Allegiant Stadium founding sponsor reportedly owes Raiders millions
One of the Raiders’ founding partners in Allegiant Stadium has apparently balked on its multimillion-dollar deal with the team.
In March 2020, the Raiders announced a deal with smartphone company Rokit that was to include branding on a 13,000-square-foot club space in Allegiant Stadium, the use of Rokit’s logo on Raiders practice jerseys and community involvement activities.
The cellphone company had agreed with the Raiders on a 10-year, nearly $60 million price on the founding partnership deal, according to a report published Monday by Sportico.
Rokit reportedly missed a $5.9 million payment for the first year of the deal and has failed to pay a single dollar to the Raiders tied to the partnership since, Sportico reported.
Neither Rokit or the Raiders responded to a request for comment on the matter.
Rokit signed other partnership deals with other sports entities between August 2018 and February 2019, including with the Los Angeles Chargers, the NBA’s Houston Rockets and Formula One’s Williams Racing. They now have failed to pay over $100 million in sponsorship agreements, Sportico said.
Imply Industries, a subsidiary of Rokit doing business as ROK Brands Inc., listed a $2 million creditor’s claim for the Raiders in a 2022 Chapter 7 bankruptcy filing. But a company representative indicated in a creditors meeting this past summer that the company still owed the Raiders the full amount of the deal, or $60 million, Sportico reported.
Allegiant Stadium has two-field level club spaces on the 50-yard-line tied to some of the facility’s highest-priced luxury seating with the closest view of the field.
The Credit One Bank Club is located field-level on the east side of the stadium, with the deal for that partnership between the banking institution and the Raiders announced in August 2019. The Rokit Field Club was planned to be located on the stadium’s west side.
But the Rokit-branded club never came to fruition. Instead, Allegiant Stadium’s other field-level club on the 50-yard line is dubbed the Champions Club with no title sponsor.
The Raiders were highly successful in securing founding partnership deals for the stadium during their relocation from Oakland, California, to Las Vegas. Fourteen companies are listed as founding sponsors of Allegiant Stadium on the facility’s website. Rokit is not among those companies.
The largest deal, the naming rights deal with Las Vegas-based Allegiant Air, was announced in August 2019, for a deal believed to be worth between $20 million and $25 million annually for 30 years.
Contact Mick Akers at makers@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2920. Follow @mickakers on Twitter.