Price for Raiders stadium in Las Vegas climbs by $90 million

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An artist’s rendering of Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas..

The price tag for Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas is set to jump by $90 million.

The Las Vegas Stadium Authority voted during its September meeting on Monday to approve a revised budget for the project, bringing its total cost to $1.97 billion.

The move was made, according to Las Vegas Stadium Co. COO Don Webb, largely because of robust personal seat license sales and sponsorship agreements for the NFL Raiders, who are relocating here in 2020 to play at Allegiant.

“These upgrades are being funded solely by the Raiders and (the stadium co.) with not a dime coming from the public,” Webb said. “This budget revision will actually reduce the size of the public funding contribution as a percentage of the total project cost.”

The stadium is partially funded by Nevada, who contributed $750 million to the project through a small hotel-room tax increase. UNLV will share the facility, located near the Strip off Interstate-15 and Russell Road.

Most of the $90 million bump is expected to be used for various stadium “enhancements,” including additional furniture and fixtures, technology and food service upgrades, build-out of certain unassigned spaces, and the addition of sponsor signage and other fixtures.

“This is the sort of cost overrun that every business should envy,” Webb said. “This is caused by better-than-expected sales results. It would be analogous to an automobile manufacturer exceeding the budgeted amount for steel purchases within a year because they sold more automobiles than expected.”

Webb said personal seat license — fans can’t buy season tickets without purchasing a PSL — revenue is over $352 million. He said that more than a dozen stadium sponsorship deals have been agreed to, including the facility’s most visible sponsor, Allegiant Air, which has secured naming rights.

Webb didn’t elaborate on the other sponsorship deals, but the Raiders did announce earlier this month that streaming service Twitch has also agreed to be a stadium sponsor.

“We expect the number of sponsors to continue to grow throughout the remainder of the stadium construction schedule,” Webb said.

Jeremy Aguero, principle analyst at Applied Analytics, which was contracted by the stadium authority, reported that the project was about 57% complete as of the end of August.

More than $393 million in public funding, Aguero said, has been spent so far on the stadium project. Close to $1.1 billion has been spent on the project to date.

“The project remains on schedule,” Aguero said. “Substantial completion is still expected on July 31 with all major dates remaining intact.”

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