{"id":177450,"date":"2025-07-03T05:31:16","date_gmt":"2025-07-03T05:31:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/177450\/"},"modified":"2025-07-03T05:31:16","modified_gmt":"2025-07-03T05:31:16","slug":"the-las-vegas-raiders-concessions-switch-from-levy-to-oak-view-group-stunned-the-sports-venue-food-and-beverage-industry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/177450\/","title":{"rendered":"The Las Vegas Raiders concessions switch from Levy to Oak View Group stunned the sports venue food and beverage industry."},"content":{"rendered":"

The dust is still settling in Las Vegas where an ultra-aggressive \u201cshoot your shot\u201d kind of moment from Oak View Group has fired up the already competitive sports venue food and beverage world<\/a>. <\/p>\n

OVG made an unsolicited business proposal to the Raiders, who had a mid-term opt-out option in their 10-year deal with Levy, and the NFL team made a surprising switch to OVG<\/a>, handing the company its first NFL venue account in Allegiant Stadium. <\/p>\n

The repercussions of this won\u2019t be immediately clear; only a handful of big-league accounts are up for grabs each year. But the activated opt-out likely had lawyers for clients and providers alike double-checking contracts last week. <\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think many of us can remember one this significant,\u201d Food Service Matters founder and CEO Mike Plutino said of the opt-out. \u201cThis was a flagship property for Levy, make no mistake about it.\u201d <\/p>\n

The mid-term opt-out <\/p>\n

Roughly five years ago, ahead of Allegiant Stadium opening, the Raiders negotiated what was, by several accounts, a pretty team-friendly deal with Levy. <\/p>\n

Nevertheless, there was still surprise in the industry that the Raiders exercised this opt-out. From the outside, Levy seemed to be doing fine on an account that had two football tenants (don\u2019t forget UNLV) and other high-profile events (last year\u2019s Super Bowl<\/a>, for example). When factoring in concerts, the venue generates estimated F&B revenue north of $60 million. <\/p>\n

The existence of mid-term opt-out clauses aren\u2019t rare in this space, but the exercise of them is. <\/p>\n

Plutino said he\u2019ll continue to push for inclusion of such opt-out clauses for his team and venue clients\u2019 deals, calling it the \u201cultimate accountability,\u201d but it\u2019s reasonable to expect F&B providers to look for ways to make clients think twice before potentially ending deals early. <\/p>\n

So, what happened? <\/p>\n

Everything came together very quickly, which added to the industrywide surprise. A source knowledgeable about the deal tells me that OVG360 President Chris Granger knew Raiders President Sandra Douglass Morgan previously, but only began seriously conversing with her about the possibility in January. That led to an unsolicited business proposal from OVG. <\/p>\n

Why did the Raiders switch? What was Granger\u2019s pitch?<\/p>\n

One idea is that Morgan has an open mind about Allegiant Stadium\u2019s F&B. She joined the Raiders in 2022<\/a>, and didn\u2019t do the original deal with Levy. Multiple sources confirmed to me that OVG in its offer included an annual guarantee that topped what the Raiders\u2019 variable deal with Levy was producing for the team. More guaranteed money is a big win for any team (OVG wouldn\u2019t comment on specifics of the deal). <\/p>\n

A second notion is that the venue\u2019s somewhat conservative, fan-friendly-ish approach to concessions prices — in an otherwise expensive market — could change as a way to grow profitability. Another dollar or two on certain items, like the stadium\u2019s $2.99 hot dog, could go a long way for the Raiders (and now OVG). <\/p>\n

Along with the F&B provider, the Raiders also decide the Allegiant Stadium venue management company. Granger confirmed that the deal with the Raiders was F&B-focused and doesn\u2019t include any of OVG\u2019s other services (which include venue management). ASM Global will continue booking the stadium as part of its overall contract. <\/p>\n

Levy\u2019s social media post raised eyebrows in the industry <\/p>\n

Levy seemed to have a theory about what happened, too, which it made clear in a Feb. 19 social media post<\/a>, apparently the day the company found out the Raiders were making the change. It read in part: \u201cWhile we\u2019re incredibly proud of our work at Allegiant Stadium, and our strong reputation as the leaders in the industry, the common ownership interest of both the Raiders and OVG was impossible to overcome,\u201d an allusion to the 7.5% ownership stake in the team Egon Durban acquired<\/a> late last year. <\/p>\n

Durban is co-CEO of Silver Lake, which is a significant and early investor in OVG. No one I asked about this thinks Durban would be able to dictate the Raiders\u2019 choice of concessionaire, especially just weeks after joining the team\u2019s ownership<\/a> group. According to the industry veterans I spoke to, Levy\u2019s attempt to push its version of events landed with a splat. The company declined to discuss the matter further beyond its social media statement. <\/p>\n

What next? <\/p>\n

Levy was clearly caught off guard by the Raiders’ move and it\u2019s possible there will be ripples internally. <\/p>\n

My sources don\u2019t expect Levy to make the transition easy for OVG. In most transitions like this, top execs are swapped out but the majority of employees, from managers on down, stick around with the new company (like how a pre-DOGE federal government used to work). <\/p>\n

That\u2019s unlikely to happen in this case. While the execs will mostly land on their feet or be moved to other parts of Levy\u2019s portfolio, spare a thought for how current, non-executive Allegiant stadium F&B employees fare in this. Staffing could be an early challenge for OVG, which doesn\u2019t have a presence in the Vegas market yet (like Levy did) and hasn\u2019t run F&B for a building of this size and prominence yet.<\/p>\n

Vegas has a powerful culinary workers union, too. It appears that OVG will inherit Levy\u2019s contract with Culinary Union Local 226, but that will be a long-term relationship that needs careful management. <\/p>\n

Jay Satenspiel oversees OVG\u2019s Western U.S. division, and I\u2019m told he\u2019ll play a big role at Allegiant. The company takes over the account on April 1; on April 19 and 20, the stadium hosts WrestleMania. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019ll be a defining moment for OVG,\u201d said Plutino. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The dust is still settling in Las Vegas where an ultra-aggressive \u201cshoot your shot\u201d kind of moment from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":177451,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2065],"tags":[5686,7,1744,393,2455,2454,39134,6,39135,525],"class_list":{"0":"post-177450","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-las-vegas-raiders","8":"tag-allegiant-stadium","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-las-vegas","11":"tag-las-vegas-raiders","12":"tag-lasvegas","13":"tag-lasvegasraiders","14":"tag-levy-restaurants","15":"tag-nfl","16":"tag-oak-view-group","17":"tag-raiders"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114787666278392375","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177450\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/177451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}