Sports Event Panel’s Game Plan Defines Roles for LVCVA and Las Vegas Events to Handle New Mega Events

By ALAN SNEL
LVSportsBiz.com

 

A Las Vegas sports events panel heard a proposal Wednesday that would beef up event hosting efforts and define a game plan to recruit/host major sports events in Sin City — from Super Bowls, NFL drafts,  college football title games to music concerts, college basketball Final Fours and WrestleMania.

 

The Southern Nevada Sporting Event Committee, a group of local sports and business leaders such as Raiders president Marc Badain and LVCVA chief Steve Hill, heard the sports event hosting report from consultant Jeremy Aguero. His firm, Las Vegas-based Applied Analysis, is also a consultant for the local public stadium board, which is overseeing the process of building the Raiders’ $1.84 billion stadium project.

 

The new domed, 65,000-seat stadium on 63 acres on the west side of Interstate 15 has made Las Vegas an even more attractive host city for major sports and music events. The sporting event panel concludes its work next month. Dec. 12 is the committee’s last meeting.

 

Badain told his fellow sports event committee members that he’s already talking with representatives from college basketball’s Final Four, college football’s championship game, major non-conference neutral-site college football games, WrestleMania, World Cup and music promoters — so Las Vegas and its new palatial stadium are on the national and international radar to host mega events.

 

The plan proposes the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA) and its non-profit events arm, Las Vegas Events, lead the way on the sports event deals. LVCVA would be lead organization for city-wide bid events and media events, while Las Vegas Events would lead on sponsored, amateur, youth and other special events.

 

Pat Christenson, Las Vegas Events president, said after the nearly two-hour meeting that the proposed event host structure “clearly identifies who is doing what.”

 

In many ways, the LVCVA and Las Vegas Events are already performing these duties. The Las Vegas Events, for example, promotes the National Finals Rodeo, which is coming to Las Vegas in a few weeks.  But the difference now is that new mega events such as Super Bowls and college football championship games can be hosted by Las Vegas thanks to the new stadium.

 

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These event host efforts would be funded by dedicating room tax money that is already being collected by the LVCVA. The money would come from designating 0.25% of the room tax revenues for these special and sports event host work — a percent that would raise about $15 million a year. Aguero told LVSportsBiz.com after the meeting that it will take about $20 million-$25 million a year to do the sports event host and bidding work, depending on the number of major events that particular year.

 

Aguero spent nearly two hours outlining the structure for recruiting and hosting these major sports events. It seemed like he never came up for air when addressing the sporting event committee.

 

This being government, there are proposed committees to handle the sports event hosting load: a Las Vegas Local Organizing Committee, which would coordinate bid packages for major city-wide events; a Major Events Activation Committee, which would be local business leaders raising money and coordinating community involvement; and a Youth Sports Development Working Group, which would coordinate youth sports fields, promotions and scheduling.

 

LVSportsBiz.com is now off to the 1 p.m. stadium authority board meeting at the county commission chambers.

 

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