The latest announced Allegiant Stadium sponsor is a gaming industry mainstay, but it’s not from Las Vegas.
The Oakland Raiders on Monday revealed a partnership with San Manuel Casino, located about 60 miles east of Los Angeles in Highland, California, near San Bernardino.
“We’ve talked often about how the (Allegiant Stadium) project is going to be transformative for the city of Las Vegas, the Raiders, the region and also for our partners,” said Raiders President Marc Badain at a news conference at the team’s Preview Center at Town Square. “We’re excited to have San Manuel Casino as a founding partner.”
The agreement — terms were not disclosed — made sense on a number of levels, including the fact that the Raiders will maintain a strong Southern California following after the team moves to Las Vegas, Badain said.
“As everybody knows, we’ve been in multiple markets,” Badain said. “Our history in Los Angeles was a very significant and successful one, and we maintain a very strong fanbase in the Southern California area. A significant portion of our (personal seat license) holders are coming from the region.”
Badain said personal seat licenses for Allegiant Stadium — the nearly $2 billion facility expected to be completed next summer — are about 97% sold out.
He said he expects the licenses, which are a prerequisite for season ticket purchases, to be gone around Thanksgiving.
Loren Gill, CEO of the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians, said sponsorship deals with sports franchises have worked well for the band.
He said San Manuel will have use of an Allegiant Stadium suite for games, along with naming rights to a food and beverage area and advertising space in different places at the facility.
“We know that many Raiders fans are our customers,” Gill said. “We’re also a very large sponsor of the Los Angeles Dodgers. We have left field at (Dodger Stadium), so any home runs there go over our logo. We find a lot of great synergies in major league sports.”
Like Las Vegas-based Allegiant Air, San Manuel also is a sponsor of the NHL’s Vegas Golden Knights.