When the Las Vegas Raiders moved to Sin City in 2020, they arrived with a stadium unlike anything the NFL had seen: a $1.9 billion, all-black dome that locals immediately dubbed the ‘Death Star.’ Rising just west of the Strip at 3333 Al Davis Way, Allegiant Stadium is a deliberate spectacle — a climate-controlled monolith of dark glass and ETFE panels designed by MANICA Architecture to look as fitting on a sci-fi film set as it does in the entertainment capital of the world.
Since opening on September 21, 2020, the stadium has grown into one of the most versatile and highest-grossing live-event venues on the planet. It hosted the first-ever Las Vegas Super Bowl (LVIII, February 2024), regularly sells out concerts by the world’s biggest acts, and in 2025 Billboard ranked it the top-grossing stadium in the United States for the second consecutive year. Whether you are there for football, a world tour, or a marquee fight card, Allegiant delivers a Vegas-scale experience.
Quick Answer
Allegiant Stadium is a fully enclosed, climate-controlled 65,000-seat NFL stadium in Paradise, Nevada, and the home of the Las Vegas Raiders. Built for $1.9 billion and opened in 2020, it is nicknamed the ‘Death Star’ for its all-black domed exterior. It hosted Super Bowl LVIII in 2024 and is confirmed to host Super Bowl LXIII in February 2029.
The ‘Death Star’ Design Explained
MANICA Architecture — a Kansas City, Kansas firm that specializes in sports entertainment venues — designed Allegiant Stadium around a single aesthetic concept: a luxury sports car expressed in steel, glass, and ETFE panels. The jet-black exterior paired with silver trim and programmable lighting earned the ‘Death Star’ nickname before the stadium even opened, and the moniker has stuck ever since. The seven-acre translucent ETFE roof is suspended from 100 stainless-steel cables, creating a lightweight canopy that admits soft natural light while sealing Nevada’s desert heat outside. The result is a fully climate-controlled environment regardless of what the Las Vegas summer is doing outdoors.
Inside, the seating bowl is horseshoe-shaped with the open end oriented toward the Strip. Two massive operable walls on that side can retract to frame a panoramic view of the iconic skyline — a deliberate design touch that reminds every attendee exactly where they are. The 10-level structure is entirely column-free in the main bowl, giving all 65,000 seats unobstructed sightlines. The building contains 28,000 tons of structural steel, 44 escalators, 2,200 televisions, and 75,000 square feet of video boards spread throughout the facility.
The Roll-Out Grass Field: How It Works
One of Allegiant Stadium’s most celebrated engineering achievements is its natural grass playing surface — a genuine rarity inside a fully domed stadium. Because the Raiders insist on playing on real turf, and grass cannot survive without sunlight, the entire field was built to move. The 220-foot-wide tray weighs approximately 19 million pounds — comparable to the Eiffel Tower — and travels on 540 electronically powered wheels. It rolls out through the stadium’s north end so the turf can receive direct sunlight and water, then rolls back inside for game day. The full journey takes about 65 minutes each way.
UNLV, the stadium’s other primary football tenant, plays on a separate artificial turf surface installed when the grass tray is outside getting its sunlight. The dual-surface setup is one of only a handful of its kind in North American professional sports, and it became a particular point of fascination when the field was showcased on the global stage during Super Bowl LVIII.
The Al Davis Memorial Torch
Dominating the south end zone is the Al Davis Memorial Torch, a tribute to the late Raiders owner whose decades-long drive to find the franchise a permanent home made this stadium possible. Standing 93 feet tall, the torch holds the distinction of being the largest free-standing 3D-printed structure in the world. It was built from 225 individual blocks of carbon fiber-reinforced polycarbonate, each weighing around 350 pounds, printed and assembled specifically for this installation. The torch illuminates before every Raiders home game in a pre-kickoff lighting ceremony that has quickly become a fan tradition, and a circular bar wraps around its base — making it an unofficial ritual gathering spot on game nights.
Big Games: Super Bowls and Championship Events
Allegiant Stadium’s highest-profile sporting moment arrived on February 11, 2024, when it hosted Super Bowl LVIII — the first NFL championship game ever played in Las Vegas. The Kansas City Chiefs defeated the San Francisco 49ers 25-22 in overtime in a game that became one of the most-watched telecasts in U.S. television history. The city made enough of an impression that the NFL officially awarded Allegiant a second Super Bowl: LXIII, currently scheduled for February 2029, making Las Vegas one of only a handful of cities to host back-to-back Super Bowls within the same decade.
