Posted on: May 28, 2024, 12:05h.
Last updated on: May 28, 2024, 12:05h.
Mark Davis, the 69-year-old billionaire owner of the NFL Las Vegas Raiders, on Sunday was reported to have impregnated a 26-year-old social media influencer and Cirque du Solei choreographer and performer. The report, however, wasn’t true.
Controversial NFL blogger Dov Kleiman, who claims to be “the best and most accurate” aggregator of pro football news, tweeted on Sunday that Davis was expecting a child with Hayden Hopkins. Kleiman’s post came after Hopkins shared the news of her pregnancy on her social media channels.
Kleiman, notorious for getting things wrong, made the announcement go viral after he speculated that Davis was the father.
Congrats! 26-year-old Hayden Hopkins, girlfriend of Raiders owner Mark Davis (70), is pregnant. Happy for the power couple,” Kleiman wrote. The gossip, however, which included wrongly stating Davis’ age, was without merit.
Hopkins quickly denied that Davis is the father.
Reports of Mark Davis being the father of my child are wildly untrue,” Hopkins tweeted on X. “I was pictured sitting next to him at a game in 2022 and have endured false rumors of a romantic relationship since. I was just a guest sitting in the owner’s box with other friends.”
Hopkins says the father is her boyfriend, 30-year-old MLB player Joey Gallo of the Washington Nationals. Gallo is a native of Southern Nevada who was born in Henderson and attended Bishop Gorman High School in Las Vegas.
These continued media stories are negatively affecting what should be my happiest days,” Hopkins continued. “Joey and I are excited to welcome our baby in the fall.”
Davis, worth an estimated $2.3 billion by Forbes, does not have children and has never been married. Kleiman has since deleted his post on X.
Billionaire Backstory
Davis relocated his storied NFL franchise from Oakland, Ca., to Las Vegas ahead of the 2020 season. The $1.9 billion Allegiant Stadium built to accommodate his team included $750 million financed through local taxes.
Visitors pay for the $750 million financing through a nightly hotel tax incurred on rooms in Clark County. The stadium tax increased the hotel occupancy tax rate by 0.88%.
Davis inherited the Raiders organization after his father, Al Davis, died in 2011. The elder Davis is credited as the driving force behind the 1970 NFL and American Football League merging.
Davis sought to relocate the Raiders after officials in Oakland budged at helping him finance the construction of a new stadium. The team’s dismal play, which included 14 losing seasons among the team’s previous 17 campaigns, didn’t help.
Valuation Soars
Since relocating to the casino capital of the United States, Davis’ Raiders have become significantly more valuable. According to Forbes, the Raiders are the sixth most valuable team in the NFL with a current value of approximately $6.2 billion.
Before calling Las Vegas home, the Raiders were worth $2.9 billion.
The discussions surrounding building an NFL stadium were spearheaded by the late Sheldon Adelson, the billionaire founder of the Las Vegas Sands empire. Adelson was reportedly interested in owning an NFL team after the league eased its opposition to casino magnates controlling franchises.
The change came after the U.S. Supreme Court in May 2018 repealed a federal sports betting law that resulted in sports gambling becoming mainstream across the country and the NFL embracing the activity.
