Eventually, Lights Soccer Team Will Have To Upgrade Its Downtown Venue; Lights and Tulsa Play To A Scoreless Draw

By Alan Snel

LVSportsBiz.com

 

LVSportsBiz.com photos by J. Tyge O’Donnell

 

The Las Vegas Lights FC soccer team fills a nice sports niche in the hot professional Las Vegas sports market, serving up affordable tickets for as low as $15 and appealing to the Vegas Valley Latino community in a downtown sports venue.

 

But the fact is new sports buildings are driving the Las Vegas sports economy — the NFL Raiders are coming here because of a subsidized stadium; the NHL awarded a team to this market because of three-year-old T-Mobile Arena and a minor league baseball team that used to play at Cashman is now selling out a palatial new ballpark in suburban Summerlin.

 

Don’t forget millions of dollars spent on improving two other arenas. UNLV’s Thomas & Mack Center received a $70 million renovation to make the arena more attractive for UNLV basketball, the NBA Summer League and the National Finals Rodeo. And MGM Resorts International poured $10 million into modernizing the Mandalay Bay Events Center in 2018 for its Las Vegas Aces WNBA team. MGM Resorts International even converted a club in its Luxor property into an esports arena that attracts esports events and other users.

 

Which brings us to the Lights and their home at Cashman Field, which is now managed by the city of Las Vegas and has the soccer team as its sole tenant.

 

The 10,000-seat venue is a functional facility for a Triple A soccer team like the Lights of the United Soccer League.

 

But it still has the feel of a baseball park because the outfield walls are still up and used by the soccer team to post their sponsors’ signs.

 

Lights owner Brett Lashbrook told LVSportsBiz.com Saturday before the Las Vegas-Tulsa Roughnecks game that nothing will be done to the venue this season. Lashbrook insists he does not want to move the team to the Raiders stadium that opens in 2020 and wants to make Cashman Field into the Wrigley Field of pro soccer. A smaller crowd than usual of 6,123 watched the Lights and Tulsa team played to a scoreless draw Saturday night.

 

A year and half ago in November 2017, Lashbrook gave LVSportsBiz.com a forecast of his Cashman improvement plans  by explaining that he envisions wrapping the seating around the soccer field by having portable suites and a beer garden beyond what is now the right field fence.

 

The Atlanta franchise in Major League Soccer, Atlanta United FC, plays in the Atlanta Falcons’ NFL stadium, Mercedes-Benz Stadium, and that’s because Home Depot co-founder Arthur Blank owns both the Atlanta NFL and MLS teams.

 

But Lashbrook said the Lights are committed to downtown Las Vegas. Keep in mind, a major Lights sponsor, downtown mainstay Zappos — Tony Hsieh’s online clothing and shoe retailer — has a close business relationship with the soccer team.

 

Plus, Lashbrook has close ties with Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman, who has politically advocated for downtown soccer.

 

Lashbrook politely declined Saturday to discuss his stadium plans and whether he will ask for the city to use public money to improve Cashman, which at least no longer has the baseball backstop poles that supported the netting protecting fans from foul balls. The poles were a visual obstacle to watching soccer games.

 

But if Lashbrook wants to realize his master plan of graduating the Lights to Major League Soccer from the United Soccer League, he will have to make some major upgrades to the Cashman venue because the stadium lacks the seating and amenities to host an MLS team.

 

The Lights have carved out a nice identity for its wacky promotions such as the helicopter cash drop, its sponsorship deal with an Indian tribe dispensary and its gambling sponsorship with William Hill.

 

And on Saturday, the soccer team hosted a fun dog event, inviting fans to bring their dogs to the game for a pre-game dog parade and a post-game canine soccer game.

 

 

 

 

But off-beat promotions do not equal a modern sports venue that would be needed to take Las Vegas to the Big Leagues of soccer.

 

Don’t forget, the city failed in 2015 to win political support for a subsidized soccer stadium in Symphony Park, so it will be interesting to see how Lashbrook goes about his potential campaign for public dollars to improve Cashman.

 

We will wait to hear from the Lights owner when he’s ready to talk about the soccer stadium issue.

 

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The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA), which used to manage Cashman Field, returned to take some tables from the stadium’s club level and forced the team to re-issue some tickets for that level.

 

The LVCVA has attached its wagons to the Aviators and their new Downtown Summerlin ballpark where the LVCVA paid $80 million to Aviators and ballpark owner Howard Hughes Corporation for a naming rights sponsor deal.

 

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