Posted on: March 18, 2023, 11:59h.
Final up to date on: March 18, 2023, 12:06h.
Practically half of the 1.7M followers who packed sporting and music occasions at Allegiant Stadium in 2022 had been vacationers, in line with a brand new report within the Las Vegas Evaluation-Journal. That’s practically double the quantity that was initially forecast.
The highest-attended Allegiant Stadium occasion in 2022 was the Las Vegas Raiders vs. Los Angeles Chargers NFL recreation on January 1. It drew 58,871 followers. (Picture: Fb)
Stadium Authority chair Steve Hill — who additionally serves as president and CEO of the Las Vegas Conference and Guests Authority — instructed the newspaper that his group had predicted that tourism would account for less than 27% of a mean Allegiant crowd. As an alternative, that quantity turned out to be someplace between 40% and 49%.
About 65% of the roughly 500K followers who attended the final 5 Raider dwelling video games of final season (or 325K) got here from out of city, in line with the stadium authority, with a excessive of 69% (or 39.9K) coming for the December 18, 2022 matchup in opposition to the New England Patriots.
However the highest proportion of vacationers was the whopping 87% (or 48,716 followers) within the stands for the October 8, 2022 one-off Shamrock Collection soccer recreation between Notre Dame and BYU. In response to the stadium authority, 81% of these followers traveled to Las Vegas particularly to attend that recreation.
In Your Face, Doubters!
That is nice information for Las Vegas tourism, the type successful converts of those that opposed the unique plan to construct Allegiant.
Constructed between 2017 and 2020 to convey the NFL’s Raiders over from Oakland, the stadium price $1.9B. That makes it the second costliest stadium ever constructed — after the Rams’ $5.5B SoFi Stadium in LA. The distinction is that SoFi was 100% privately funded, whereas $750M of Allegiant’s price ticket was footed by municipal bonds issued by Clark County. These bonds had been backed by the proceeds of a 1.4% particular tax on Las Vegas resort rooms — a tax that additionally partially funded an enlargement of the Las Vegas Conference Middle.
In 2016, two grassroots lobbying organizations fiercely opposed the general public funding, noting that it got here at a time when state budgets had been slashed by $300M to cowl shortfalls. In a press release made on the time, Nevadans for the Frequent Good mentioned the stadium deal “includes substantial threat to the general public with out offering commensurate group advantages.” An announcement from the Nevada Taxpayers Affiliation famous that there was “important knowledge indicating that backed stadiums generally is a detriment to a group.”
Information of Allegiant’s unexpectedly excessive 2022 contribution to Las Vegas tourism was sufficient to get not less than one former naysayer singing a brand new tune. In 2016, Tick Segerblom, now a Clark County Commissioner, was considered one of solely 5 state senators who voted in opposition to Allegiant’s public funding.
“The reality is, I believe it’s beat everyone’s wildest expectations,” Segerblom instructed the R-J. “It crammed a void and now we are able to maintain any occasion on the planet. It actually has been extremely useful.”
