Lights Owner Lashbrook: Las Vegas Mayor Goodman Will Attend MLS Expansion Committee Meeting in July

By Alan Snel

LVSportsBiz.com

 

The stadium frenzy is officially in high gear in Las Vegas.

 

First, it was MGM Resorts International and Los Angeles-based Anschutz Entertainment Group teaming up on T-Mobile Arena (circa April 2016). Then the Aviators’ new baseball park opened in April. And the Raiders stadium is projected to be ready July 31, 2020.

 

Now, the city of Las Vegas wants in. Again. After failing to win public support for a $200 million soccer stadium in Symphony Park in 2015, the city will negotiate with a San Diego County investor interested in buying the Las Vegas Lights of the United Soccer League and building a 25,000-seat soccer-only stadium on the 62-acre site of the Cashman Center. The site includes Cashman Field, where the Lights are in their second season.

 

Here is our LVSportsBiz.com story from the news Wednesday afternoon.

 

We visited Cashman Field Wednesday night to talk with Lights owner Brett Lashbrook and Lights coach Eric Wynalda, to get their thoughts on a possible sale of the Lights and the idea of building a soccer stadium that still has not bee priced out.

 

 

Lashbrook said investors of San Diego County investor Floyd Kephart will eventually emerge after the 180-day window for negotiations begin between the city and Kephart. Here’s the LVSportsBiz.com interview with Lashbrook.

 

The master plan is for Kephart or someone representing any new ownership to apply to Major League Soccer for Las Vegas to become the 28th, 29th or 30th new expansion team, Lashbrook said.

 

Lashbrook said Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman plans to attend the MLS expansion committee meeting in Orlando in July to lobby for Las Vegas as an expansion city.

 

Lashbrook said if the stadium plan goes through and there’s a deal with the city and Kephart, the team will be sold and he will step aside and play “whatever role they ask of me.”

 

Wynalda, a former Fox Sports TV broadcaster and former U.S. men’s national soccer team player, said a new downtown soccer stadium would attract global soccer teams like Real Madrid that would play friendlies and make Las Vegas a “global soccer destination.”

 

He acknowledged that “the politics will weigh into this” — a fact of political life when a private investor asks for public dollars to build a sports stadium. But there’s nothing to debate until a deal is floated during the 180-day exclusive negotiating period.

 

Lashbrook and Wynalda chatted before the Lights lost, 5-3, to Orange County FC in a Lamar Hunt U.S. Cup tournament game.

 

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