Allegiant Stadium far outperformed attendance forecasts, officials say; $621M in bonds remain outstanding

Steve Hill, chief executive officer of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority and chair of the Las Vegas Stadium Authority, told the Joint Interim Standing Committee on Revenue that Allegiant Stadium has exceeded original projections for visitors and economic impact but that most stadium operating revenue remains with the tenant and public debt remains substantial.

Hill said the authority's analysis compared 2016 projections with actuals through 2025. He described a roughly 111% increase in incremental visitors (people who came to Las Vegas because of stadium events), and reported economic output and wages that exceeded the 2016 forecasts by wide margins. "From an economic output standpoint, we projected $620,000,000 in 2016; looking at 2025 results we're nearly four times that amount," Hill said. He told the committee wages and salaries tied to stadium-driven activity are more than double original projections and that community employment supported by the tourism boost approaches previous estimates multiplied across businesses outside the stadium.

On financing, Hill said the stadium financing structure still carries about $621,000,000 in outstanding bonds at the end of the last fiscal year. He explained the statutory "waterfall" for room-tax receipts in the stadium district, the required debt-service coverage and a debt-service reserve that currently holds about 2.2 years of coverage (above the two-year statutory minimum). For fiscal 2026 the stadium authority's scheduled debt service was presented as approximately $38.3 million. Hill also described a legally required capital account for stadium maintenance and a contractual commitment with UNLV: if UNLV closed Sam Boyd Stadium and moved football operations to Allegiant, the authority agreed to reimburse up to $3.5 million a year for 10 years to offset differences in profits compared with Sam Boyd.

Committee members sought clarification about how much of the stadium's gross receipts go to debt paydown. Hill emphasized that under the lease the Raiders (the principal tenant) operate the stadium, retain event-day revenues and pay operating costs; the authority's revenue contribution has principally been the room-tax financing that supports debt service and the waterfall priorities. He said that early bond payments are interest-heavy and principal amortization accelerates later in the ~28-year payment cycle. Hill said premium at issuance increased total bond proceeds to roughly $715 million and that early paygo room-tax collections contributed several million to the original $750 million construction funding.

Several members also questioned a $6.9 million "live entertainment tax" line on an LVCVA chart; both Hill and the committee agreed the single-line modeled estimate could be misleading because the bar chart shows where live entertainment tax is actually generated and the $6.9 million figure was a modeled multiplication of average visitor spending times incremental visitors. The chair asked that line be removed to avoid misinterpretation.

The presentation closed with members asking staff to follow up with a breakout of wages, full-time equivalent counts and the portions of employment and wages generated by tenant staff versus broader tourism-sector jobs. The committee expressed interest in receiving additional detail on how much of the stadium's revenues ultimately reduce public debt versus being retained by private operators.

The committee took no formal action; Hill's presentation was a briefing and the committee moved on to subsequent agenda items.