Football Is Tourism For Las Vegas Market Coping With Declining Visitors, One-Dimensional Economy; Final: Broncos 24 Raiders 17
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By Alan Snel, LVSportsBiz.com Publisher-Writer
LAS VEGAS, Nevada — It’s football games.
But for the Las Vegas market, the overarching theme for sports competition is tourism and local economics. That’s life here in the Southern Nevada desert where the economy is tourism-based. Diversifying the economy has always been an aspiration for Las Vegas, but not a reality
Sports as tourism was on full display late Sunday morning when Las Vegas Bowl and UNLV athletics gathered in an interview room inside Allegiant Stadium, the publicly-subsidized NFL venue run by the Las Vegas Raiders.
It was a fascinating three-way convergence of a bowl game expected to attract thousands of Nebraska and Utah college football fans to the Raiders stadium on New Year’s Eve, a UNLV football team making its mark on a market after years of losing and an NFL team playing a game that drew thousands of orange-clad Denver Broncos fans to this domed stadium across the interstate from the Strip.
A Bo Nix eight-yard run for a touchdown triggered this stadium filled with many Broncos fans to explode in a collective roar when the Denver team took nearly nine minutes to march 81 yards to score the game’s first TD in the first quarter,
At least those Broncos fans here — assuming they paid for hotel rooms — helped Las Vegas pay off its more than $1 billion stadium debt thanks to hotel room tax money being collected on every hotel room bill. Southern Nevada assumed a debt of more than $1.1 billion to contribute $750 million to building Raiders stadium in 2020.
Here’s a look at orange filling the Raiders stadium:
The stadium, however, hosts more than just 10 or 11 Raiders NFL games a year.
It’s the home of the Las Vegas Bowl, now in its 34th year.
This year, Utah and Nebraska will play in the game, with Las Vegas Bowl chief John Saccenti expecting a bowl game attendance record to be set. We interviewed Saccenti after the announcement of the teams and he covered a lot of ground here:
Saccenti mentioned that both Utah and Nebraska will easily sell out their ticket allotments, with Utah making its seventh appearance out of 34 Las Vegas Bowls.
As for UNLV, the Rebels are Texas-bound, heading to the Frisco Bowl to play Ohio U. Dec. 23. Under former coach Barry Odom in 2023 and 2024 and Dan Mullen in 2025. Mullen talked about the program with so many new football players coming together to win ten games even though the Rebels lost to Boise State Friday in the Mountain West Conference championship game for a third straight season.
UNLV Athletic Director Erick “Harp” Harper offered these comments before the Raiders game:
The contrast between Raiders games at the Coliseum in Oakland and games in Allegiant Stadium is startling. The Coliseum was a mecca for Raiders fans, while this domed stadium is an amenity-filled Las Vegas act.
The stadium exploded again when Broncos’ received Marvin Mims took a punt and scampered 49 yards for a touchdown to give Denver a 14-7 lead over the Raiders in the second quarter.
UNLV pays the Raiders more than $2.2 million a year to play its football games in the stadium, which slides in a tray with an artificial playing surface for Rebels games and a natural grass for Raiders games.
Tourists coming to Las Vegas mean more these days because overall tourism is declining in the market. This is common in sunbelt sports towns from South Florida to Phoenix to even LA where visitors of established teams like the New York Yankees and Dallas Cowboys fill other venues’ seats and offer revenue for those cities.
At halftime, Denver led the Raiders, 14-7.
The Broncos tacked on a short running touchdown and a 23-yard field goal in the fourth quarter for a 24-7 lead.
The Raiders responded with a Kenny Pickett touchdown pass with 2:17 left and Daniel Carlson field goal with no time to go and the Raiders lost their seventh straight, 24-17.
PSA