Beyond the NFL, the stadium is home to UNLV Rebels football and hosts the annual Las Vegas Bowl. It has also welcomed neutral-site college football matchups, the CONCACAF Gold Cup Final, and high-profile boxing cards — including the Canelo Alvarez vs. Terence Crawford world championship fight in 2025.
The Concert and Entertainment Machine
If anything rivals Allegiant Stadium’s football credentials, it is its concert resume. Billboard named it the highest-grossing stadium in the United States for 2025 — its second consecutive year at the top of that list — with live-event revenue exceeding $281 million that calendar year alone. Artists who have headlined include Garth Brooks, The Rolling Stones, Guns N’ Roses, Taylor Swift, BTS, Beyoncé, Paul McCartney, Kendrick Lamar, AC/DC, and Coldplay, among many others.
WrestleMania 41 (April 2025) set the record for the highest attendance and largest gate in WWE history, drawing a combined 118,641 fans across two nights according to figures released by the Las Vegas Stadium Authority. Since opening in 2020, the stadium has surpassed six million cumulative visitors, a number that continues to rise as the venue’s calendar of marquee events expands year over year.
Funding, Naming Rights, and the Public-Money Debate
The stadium’s $1.9 billion price tag was financed through a mix of private investment and a $750 million public subsidy — which was the largest public contribution to a professional sports venue in U.S. history when the Nevada legislature approved it in 2016. The public portion was funded through a 0.88 percentage-point increase in Clark County’s hotel room tax, placing the financial burden primarily on visitors rather than local residents.
Allegiant Air, the Las Vegas-based low-cost carrier, secured the naming rights for an estimated $20–25 million per year. Critics point out that none of that revenue flows back to public coffers, even though taxpayers helped build the building. Proponents counter with the stadium’s projected $620 million in annual economic benefit to Southern Nevada and the genuine surge in high-spending tourism it has catalyzed since opening.
Visiting Allegiant Stadium: What to Know
Allegiant Stadium sits at 3333 Al Davis Way in Paradise, Nevada, walkable from many major Strip properties and easily reached by rideshare from virtually anywhere in the metro area. The fully climate-controlled interior means comfort is guaranteed year-round, no matter what the desert is doing outside. The concourse is generously equipped with 44 escalators and 2,200 screens so you are never far from the live action, and the open south-end views of the Strip make it one of the more visually memorable arenas in American sport. Pairing an Allegiant Stadium event with a broader Las Vegas trip — hotels, dining, the Strip itself — requires almost no extra planning given how central the location is.
Allegiant Stadium FAQs
Why is Allegiant Stadium called the Death Star?
The nickname comes from its all-black, domed exterior. The dark ETFE facade paired with silver trim and lighting effects reminded fans of the planet-destroying weapon in Star Wars, and the label caught on before the building even opened.
What is the capacity of Allegiant Stadium?
The official seating capacity for NFL games is 65,000. Configurations can vary for concerts, soccer, boxing, and other events.
How does the roll-out grass field at Allegiant Stadium work?
The entire 220-foot-wide natural grass tray — weighing roughly 19 million pounds — rolls outdoors on 540 motorized wheels through the stadium’s north end so the turf can receive sunlight and water between games. The journey takes about 65 minutes each way.
Has Allegiant Stadium hosted a Super Bowl?
Yes. Super Bowl LVIII was played at Allegiant on February 11, 2024, with the Kansas City Chiefs defeating the San Francisco 49ers 25-22 in overtime. Allegiant Stadium is also confirmed to host Super Bowl LXIII in February 2029.
Who designed Allegiant Stadium?
MANICA Architecture, a Kansas City, Kansas-based firm that specializes in sports entertainment venues, designed the stadium for Raiders owner Mark Davis. The firm drew on the aesthetic of a luxury sports car to create the building’s signature black-on-black look.
How much did Allegiant Stadium cost to build?
Total construction cost was approximately $1.9 billion. Of that, $750 million came from Clark County public funds via a hotel room tax surcharge — the largest public contribution to an NFL stadium in American history at the time it was approved.
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