Raiders want UNLV to help with game-day parking issues - for free
The city of Las Vegas and state of Nevada are already ponying up a lot of money for a new stadium for the Oakland Raiders eventual move to Vegas, but the Raiders want to get more.
Like thousands of parking spaces, for free. Oh, and a big part of the luxury suite revenues. Even for non-Raiders games.
The Las Vegas Sun this week reviewed documents submitted by the Raiders to officials at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas; it is the first draft of the 30-year joint-use agreement that will guide how the Raiders and UNLV share the publicly funded $1.9 billion stadium once it opens in 2020.
Sun writer Adam Candee highlights several key points within the document, which was written after the first meeting between the two sides last month; citing sources, Candee wrote that a negotiating session is expected to happen within the next two weeks.
It will be worth seeing how that goes, because unsurprisingly, the Raiders are asking for a lot.
For one thing, the team wants the university to give it thousands of parking spaces for game-day use.
The Raiders had a study conducted last month which shows that the stadium site has just 15 percent of the parking spaces required by county code for a 65,000-seat facility. The team has a 62-acre lot on the stadium site that will provide 2,400 parking spaces.
So the team is asking UNLV if it can use around 80 acres of campus land for game days and other event parking; the request includes the lots at the Thomas & Mack Center, which offer 4,000 spaces, and a 42-acre parcel currently slated for mixed-use development.
The kicker? Via the documents, the Raiders’ proposal does not call for the team to give the university any payment for using its land beyond the net revenues from parking fees.
Also left in question: how fans using the UNLV lots, provided the school agrees to let the Raiders use them, will get to the stadium; UNLV is three miles away from the stadium site.
Another thing that benefits the Raiders first and foremost: luxury suite sales. The team’s proposal has it in almost total control of the luxury suites, and, of course, their profits.
The NFL franchise proposes that they will have the exclusive right to sell luxury suites and club seating for UNLV games as part of ticket/suite packages for Raiders games and other events; while this could certainly help UNLV attendance, the school will not receive any real financial boost from suites filled for its games. The Raiders propose that UNLV will get an amount equal only to the average per-ticket price for club seats at a Rebels game, even for seats used in suites.
Why UNLV would receive club seat money for suite seat tickets is not detailed in the proposal.
Any suites the Raiders don’t sell as part of those larger packages would revert to UNLV to sell; the school could keep all revenues from suites it sells itself.
But just as the Raiders’ move to Las Vegas was driven in large part by the promise of luxury suite revenues, UNLV is hoping for the same, and it’s unknown how many suite packages the Rebels would be able to sell themselves after the Raiders sell their packages.
