Las Vegas Raiders head coach Josh McDaniels walks the sidelines during the first half of a preseason ... [+]
No one expects much from the Las Vegas Raiders this season, at least on the field. Still, the franchise’s home games are becoming spectacles where people want to be seen.
Despite the oddsmakers predicting Las Vegas will miss the playoffs, the Raiders rank as the most “in-demand” team in the NFL, according to StubHub. The ticket exchange and resale company defines “in-demand” based on the number of tickets sold on its platform for each team’s home games.
People have bought 30% more tickets for Raiders’ home games on StubHub than the second-place team, Dallas Cowboys, whose home games have attracted 20% more sales on StubHub than the Miami Dolphins, the third-most popular team. The rankings are based on tickets sold through the end of August.
The demand for Raiders’ games is occurring as the franchise comes off a 6-11 season in which they lost four of their final five games and benched starting quarterback, Derek Carr, for the final two games. After releasing Carr in February, the Raiders a month later signed veteran quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo, who soon afterward underwent foot surgery. Garoppolo is set to start the Raiders’ opener at the Denver Broncos on Sept. 10, but plenty of questions surround a franchise that hasn’t won a playoff game since January 2003.
BetMGM puts the Raiders’ over-under win total for the year at 5.5, while PointsBet and FanDuel each have it at 6.5, according to futures compiled by RotoWire. The Arizona Cardinals are the only team with a lower over-under win total projection.
Those predictions, though, have not hampered demand for Raiders’ games. In fact, the Raiders moved up from fourth on last year’s StubHub list of most in-demand teams heading into the season. They were first in the 2021 rankings.
The main draw for fans is the city of Las Vegas, not the team. Other factors in the rankings include the size of the stadium and willingness of season-ticket holders to place their tickets on the StubHub marketplace, as well as the fact that people must plan well in advance to visit Las Vegas to secure hotel rooms and flights.
The Raiders also benefit from the fact that they play nine home games this year (some teams play eight) and have non-divisional home games against franchises with rabid fan bases: Pittsburgh Steelers, Green Bay Packers, New England Patriots, New York Giants, New York Jets and Minnesota Vikings. The Patriots are the only one of those teams to have played a regular season game in Las Vegas.
The Raiders are now in their fourth year in Las Vegas, but the first year (2020) they did not have any fans at their home games due to COVID-19 restrictions. They had more than 61,000 fans at their home games in 2021 (94.1% capacity) and more than 62,000 fans at their home games last year (95.5% capacity).
The Raiders play in the $1.9 billion, state-of-the-art Allegiant Stadium, which attracts fans, as does the neighboring casinos, nightlife and other activities that make Las Vegas a tourist destination. The Super Bowl will be held at Allegiant Stadium in February, while the city has an NHL team and hosts other major events like boxing and UFC bouts and the NBA Summer League. It will also play host to the 2026 NCAA men’s hockey Frozen Four and the 2028 NCAA men’s basketball Final Four.
“When you think of Vegas, it’s certainly become a destination for sports travel overall,” said Adam Budelli, a StubHub spokesman.
Budelli added that overall NFL ticket sales on StubHub have doubled since this time last year, while the demand for tickets to games in the U.S. from outside the country are up by 45%. Fans from 74 countries have bought tickets on StubHub for NFL games this year, up from 49 countries last year.
Budelli said that there’s a “massive increase in sales demand” when the NFL releases its schedule in May and that sales “are very consistent” throughout the summer.
“The NFL tends to be a sport that’s based around the idea of tailgating and getting larger groups, which leads to an interest in purchase earlier in the life cycle because you may want to sit with four to 10 people in the section,” Budelli said. “We do sell a lot of tickets up until the week of the games, but in the NFL we see tickets move much earlier in the life cycle than other sports.”
Besides the Raiders, Cowboys and Dolphins, the next seven in-demand teams in order are the Steelers, San Francisco 49ers, Philadelphia Eagles, Jets, Buffalo Bills, Giants and Kansas City Chiefs.
The Steelers-Raiders game in Las Vegas on Sept. 24 is the most popular game based on StubHub sales, followed by the Dolphins-Chiefs game in Frankfurt, Germany on Nov. 5. The ticket sales for the Dolphins-Chiefs game are 67% higher than for last year’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers-Seattle Seahawks gams in Munich, which was the first game in Germany in NFL history.
The next eight-most popular games so far based on StubHub ticket sales are:
· Cowboys at 49ers on Oct. 8
· Packers at Raiders on Oct. 9
· 49ers at Steelers on Sept. 10
· Jets at Cowboys on Sept. 17
· Packers at Chicago Bears on Sept. 10
· Eagles at Patriots on Sept. 10
· Chiefs at Vikings on Oct. 8
· Cowboys at Carolina Panthers on Nov. 19
