To help fund the $2 billion Allegiant Stadium, the 65,000-seat home of the Las Vegas Raiders and the UNLV football team since 2020, Nevada lawmakers green-lit a hotel room tax hike to pay for $750 million in bonds secured through Clark County.
As reported by ABC affiliate KTNV, the Las Vegas Stadium Authority, which technically owns Allegiant Stadium, had 30 years from the securing of those bonds to pay them off, and thereby satisfy the public money component for the build.
Revenue has been flowing so freely from those room taxes that it's possible the authority could pay off the bonds up to three years early.
Last October alone, the Raiders hosted multiple NFL games, one versus the Green Bay Packers, one of the most popular teams in the league, and Allegiant Stadium hosted major entertainment acts such as Pink and Ed Sheeran. The stadium authority collected just under $7 million dollars in hotel tax monies, mostly from the 0.88 percent tax on rooms on the Strip. That was a 10 percent jump from the same month in 2022.
Then, in February, Las Vegas hosted its first-ever Super Bowl, which featured the Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers, at Allegiant Stadium. According to stadium authority records, just under $6.6 million came into the authority from hotel room taxes, a jump of about 50 percent from February 2023. Authority officials are confident Allegiant Stadium will host future Super Bowls, as well.
"I think you have to be incredibly impressed with the return on investment," says Jeremy Aguero, principal at Applied Analysis, a local firm that has done of lot of analytical work on Allegiant Stadium. "The Raiders have certainly held up their end of the bargain, but look at some of the concerts as well — Taylor Swift, Beyoncé — it's just been incredible. People are coming to this community because we have events at Allegiant Stadium."
"Back in 2016, there were plenty of people who cried foul as state representatives moved to offer public funds for the stadium's construction," KTNV's Bryan Horwath reported, adding, "There's no denying today that this caliber of venue works for events here in Las Vegas, but some still wonder whether any public money had to be used at all."
Part of the argument against public funding was that Mark Davis, owner of the Raiders, was rich enough to finance his own stadium. Some of those same folks were also against last year's move by Nevada lawmakers to allocate public funds for a planned new ballpark on the Strip for the Oakland A's baseball team.
"The reasons why people come to Las Vegas, in the past 10 years, sports and entertainment have risen almost to the top of that list," Aguero says. "Wage and salary dollars, tips provided by these visitors, are flowing back into our neighborhoods."
In all, the stadium authority says it expects to have close to $100 million in its reserves as part of its 2025 fiscal year budget, KTNV's Horwath reported, though the budget has not yet been approved.
