The debate rages on over how things will work out when the Oakland Raiders become the Las Vegas Raiders. I’m sure owner Mark Davis looked at his current season ticket holder base for clues.
The pro side believes Raider Nation will come from all over the US and the world. So Las Vegas’ small market size in relation to the Bay Area will not matter.
The con side believes it’s a bad idea to depend so much on people outside the city to support the team. Even most of the funding for the stadium will depend on fans staying in hotels.
Most businesses would call what the Raiders are doing risky. But again, Davis is going all the way to the core and doing it for a reason.
I’m guessing here, but he may have a big chunk of his season ticket base coming from outside of Oakland. He got a few hints on a few of the road games they played last year. As always, the Raiders fan presence appeared to overpower Chargers fans at games in San Diego.
It doesn’t stop on the west coast either, it stretches east.
The Tennessee Titans, Jacksonville Jaguars and Tampa Bay Buccaneers saw that last year. Raiders Nation went into all three stadiums and seemed to drown out the home fans. They also kept home-field advantage for the Raiders against the Houston Texans in Mexico City.
That’s why he was depending on most of his season ticket holders coming from outside of Las Vegas.
Rick Velotta of the Las Vegas Review-Journal tweeted Bank of America’s Elliot McCabe’s figures.
McCabe says early PSL money shows 43% coming from Nevada, 29% from California and 28% from other locations.
— Rick Velotta (@RickVelotta) August 17, 2017
The figures say 57 percent of personal seat licenses are from outside Nevada. And of that 57 percent, 29 of it comes from the state of California. That leaves 43 percent of all PSL sales to come from the state of Nevada.
McCabe’s figures are based on the $100-refundable deposits that went on sale. And right now, according to Raidersbeat.com, the Raiders have sold around 50,000 deposits. But this is not the be-all, end-all, we have three years and they are refundable. But this is a good start so early in the process, showing the strength of Raider Nation.
Raider Nation indeed runs all the way across America and into other countries. So Davis could be right for relying on fans outside of Las Vegas. He may have had an inkling how many current season ticket holders would follow the team to Las Vegas.
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