Allegiant Stadium is the new name for the Las Vegas Raiders $1.9 billion state-of-the-art facility set to open in 2020 of which $750 million comes from public funding. Money the city of Oakland simply could not fork over in order to keep the NFL franchise in California making it a windfall for team owner team, Mark Davis. Allegiant Travel Company is the buildings title sponsor adding fuel to the worry many local Vegas residents have that season ticket prices for the NFL’s newest $2 billion stadium will be too much for many a local fan to purchase when you add in the costly personal site license fee to the price of tickets. This fact will create opportunities for local travel companies and casinos including Allegiant Travel who are based in Vegas and the parent company of Allegiant Air, to buy up tickets or actually receive them as part of the sponsorship package. In turn, the rumor is these companies with Allegiant leading the way, will sell the coveted seats to fans representing the team’s eight home opponents in bundled travel packages complete with hotel accommodations, cheap air flights, car rental discounts, and a golden ticket to the game. This fire sale may eliminate the Raiders home field advantage when half the seats are full of their opponent’s constituency. Rival Broncos and Chiefs fans in the AFC West division will be more than exciting to spend whatever it takes to be in the sunny city and warm confines of Allegiant Stadium since it is hard to get tickets at their sold out home games during the cold fall and winter months in Denver and Kansas City respectively, as well as the many other cold weather cities around the league. The Sports Techie community blog was at CES last year representing Panasonic as a sports tech business expert and social influencer where together with the two VP’s of Sales for USA, I assisted with providing a tour of their company’s 100-year anniversary booth featuring a mocked up smart stadium suite complete with amazing sports technology to the team’s Director of IT, Matt Pasco. Word was Raiders management wanted the Japanese technology company to be the sponsor of the stadium, something Panasonic does not do and with today’s announcement, did not do leaving Allegiant to fit the business need and then some. Be careful what you wish for.
Raiders Stadium Naming Rights
The Las Vegas Review-Journal claims a trademark was sought for “Allegiant Stadium” with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office in May, 2019.
Today’s topping-out ceremony at the site’s Interstate 15 and Russell Road location celebrated the final steel beam in place needed to connect 26 roof trusses and coincided with the naming rights announcement.
At the beginning of the naming rights process, Raiders president Marc Badain told the several hundred in attendance the team hoped to land a company with ties to Las Vegas. He added that after negotiations with several companies that included resort (casino) companies Badain did not name, Allegiant was awarded the right to put their name on Raiders Stadium.
“Allegiant stepped up a while ago and expressed interest,” said Badain. “We were really excited about them being a partner. We’ve been at it for eight or nine months trying to put a deal together and like any negotiation it goes up and down.”
Speculation is the deal runs about $25 million per year in cash and in-kind services.
The cozy indoor stadia will seat 65,000 people but what percentage will actually be Raider nation?
Allegiant Air
Half of 65k is 32,500 fans flying to Vegas to spend, spend, spend and watch their team, just win, baby.
“This is the world’s leisure destination,” Allegiant Chairman and CEO Maury Gallagher said at the ceremony. “This is where people come to have fun. This stadium you are building is going to be one of the premiere facilities in the world. We couldn’t be more proud and honored to be a part of that whole picture and to be a part of Las Vegas. What Mr. Davis (former owner Al Davis) said all the time, ‘Just win, baby’: That’s what we’re all about.”
The American discount airline offers both scheduled and charter flights making them the ninth-largest commercial U.S, airline. Owners Allegiant Travel Co,. operate a publicly traded company responsible to 4,000 employees, generating a $2.6 billion market space.
Nevada’s Democratic Representative, Dina Titus, represents the district housing the stadium site. She spoke during the ceremony and stated that a large amount of Allegiant’s 450 flight routes fly to NFL cities. Titus said, “They will be bringing folks here, whether they love the Raiders or whether they love to hate the Raiders, we don’t care as long as they come.”
Sports Techie, the son of Al Davis inherits a lucrative NFL franchise, he then abandons the Oakland community and receives $750 million in essentially free money to move the franchise to Las Vegas , and then turns around and sells the stadium’s naming rights to Allegiant Travel Company who plan to fly in fans that will root against his team. Does that add all up to winning for Raiders nation?
State Representative Tutus even went as far as to say she doesn’t care if the folks coming to Vegas flying on Allegiant’s airline root for the Raiders or not. It seems, as long as these fandoms bring plenty of coin to spend around the Las Vegas strip, everyone wins except in wins and losses.
According to the stat experts, winning at home is a must to make the NFL play-offs in order to then win a Super Bowl, something the Raiders may not have enough of a home field advantage to do with Allegiant Stadium potentially half-full of non-Raiders fans.
Davis felt as if Monday’s Allegiant Stadium topping-out ceremony was similar to a football halftime score. “My philosophy is that the least important thing in life is the score at halftime.”
One scenario I see possibly playing out is the team keeps on losing behind Head Coach John Gruden and the locals end up selling their tickets on secondary markets making Allegiant Stadium even less of a home field advantage. That would make the score at halftime as close the Raiders get to victory in Las Vegas because they sold out their corporate soul to away fans via the stadium naming rights.
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