With the Las Vegas Raiders set to the play at their home in the desert for the first time, much of the talk this week has been about Allegiant Stadium.
Some of that talk has come from Raiders coach Jon Gruden who, for some reason, insists on referring to Allegiant as the Death Star even though that particular space base was destroyed multiple times in the Star Wars films.
“I think it’s a cool name for our stadium,” Gruden told The Las Vegas Review-Journal. “I don’t give a damn about Star Wars. That’s what we’re calling our stadium and I don’t care what anybody else thinks. It’s a cool stadium, it’s a great name and we just have to play good when we’re in there.”
Las Vegas tight end Darren Waller said he’s more into the stadium than the Dark Side.
“Looking at the stadium it does kind of remind me of something where Darth Vader is going to come out of a door or something like that,” Waller said. “I watched the movies with my dad, but I really don’t know too much about it.”
The comparison between 65,000-seat Allegiant and the Death Star was first made by Raiders’ owner Mark Davis, a man who used to drive a ’97 Dodge Caravan and dine daily at P.F. Chang’s as recently as five years ago.
“Welcome,” Davis said when the stadium opened for training camp, “to the Death Star, where our opponents’ dreams come to die.”
The centerpiece of the $1.9 billion stadium is a 95-foot tribute to the organization’s version of Darth Vader: the Al Davis Memorial Torch.
The stadium will take center stage on Monday Night Football when the Raiders (1-0) host the New Orleans Saints (1-0).
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