It was an exciting month for NFL fans in southern Nevada, as the ownership of the Raiders – currently playing in Oakland, but set to move to Las Vegas for the start of the 2020 season – broke ground on the new stadium site and held a lavish party to celebrate. What will likely be less exciting for those same fans is when the bills come due for a Personal Seat License to the new stadium, according to reporting by the Las Vegas Sun.
Despite receiving a record-breaking $750 million in taxpayer funding for the stadium, the team is expected to defray the construction costs of the $1.8 billion stadium by selling at least $250 million in PSLs to fans, in order that they can reserve the right to then purchase season tickets to see the team, which had its first winning season since 2002 in 2016, though it fell in the first round of the NFL playoffs.
By the numbers, that means that the likely average PSL price will hit $3,846 – per seat. That means that a family of four would need to spend north of $15,000 in seat licenses alone. And then buy tickets.
That fact doesn’t seem to have scared off fans thus far, as over 50,000 have put down a required $100 deposit for a PSL, despite the final prices of seat licenses not being public at this time. For comparison’s sake, the recently-opened Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta has PSL prices ranging from $500 in the upper corners of the stadium all the way to $45,000 for prime seats at the 50-yard line.
Oakland and PSLs have a long and complex history, dating back to the ownership of Al Davis, who moved the team from its original home in the San Francisco Bay area to Los Angeles, and then moved the team back in the 1990s. Upon the team’s return to Oakland in 1995, the team issued PSLs ranging in cost from $250-4,000 – but they were only valid for ten years, rather than until a season ticket holder wished to give up their license. As a result, the team sold fewer than half of its capacity in PSLs, and frequently languished at the bottom of league attendance figures.
The stadium will also be home the the University of Nevada-Las Vegas football team. It is unclear whether or not a Raiders PSL will bring any rights for UNLV tickets in addition to the NFL ones.
