Oakland Raiders Hold Las Vegas Stadium Party At CES 2019
Las Vegas – Zennie Abraham was invited to a special Oakland Raiders party event at CES Las Vegas, starring Oakland Raiders Owner Mark Davis and Dallas Cowboys Owner Jerry Jones, with Raiders Legend Howie Long as master of ceremonies. (Zennie62Media coverage of CES 2019 Las Vegas is sponsored by Lyda Music. Listen to her new album Divine Distraction, here at this link.)
The party, held at the Delano Hotel’s Skyfall Lounge, was for potential sponsors and season ticket and luxury suite buyers. The room was mostly populated by the team of people who work for the Las Vegas Raiders in related capacities to those persons who were invited.
Only a small bit of Oakland Raiders or Raiders and NFL-affiliated people from Oakland were there: Davis, Raiders President Marc Badain, Howie Long, and myself: the rest were Las Vegas Raiders people.
But it was Jerry Jones who just plain lit up the party with his stories and tales and frequent use of colorful language. It was clear that the Raiders wanted Jones to be the star of the event, and he did not disappoint. Jones told a, by his own admission rambling, story of how he bought the Dallas Cowboys, and how, at the time, most NFL teams, including the Cowboys, were losing money. Jones talked about, and then repeated the importance of television, telling the crowd something he’s said many times before: that ticket sales make up only seven percent of the team revenue – the rest is related to television. “Can you imagine the scene here in Las Vegas with a Cowboys / Raiders game and television, with all that goes on here?!,” Jones asked. “It will be people rolling the dice in bars and having a real good time!”
A Sidebar on Jerry Jones’ Television Comments And Legends
The Cowboys Owner made a telling comment during his Raiders presentation, stating that television viewership is going down, but the NFL’s decreasing at a smaller rate. “That means,” Jones continued, that there’s increasing viewership for the NFL.” I think what he meant was that there was increasing relative viewership for NFL Games, but the point was interesting.
What Jones comment means to me is that the giant rights fees the League has collected aren’t going away too soon. And while Jones did not mention the expected role of sports gambling in NFL future revenues, he did agree with me that it would have a dramatic impact on team franchise values. That $10 billion valuation Jones crowed about for his Cowboys isn’t something to laugh about – it’s really achievable.
Mike Lowry, a Zennie62 fan, asked me “Do you have any literature on Jerry Jones’ catering service / suite concierge not being involved in the Las Vegas Stadium anymore?” Well, I can answer Mike’s question this way: as Jerry made the rounds to meet and greet visitors at the event, and I went up to say hello, I saw a man I mistook for someone else, saying “Is he (Jones) your client?” The man answered “Actually, he’s my boss.” That man wore a Las Vegas Stadium lapel pin. That means three things: Legends is involved in the marketing of Las Vegas Stadium, and so is it’s co-owner, Jerry Jones, and given the number of people who told me they were at the party and from Dallas, that Legends personnel played key roles in that regard.
Additionally, it must be noted that Jones has parlayed his NFL relationships into new business for Legends. According to Venues Now, Legends is selling premium seats and sponsorships and filling the role of owner’s representative at Los Angeles Rams Owner Stan Kroenke’s $4.5 billion new stadium in Inglewood, Calif.
So, think about this, folks: the NFL relocation is netting new business for Dallas Cowboys Owner Jerry Jones – business he would not have landed had it not been for the approval of the relocations of the Rams, Raiders and Chargers.
Jones Says Mark Davis Surpassed His Dad Al Davis In Building Las Vegas Stadium
Then Jerry turned to Mark Davis. Jones said that in relocating the Raiders to Las Vegas, Mark Davis surpassed his father Al Davis. “You did something your Daddy couldn’t do,” said Jones.
For his part, Davis did not mention where the team would play or the lawsuit. But he said repeatedly that they tried in Oakland and couldn’t get it done. Davis then turned to the advantages of Las Vegas when he said, pointing to the brightly lit skyline below, “What you get here is activation, activation, activation,” referring to the many sponsorship opportunities and image partnerships Las Vegas business offers.
As to what I learned from the event, I was told that Davis was clearly under the impression that the Raiders were headed to Carson, but “We came in third in a three team race,” he said. Or as one person I talked to said “The Raiders had the Lucy with the football thing done to them” in Los Angeles.
I also learned that the Stadium is, indeed, behind schedule. Davis himself said that “We hope to get it done by 2020,” and what caught me was the use of the word “hope”.
There’s way too much emphasis on the stupid 2020 deadline thing – the Raiders need to focus on making sure Las Vegas Stadium is well-built. Period.
Also, Bank Of America financing is indeed in place, for those who asked. In all, I really enjoyed meeting Elliott McCabe of BofA, who handled the loan for the Raiders – the same type of loan that the Atlanta Falcons used for Mercedes Benz Dome.
What is interesting about that event and the stories is few seemed aware that Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf believed she was lied to about the Raiders intentions, both in the case of Carson and Las Vegas. It purely seems like this all needs to be adjudicated in court.
That said, The Las Vegas Raiders Project is unquestionably exciting.
Stay tuned.
Oakland News Now Note: this post demonstrates the full and live operation of the latest version of an experimental Zennie62Media mobile media video-blogging system network – part of a new approach to the production of media. The uploaded video is from a vlogger with the Zennie62 on YouTube Partner Channel, then uploaded to and formatted automatically at the Oakland News Now site and social media pages. The objective is real-time on the scene reporting of news, interviews, observations, and happenings anywhere in the World and within seconds and not hours. We are constantly working to improve the system network coding and also seek interested content and media technology partners.