The Oakland Raiders sent an email on Thursday entitled “Brick by brick, we need your help!” and asking fans for help with Las Vegas Stadium by answering a survey, and eventually buying something.
I know about the survey because the Raiders sent one of those emails to me.
The first paragraph went like this:
“The Raiders are currently evaluating a program to provide a special opportunity for Raider Nation to leave its mark on Las Vegas Stadium. It is our goal to integrate Raider Nation into the fabric of Las Vegas Stadium, but to create the best program possible, we need your help!
Please click the link below to take a short, 10-minute survey to provide your feedback.”
The Oakland Raiders Las Vegas Stadium survey was, indeed, short, and I took it, but once you take it, you can’t go back and copy / paste the questions for presentation in, well a blog post like this one.
That written, it asked what you would be willing to pay to have a brick engraved with your name or message in the pavement at some location around Las Vegas Stadium (for both the NFL and UNLV)? The survey prices to have a brick varied between just over $120 and just over $320. The survey also asked how many bricks you would buy, and if you would buy a brick for someone else? But what was interesting is what popped up after I completed the survey.
The Oakland Raiders Are Still Taking $100 PSL Deposit Applications
What appeared was another java-script enabled page that invited me pay a $100 deposit to eventually buy a full PSL, or “personal seat license.” I was under the impression that the Oakland Raiders were selling PSLs very well, as headlines like “Raiders PSLs Selling Fast in Vegas” were common, during mid July of this year.
The overall picture painted with the help of the media was that PSLs for the Oakland Raiders Las Vegass Stadium were going like hotcakes, even though they were as much as $75,000 per seat. In other words, Las Vegas Stadium features a PSL price list that is twice the cost of the Atlanta Falcons PSLs for its new stadium and host venue for Super Bowl 53, and yet, they’re selling like there’s no tomorrow?
Well, if that’s the case, why the new chase for people to sign up for $100 PSL deposits?
How Much Money Have The Oakland Raiders Really Raised For Las Vegas Stadium vs. Expenses?
This brings up another question: how much money have the Oakland Raiders really raised for the construction of Las Vegas Stadium, versus what the Silver and Black has used, to date?
Given the giant amount of public money committed to the creation of Las Vegas Stadium, one would think the Clark County Board of Supervisors and the Office of Governor Brian Sandoval would keep a constant eye on stadium construction finances, and report findings to the public on a regular basis. Not so.
The quality of public financial information connected with the Las Vegas Raiders Stadium Project is so bad that the last meeting of the Las Vegas Stadium Authority failed to report on the status of its own budget, and in its posted documents presented stadium construction cost reports that were three months old.
It’s almost as if there’s something wrong, and someone doesn’t want us to know about it. That’s what it feels like to me.
Stay tuned.