With Golden Knights Bounced From Playoffs, Aviators’ New Ballpark Is Now Vegas’ Star Sports Attraction This Spring
By Alan Snel
LVSportsBiz.com
The beer flowed on $2 beer night Thursday as two-fisted drinkers gulped from cans of Modelo and Corona. Fans cooled off in the pool beyond the centerfield fence amid the mid-90s temperatures. And a constant hum of thousands of conversations filled the Las Vegas Aviators’ new ballpark in Downtown Summerlin next-door to the Golden Knights training center.
Even if you liked attending Triple A baseball games at downtown Cashman Field, it’s hard to deny that this new $150 million suburban ballpark is like a Baseball Disney World. Sellouts are the norm (nine consecutive sellouts since the April 9 home-opener), the club and suite level rivals those in swanky arenas and the venue has become Las Vegas’ sportsy place to hang with family, friends and co-workers now that the Golden Knights were bounced from the postseason.
Texas-based Howard Hughes Corporation, Summerlin’s master developer and the Aviators owner, has hit the jackpot with this luxurious minor league baseball venue, especially when you consider the LVCVA public tourism agency gave $80 million to Howard Hughes in the form of a naming rights deal for the ball yard.
The new ballpark is clearly popular and a winner. Fans who want to use the pool should call the Aviators at (702) 943-7200 and the team can give them the information on booking the pool. If a company or business rents the pool for the night, the cost is $2,000 ( for 50 people). When the pool is open an individual basis, it’s $40 per ticket.
But in moving the old 51s from a poor downtown neighborhood to an upscale setting, Howard Hughes re-branded the minor league club with a swing and a miss on the new logo. Perhaps fans “will get used to it” as the years pass. But it appears as if the logo was a corporate creation and anyone with experience in minor league baseball logos likely was not involved in fashioning what is a try at an aviator image. Here’s the image on a ball cap being worn by a concessions worker.
I strolled into the team store and even one of the store workers was not exactly a big fan of the logo when he described it as “what Howard Hughes would look like 10 years after he died.”
The ball yard has a popular berm that just hosted a dog event Wednesday.
The ballpark folks also addressed the long lines of beer drinkers who overwhelmed the beer stands during the first $2 beer night earlier this month on April 11. The $2 beer concession stands were crushed. So on Thursday, the beer concessionaire had eight cashiers to cut down on the lines. And fans were seen all around the ballpark with the cans of Modelo and Corona.
The WNBA Las Vegas Aces basketball team and organization had a night out at the ballpark Thursday. The Aces get their 34-game season started in a month.
The Aviators lost, 9-8, to El Paso Thursday and now have a record of 15-6. It was another sellout at 9,861.
LVSportsBiz.com will report occasional stories on the Aviators’ new ballpark. If you have a story about the ballpark, contact asnel@LVSportsBiz.cm
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