By ALAN SNEL
LVSportsBiz.com
LVSportsBiz.com photos by J. Tyge O’Donnell
It was their inaugural season in Las Vegas, and the Las Vegas Aces started slowly on the court — and off it, too.
The WNBA team, purchased by MGM Resorts International in November and moved from San Antonio to Las Vegas, began its season in rough fashion, winning only one of its first eight games.
And on the business side, Aces business chief Lance Evans and his fellow MGM Resorts/Aces staffers didn’t have a lot of time to ramp up the marketing, branding and ticket sales efforts.
“We had a short runway,” Evans told LVSportsBiz.com ater the Aces Sunday lost to the Atlanta Dream, 93-78, to finish the season with a 14-20 record after the 1-7 start. “It was a challenge. I’d say a third of the way into the season we got into the groove both on and off the court.”
UNLV professor Nancy Lough, an Aces season ticket holder who is starting a sports-business academic program at UNLV, said MGM Resorts “had a steep learning curve.”
Lough recalled that after MGM Resorts unveiled the team name in December the team did not have the Aces brand out there fast enough for fans and, in her words, “missed the branding opportunity at the beginning.”
But the Aces’ performances came around on and off the court — and so did the in-game entertainment at Mandalay Bay Events Center, the renovated venue that held about 7,500 women’s hoops fans. The Aces called their newly-rehabbed arena, “The House,” and used the #ALLIN motto as a team marketing slogan.
With all the team start-up costs and the MGM Resorts’ $10 million investment in updating Mandalay Bay Events Center, it’s unlikely MGM Resorts made money on the Aces’ first season. Few businesses make money in year one.
But Evans pointed out sponsorship and ticket sale revenues were higher than expected in the Aces’ inaugural season in Las Vegas.
He noted he will get a better handle on the income and expenditure numbers when his staff begins the season review this week. Evans said premium seats at courtside tables and along the court generated more sales than expected.
When it came to sponsorship sales, Evans also said the Aces were helped by the Golden Knights’ first season in 2017-18 because companies saw tangible examples of how a new team and a company could work together to activate deals and engage fans.
The Aces were also aided by the marketing resources of MGM Resorts and Mandalay Bay Events Center. Pepsi, for example, has the pouring rights at Mandalay Bay Events Center and was the sponsor of a fan zone behind one of the baskets that was mostly empty during the first few games but was packed in the games at the end of the season, Evans said.
LVSportsBiz.com talked with the Sportsnista in Las Vegas, radio personality Cassandra Cousuneau, about the marketing of the Aces’ first season.
And Lough also observed, “Marketing a team is much different from marketing a resort. They came a long way in understanding it. You have to create that connection.”
The Aces’ first season was also remembered for a game the team did not play. After a travel nightmare of more than 24 hours to reach Washington, D.C. and arriving only a few hours before tip-off with the Mystics, the Aces players decided not to play out of fear of injury. A few days later, the WNBA ruled the cancelled game was a forfeit — and the decision received national attention in the media.
But year two will have a better highlight in Las Vegas. The Aces’ home court will host the WNBA All-Star game. Evans told LVSportsBiz.com that most of the ticket deposits for that high-profile, nationally-televised game by non-season ticket holders have already been paid for.
Many in Las Vegas’ sports industry figured the MGM Resorts’ purchase of the former San Antonio Stars franchise was a strategic step by CEO Jim Murren to buddy up to NBA Commissioner Adam Silver and grease the tracks for a new NBA team in T-Mobile Arena. MGM Resorts owns the 18,000-seat arena with Anschutz Entertainment Group and Golden Knights majority owner Bill Foley and wants another tenant besides the VGK and UFC to generate revenue from another 45 annual dates.
After all, MGM Resorts purchased the title sponsorship rights to the popular NBA Summer League held annually in Las Vegas in July and recently became the NBA’s official sports gambling partner. In fact, LVSPortsBiz.com learned Evans and his MGM Resorts sports marketing staff began last week discussing how to activate and leverage that sports betting designation. Don’t be surprised to see the NBA logo showing up at MGM Resorts properties later this year.
But this summer was about the WNBA at Mandalay Bay Events Center. The Las Vegas Aces drew about 5,000 fans a game and carved out an identity in Las Vegas’ growing sports market, appealing to Las Vegas’ black community, gay-lesbian demographic, older white guys who enjoyed the WNBA’s old-school, fundamentals-style basketball; and young families, especially ones with young girls. The Aces shared the summer in Las Vegas with another new sports team — the United Soccer League Las Vegas Lights FC, which draws mostly Latino fans to their soccer games in downtown’s Cashman Field.
A new WNBA star was born in South Carolina product and number one draft pick A’ja Wilson, an athletic big woman with a big smile and a nice dance step who was the league’s most dynamic rookie for the Aces. She teamed up with guards Kayla McBride and Kelsey Plum to form a consistent scoring punch for the WNBA team.
Lough, the UNLV professor, said the Aces began to connect more with fans when the team began showcasing Wilson.
“She has a great personality to be the face of the team,” Lough said.
Aces coach Bill Laimbeer was also a fan favorite, with his amusing words of wisdom on the arena’s new center-hung scoreboard and his chewing out of referees who made calls that displeased the former Detroit Pistons Bad Boy.
The Aces drew a variety of sponsors in their rookie Las Vegas season, ranging from Summerlin (which also supports UNLV football) to even the Vegas Golden Knights, a fellow new Las Vegas franchise that was the presenting sponsor for Sunday’s final game of the season with the Atlanta Dream. Like the Golden Knights, the Aces tapped Strip entertainers like Blue Man Group to spice up the games during the non-action breaks.
The team stands to make a lot of revenue in year two from the sale of the marquee space on the front of the Aces uniform. Most WNBA teams have a corporate sponsor on the front of the jersey like professional soccer teams. LVSportsBiz.com reported on this last week.
“We’ll sell it, but we won’t sell it to just anyone,” Evans said.
The Aces rebounded from its slow start to contend for a final playoff berth in the season’s final weeks until Friday’s loss to the Dallas Wings knocked them out of post-season contention.
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