not attend the brief session.
The Raiders said they need to build the plaza to offer more ease for fans arriving for events at the stadium. Raiders executives attended, but they did not address the stadium board.
The Raiders say they are simply tapping a public “waterfall” fund of extra hotel room tax money that was part of the state Raiders stadium funding law.
Stadium board chairman Steve Hill is also the CEO of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA). Hill said the stadium needs to be improved to compete for events with five new NFL stadiums that are set to open in Buffalo, Nashville, Washington D.C., Denver and Chicago.
“We need to keep up,” Hill said.
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