Home field advantage: Influx of visiting fans at Raiders games seen as an economic win

Allegiant Stadium could have a sea of red and yellow in the stands Sunday when the Chiefs play the Raiders in their first visit to Las Vegas since winning Super Bowl 58 in February.

Raiders home games have routinely been a destination for visiting fans.

Visiting fans a good thing

Recent games against the Browns and the Steelers featured plenty of supporters that traveled to watch their team at Allegiant Stadium.

With the $750 million in public money that went toward the construction of the $2 billion facility being paid for by a 0.88 percent tax on hotel rooms in Las Vegas, one could say that was by design.

To that, the value of Allegiant Stadium continues to be born out, according to Clark County Commissioner Michael Naft, whose district includes the stadium.

“Football games are attracting a huge number of visitors, six percent of (all) visitors are coming here just for a sporting event,” Naft, who also sits on the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority Board of Directors, told the Review-Journal. “People who come for sporting events are spending more, they tend to add on to their trips for sporting events.

Having an away fan who comes to Las Vegas, who contributes to the lodging tax and to our gaming tax, who contributes to our sales tax, who helps fund our schools and our law enforcement and fire response — these are good things that fuel our tourist-based economy in Southern Nevada.”

Raiders walking fine line

With the Raiders obviously wanting a home field advantage at Allegiant Stadium, balancing the welcoming of opposing fans while building a fan base in Southern Nevada is an everyday task for team president Sandra Douglass Morgan.

“We’re number one as far as ticket prices being resold because, no offense, but it’s the Steelers and the Browns, people maybe don’t want to be in Pittsburgh or in Cleveland, they’d rather watch their team in Las Vegas,” Morgan said last month during a panel discussion at the Skift Global Forum in New York. “It is a balance of making sure we’re welcoming those fans, but obviously we want the stadium to be Silver and Black as well. But anyone that walks into the stadium, whether it be a Raider game or a concert, we’re going to make sure that’s a high level of service.”

Flanker Kitchen and Sports Bar inside the Mandalay Bay is catering to the expected large presence of Kansas City fans, welcoming the Chiefs Kingdom at noon on Saturday and hosting a tailgate party with Chiefs alum on hand.

Secondary market

The Raiders sold out of season tickets and associated personal seat licenses before Allegiant Stadium was finished being constructed. When PSLs and season tickets sold out in 2019, the Raiders reported 60 percent of buyers were from Nevada, with 40 percent hailing from outside of the Silver State. It was estimated that 7,000 fans who had season tickets in Oakland purchased them at Allegiant Stadium.

So outside of purchasing a suite, the only way for fans to obtain tickets to Raiders home games is through the secondary market.

A 2023 report from Kimley-Horn noted that Raiders games see an average of 66 percent of fans hailing from out of state.

Sunday’s game seems to be tracking for similar numbers with 41 percent of ticket purchases on no fee secondary ticket marketplace TickPick being from California, 18 percent from Texas, 9 percent from Missouri and 3 percent from Nevada.

The Chiefs game is the fourth highest selling Raiders home game this season, with an average purchase price of $605, according to TickPick. That makes it the most expensive NFL game of the week. The cheapest ticket to Sunday’s game is $304, 17 percent higher than the Raiders next home game versus the Denver Broncos ($259). The most expensive ticket sold to the game thus far on TickPick was $1,945, with the largest order being $6,400.

Game day experience Vegas style

With the Raiders healthy fan base in both Northern and Southern California, Morgan knows the game experience in Las Vegas is much different than it was in Oakland or Los Angeles. Known musical acts routinely sing the national anthem before games and perform at halftime, on top of the live house band that plays throughout games.That experience is a big reason why Raiders games in Las Vegas draw such a large mix of visiting fans of the Raiders and opposing teams.

“Focusing on our local fan base is incredibly important,” Morgan said. “But the game day experience in Las Vegas at Allegiant Stadium is much different than its been at the other locations (Los Angeles and Oakland) that the Raiders have been. There’s definitely a level of hospitality and service that comes with being in Las Vegas. … Being able to balance that with making sure that we’re staying true to our die-hard Raiders fans is something that honestly is a needle that I thread every single day with our marketing teams.”