Raiders owner Mark Davis chats about ticket holders selling tickets to opposing fans

Raiders owner Mark Davis said he isn’t upset about the number of visiting fans who often take over Allegiant Stadium during Raiders home games and believes winning could help reverse that trend.

In recent home games, fans of the rival Kansas City Chiefs and AFC-leading Buffalo Bills have outnumbered Raiders supporters in the stands.

Speaking to CNBC in an interviewed that aired Thursday, Davis said that because the Raiders have struggled on the field through much of their time in Las Vegas since relocating to Southern Nevada in 2020, and because Las Vegas is a destination city, he understands why the team sometimes lacks a true home-field advantage.

“I think Las Vegas is absolutely unique,” Davis said. “People think I’m upset that Raiders fans are selling tickets to visiting Chiefs fans.

“Yeah, I would prefer that they didn’t, but we haven’t given them anything to be proud of yet to actually not sell their tickets.”

Davis said Raiders fans will likely become more visible once the team starts winning consistently. The Raiders have shown improvement this season, posting a 4-4 record through Week 9. Despite that progress, season-ticket holders have been selling tickets on the secondary market since May, when the 2026 NFL schedule was released.

“We haven’t earned that yet,” Davis said. “Las Vegas is a place that everybody wants to visit from all the other teams. When the schedule comes out and they see that they’re going to play in Las Vegas, they all want to come and spend a weekend there and do that. So that’s what Las Vegas was banking on and betting on when they made the investment ($750 million in public money) in bringing the Raiders there.

“I was betting on us being good enough so we wouldn’t have to rely on others coming from other teams.”

The Raiders’ secondary-market ticket prices are among the highest in the NFL, reflecting the demand for games at Allegiant Stadium. Davis noted that the Raiders do not receive revenue from ticket resales between fans.

“To be clear, the Raiders aren’t getting that secondary-market money,” Davis said. “We are getting the first sale. The secondary-market money, which are really exorbitant prices and everything, is going to season-ticket holders themselves.

“So that’s something I don’t think people realize. They think we’re making all the money on high ticket prices, and that’s not the case.”

Vegas market

The issue of opposing fans at Raiders home games is part of the growing pains associated with building a new NFL market, Davis said.

The Raiders have been in Las Vegas for about eight years. Team staff were active in Southern Nevada two years before the club’s official arrival in 2020, hosting events and engaging with the community to build support.

That process remains a work in progress, Davis said.

“It takes a long time to build a market,” he said. “We still have that to develop. That’s where my focus is, more on Las Vegas and the local market than it is on international growth.”

Pro sports growth

Las Vegas is positioned to have franchises from all four major men’s professional sports leagues by 2030. The NHL’s Golden Knights began play in Southern Nevada in 2017, the Raiders followed in 2020, MLB’s Athletics are scheduled to begin play on the Strip in 2028 and the NBA is widely expected to expand to Las Vegas in 2028 or 2029, pending approval by league owners.

Add the WNBA’s Aces, whom Davis also owns, and the city will have one of the nation’s most competitive professional sports markets.

With a population of about 2.4 million in the Las Vegas metropolitan area and more than 40 million annual visitors, Davis said he believes the city can support the growing number of professional sports franchises.

“I think how Las Vegas can handle that is the fact that people do visit. There’s people visiting all the time,” Davis said. “There’s 2 million people who live in Las Vegas, and it may be getting up more. There’s enough people to handle it.

“But I did see a city in Oakland that had three teams and now has none. So there’s an evolution. We’ll see how that goes.”

Davis believes the primary competition among professional sports teams in Las Vegas will not be attracting fans but securing corporate sponsorships. The competition will be for sponsorships, because there is just one pot of money, basically,” Davis said. “To divvy up among how many teams … There were two, now there will be four or five.

“So there’s definitely competition for sponsorship dollars and things of that nature, tickets and everything else. Again, I think it’s great that we’re going to have all five types of teams there for the good of the city.”

Contact Mick Akers at [email protected] or 702-387-2920. Follow @mickakers on X.