By ALAN SNEL
LVSportsBiz.com
No time off.
There was a time when Las Vegas’ sports industry had some down time in the summer with the exception of Las Vegas 51s baseball and the annual UFC International Fight Week that has brought you everything in the past from UFC President Dana White running a 5K race through downtown Las Vegas to UFC fight events.
But these are changing times in Sin City and the business of sports marches on through the desert’s 110-plus-degree temperatures.
The NBA Summer League headlines an unprecedented 12-day, 82-game run starting Friday at UNLV’s Thomas & Mack Center and adjoining Cox Pavilion.
This year’s NBA gathering will include all 30 teams of the association for the first time and is expected to easily break the attendance record set last year when 24 of the 30 teams participated and drew 127,843 fans through 11 days in July 2017.
Back in January when Thomas & Mack Center Executive Director Mike Newcomb spoke with LVSportsBiz.com about the event drawing all 30 teams, Newcomb said he expected the profile of this year’s summer league to expand bigger than ever, from fanfest-style activities for kids to high-profile press conferences if teams have major free agent announcements to share.
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NBA Summer League ticket prices are $35 for adults for a full day, while it’s $25 for children and seniors. The games offer fans a look at rookies and young players who are looking to make a name for themselves at the games that are televised by ESPN and NBA TV. An average of 227,000 daily viewers watched the summer league games last year, which was up 29 percent from 2016.
Once again, MGM Resorts International will be the summer league’s title sponsor. It’s no secret that MGM Resorts CEO Jim Murren is working behind the scenes to get an NBA team to serve as a tenant at T-Mobile Arena.
Last year, veteran basketball executive Jerry Colangelo said Las Vegas would one day draw an NBA team. It won’t be soon, as LVSportsBiz.com believes NBA Commissioner Adam Silver wants to see how the Las Vegas market performs after the Raiders arrive here in 2020 to inaugurate their new $1.8 billion domed, 65,000-seat stadium.
The summer league also serves as a pro basketball mecca and career networking forum, where general managers, coaches, agents, foreign basketball team reps and retired NBA players can be seen chatting along the Thomas & Mack concourse and conducting business behind closed doors, too. The Sundance of pro hoops not only is a convergence point for business meetings but it also offers a platform for Commish Silver to hold league sessions in Las Vegas.
The summer league’s timing is ideal, coming about a month after the NBA season ended with the Golden State Warriors crowned as champs for the third time in four years, while free agent signings led by the Lakers winning the LeBron James sweepstakes dominating the sports media for the past month. Expect more free agent and trade talk in Las Vegas.
The NBA and its media partners will also use the summer games at UNLV to test out overhead cameras, Newcomb told LVSportsBiz.com in April. During the summer league’s 14 years — it began as a player developmental league before it evolved into a pro basketball industry gathering — various technologies have been explored and implemented.
There is no slowing down of Las Vegas’ sports industry heading into the triple-digit months.
June in Las Vegas brought a Vegas Golden Knights Finals followed by lively free agent chatter that resulted in VGK forwards David Perron and James Neal leaving Las Vegas for new teams and Paul Stastny coming to the Knights from the Winnipeg Jets.
Besides the 51s playing their final season in downtown Cashman Field this summer, two new sports franchises are experiencing their maiden summers in Las Vegas.
The WNBA Las Vegas Aces, owned by MGM Resorts International, are led by a dynamic rookie center, A’Ja Wilson, and they’re playing their games at a newly-renovated Mandalay Bay Events Center. The Aces are 6-12 in the Western Conference and are in last place in the six-team conference.
Meanwhile, the Las Vegas Lights FC of the United Soccer League, owned by soccer promoter Brett Lashbrook, are also going through their first season in Sin City.
While the Aces play on the Strip, the Lights are committed to their downtown home at Cashman Stadium and have won four games, lost five and tied six after 15 games. That’s good for twelfth place out of 17 teams in the USL’s Group B.
Besides UFC 226, a PPV event at T-Mobile Arena, on Saturday, the boxing world will be captivated by the Gennady Golovkin vs. Canelo Alvarez rematch Sept. 15 at T-Mobile Arena.
And the summer won’t end before Las Vegas Motor Speedway hosts its second mega NASCAR weekend event Sept. 13-16 with the South Point 400 weekend. It’s the first year that the speedway will host two NASCAR events in a single calendar year.
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