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Description

This research examines the tension between public taxpayer funded professional sports stadiums and the decline of public education within the Clark County School District. While projects like Allegiant Stadium and upcoming Athletics stadium have received hundreds of millions in public funding, CCSD faces a $50 million budget deficit driven by low enrollment and rising employee costs. Thus, the increasing revenues at the state level do not correspond to success in K-12. This study uses the quantitative comparative analysis to evaluate the Return on Investment of public funds used for the public sports stadiums versus the investments in CCSD. By calculating the opportunity cost of the Allegiant stadium subsidies, the research compares the projected impact of tourism revenue against the local economic growth of public education. This is to see whether the publicly funded stadiums use the profit to invest in education or to retain earnings back to the business. The findings reveal data from the Las Vegas Stadium Authority states that while Allegiant stadium generated over $281 million in gross revenue in 2025, through Section 4.3 of the Stadium Lease Agreement, grants the private sector 100% retention of all stadium-generated revenue. Quantitative analysis of the 2025-2026 fiscal period indicates that the public’s return, the room tax, fell 7.4% short of its projected $31.2 million gain at $28.9 million from tourists staying in hotels. This shortfall occurring alongside a $50 million budget deficit for the CCSD, demonstrates that the stadium’s commercial success does not translate into sustainable funding for Nevada’s public infrastructure.

Publisher Location

Las Vegas (Nev.)

Publication Date

Spring 4-17-2026

Publisher

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Language

English

Keywords

Education; Return on Investment; Public Funds; Sports stadiums; Nevada

Disciplines

Education | Sales and Merchandising | Sports Management

File Format

PDF

File Size

545 KB

Comments

Mentor: Rafael Oganesyan

Rights

IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

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