LVCVA Enriches Las Vegas’ Older Sports, While New Teams Get Much Less

By ALAN SNEL
LVSportsBiz.com

 

The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority is your local tourism agency in Las Vegas and the LVCVA has been known to spend your public money from its annual $349 million budget on sports sponsorships.

 

LVSportsBiz.com made a records request to find out how much the local teams and Las Vegas Motor Speedway receive from the LVCVA and found an interesting trend — the market’s older teams and sports such as the Las Vegas 51s, the National Finals Rodeo (NFR) and Las Vegas Motor Speedway received major chunks of cash compared to the newer teams such as the Vegas Golden Knights, Las Vegas Aces and Las Vegas Lights.

 

Let’s take a look.

 

Howard Hughes Corporation, owner of the Triple-A 51s that might be re-branded into the Aviators for the 2019 season, hit the jackpot when the LVCVA gave $80 million to the Texas-based land development company that had more than a $1 billion in annual revenue in 2017.

 

The LVCVA board listened to the agency’s staff and voted Oct. 10, 2017 to give Howard Hughes Corp. $4 million annually for 20 years, figuring it was worth it to give the money to the development company than lose millions of dollars annually managing the Cashman complex in downtown Las Vegas.

 

Triple-A baseball now moves from Cashman to a $150 million, 10,000-seat ballpark in Downtown Summerlin. No wonder Howard Hughes executives were jovial after the LVCVA board decision Oct. 10 to give them $80 million for a naming rights deal — the payment accounted for more than half of the ballpark construction bill.

 

Another old-time sport in Las Vegas — the National Finals Rodeo — also receives a hefty payment from the LVCVA and its non-profit events arm, Las Vegas Events.

 

The ceremonial gigantic check read $14 million when it was handed over to the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association (PRCA), with the LVCVA and Las Vegas Events listed on the checks at the folks paying for the check dated Dec. 7, 2017.

 

The LVCVA’s mission is to bring heads to beds in Las Vegas’ hotels and the NFR does attract tens of thousands of “Western Lifestyle” visitors to Las Vegas in December. You could make an argument that the $14 million is a justifiable investment by the LVCVA/LVE for a 10-day NFR event that drew nearly 169,000 fans to Th0mas & Mack Center. The LVCVA funds Las Vegas Events with a $9.8 million grant for fiscal year 2018-19.

 

ADVERTISEMENT

 

But how many people visit Las Vegas to watch Triple-A baseball? The $80 million given to a private developer by the LVCVA for a privately-owned ballpark is much more difficult to justify.

 

Then, there’s another long-time sports player here in Las Vegas. Las Vegas Motor Speedway, one of eight NASCAR tracks owned by North Carolina-based Speedway Motorsports, Inc.

 

The Speedway, which hosts its second NASCAR weekend of the calendar year Friday-Sunday, also received a nice multi-million payout from the LVCVA.

 

The LVCVA approved a partnership with Las Vegas Motor Speedway on March 8, 2017 for a sponsorship of $2.5 million per year for seven years, which equates out to $17.5 million. And there could be more millions of dollars for the Speedway. The agreement includes the possibility for a three-year extension.

 

The multi-million, multi-year payouts to Howard Hughes Corporation, the National Finals Rodeo and Las Vegas Motor Speedway dwarf the payments to the new professional sports teams — Golden Knights, Aces, and Lights.

 

The LVCVA’s $300,000 sponsorship of the Golden Knights is handled through the tourism agency’s advertising partner, R&R Partners, which receives a stunning $101.5 million from the LVCVA for fiscal year 2018-19.

 

Former LVCVA chief Rossi Ralenkotter was on hand when the NHL announced the league awards show would be staged in Las Vegas for three years. The local newspaper, the Las Vegas Review-Journal, hammered retiring Ralenkotter for not properly overseeing expenditures. The state’s economic development chief, Steve Hill, takes over for Ralenkotter.

 

While the LVCVA gave $300,000 to the Golden Knights, the agency gave no money to the Lights, the Triple-A soccer team that is in its inaugural season in downtown Las Vegas. The Lights have an entertaining promotion set for Saturday when a helicopter will is dropping $5,000 at halftime for 200 selected fans to try and grab.

 

The LVCVA does not provide any funding for Las Vegas-based UFC, the MMA fight show promoter. But Las Vegas Events does provide some sponsorship money for UFC’s annual fan fest.

 

The LVCVA, through R&R Partners, developed a sponsorship of the Aces for about $75,000.

 

There’s another unofficial Las Vegas team that didn’t get sponsorship money from the LVCVA. The Oakland/Las Vegas Raiders, though, are receiving $750 million from Southern Nevada thanks to a hotel room fee increase. The hotel room charge will be collected for 30 years to pay off the debt expected to be more than $1 billion on the $750 million.

 

Here’s a budget overview of the LVCVA.

*

 

Follow LVSportsBiz.com on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Contact LVSportsBiz.com publisher/writer Alan Snel at asnel@LVSportsBiz.com