How Howard Hughes Corporation Gentrified Minor League Baseball in Las Vegas Thanks to an $80 Million Gift from LVCVA for Aviators Ballpark

By Alan Snel

LVSportsBiz.com

 

Back in the day before mega-giant ultra-bright scoreboards, outfield pools, $100-per-person party suites, air-flow mesh seats, celebrity chef Giada De Laurentiis appearances and hair-length rules for male ushers there was ol’ Cashman Field, the former minor league baseball park in downtown Las Vegas that money-making amenities and reliable sewage pipes had forgotten.

 

They don’t even mention Cashman at the Las Vegas Aviators’ $150 million palatial ballpark, a venue with arguably the most publicly-subsidized naming rights deal in the history of Minor League Baseball.

 

On the morning of Oct. 10, 2017, the governing board for the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA) — your public tourism agency here in Las Vegas — voted to give $80 million in public money to Summerlin master developer and Aviators owner Howard Hughes Corporation. (There was hardly any media covering that meeting and if you look up the date in Las Vegas sports history you’ll find out why.)

 

It was called a ballpark naming rights deal — in other words, a sponsorship. So the public agency that has one job — to attract visitors to Las Vegas — decided to spend your $80 million on a ballpark for LOCALS at a venue called, “Las Vegas Ballpark.”  Because, you know, the good folks of Summerlin who attend the Aviators games need to be enlightened about the world-reknown “Las Vegas” brand.

 

After the $80 windfall from the LVCVA on that October 2017 day, I interviewed Howard Hughes Corporation’s lead attorney after the tourism board meeting. He was smiling from ear to ear. It was the smile of someone who was happy about getting $80 million in free money for a new minor league ballpark. Howard Hughes Corp. and other investors had paid $20 million to buy the Triple A Las Vegas 51s in 2013. Four years later, Howard Hughes scored a naming rights deal from a local government agency that was four times the value of its minor league team’s purchase price.

 

Before former LVCVA CEO and baseball fan Rossi Ralenkotter left the agency in mid-2018 under a cloud of allegations that he misused travel cards for personal trips, he was able to deliver a nice windfall for the owner of the Triple A ball club — an $80 million sponsorship. Here’s Ralenkotter with Aviators President Don Logan at the ballpark groundbreaking.

 

The LVCVA justified spending $4 million a year for 20 years on the ballpark naming rights deal by arguing it was losing $4 million a year managing Cashman Center, where Cashman Field is located. So the LVCVA figured it would take the money it claimed it was losing at Cashman and re-direct it to Howard Hughes Corporation for the naming rights sponsorship.

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Howard Hughes Corporation changed everything about minor league baseball in Las Vegas. It moved the Pacific Coast League team from a poor, minority neighborhood in the downtown Cashman Center area to literally its own downtown –the affluent, mostly white suburban setting of the Downtown Summerlin area.

 

It gentrified the baseball experience by selling 22 suites, including two large party suites; sold out tickets for a pool area beyond the center field fence and hired a new food and beverage vendor to service a swanky club-style and open bar area on the ballpark’s second level.

 

The gentrification has paid off big-time for the Aviators and Texas-based Howard Hughes Corp., which made business headlines recently for its statement that it is looking at several options regarding the future of the company:  “a sale, joint venture or spin-off of a portion of the company’s assets; a recapitalization of the company; changes in the corporate structure of the company; or a sale of the company.”

 

Attendance has doubled from 4,746 per game for 70 dates at Cashman in 2018 to 9,377 per game through 49 dates at the Howard Hughes Corp. ballpark this season. (Round Rock Express is averaging 8,546 attendance a game and Nashville Sounds are at 8,491 a game in the Pacific Coast League.)  The Summerlin venue sold out even during the recent hot days in Las Vegas when attendance at Cashman typically would melt.

 

The gentrification caused by the move to suburban Summerlin has meant so many new fans attending Triple A baseball that one former Cashman usher who has attended five games at the new Aviators’ ballpark said he did not recognize a single fan from the prior season at Cashman.

 

Local Las Vegas teacher Liz Bash, who enjoyed going to Cashman Field for ballgames, put it this way: “They certainly moved minor league baseball into a new demographic area and didn’t think about lower or middle income people when they did it.”

 

Indeed, Howard Hughes Corp. has managed to literally flip the crowd, replacing Cashman’s middle-class diverse crowd with a more affluent homogeneous crowd that Aviators President/Chief Operating Officer Don Logan likes to call a different socio-economic class.

 

More fans and a new affluent setting mean more spending. Obviously, ticket revenue is way up thanks to doubling attendance and selling 22 suites. Per capita spending on concessions is up, too, with more culinary selections, especially those from local restaurants.  And the re-branding has helped the Aviators generate more than $1 million in retail sales — four times the merch sales the Triple A team would show for a season.

 

All this revenue flowing without one income generator you see at most sports venues — parking. Fans park for free. But that was a no-brainer for Howard Hughes Corporation when you consider the ballpark is part of Howard Hughes’ Downtown Summerlin, where parking is free and easily available at the adjacent business district, shopping strip stores and retail anchors.

 

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I stroll the new ballpark’s 360-degree main concourse several times a game and I’m struck by two things — the small number of fans wearing 51s hats and shirts and so few ushers who transferred from Cashman to Summerlin. Howard Hughes Corp. had effectively scrubbed the prior 51s baseball brand from its new identity. Even the ushers are new.

 

In fact, I recall an usher at Cashman named Jeff who was head of ushers at old ballpark and who impressed me with a friendly, laid-back style. Some ushers can have a heavy-handed, mall-cop approach to fans, but Jeff handled fans at Cashman with a low-key approach that was respectful of the fan and also realized the goals of the team. I also was impressed with his mane of long hair that flowed to his shoulders.

 

It was that same long hair that banned him from getting an usher job at the new Howard Hughes Corp. ballpark. The Aviators hired a new vendor to handle the ushers,  Las Vegas-based WeServe Inc., which has a policy of hiring male ushers with “hair being neatly trimmed and above the collar.” Jeff had to cut his hair in order to be considered  for an usher job at the Summerlin ballpark. Thus, no Jeff at Howard Hughes Corp. ballpark. Here’s an excerpt from the WeServe website:

 

Personally, I don’t mind a minor league baseball game male usher having long hair as long as he is respectful and friendly. But that’s life at the Summerlin ballpark, where some former Cashman ushers believe Howard Hughes Corporation wants to make the new ballpark like T-Mobile Arena in terms of an upscale atmosphere. Several former WeServe ushers interviewed by LVSportsBiz.com said the WeServe usher approach was too rigid for them — and a minor league baseball setting.

 

With or without the former Cashman ushers, an Aviators game has became a social experience, the place to be for sports fans after the NHL Vegas Golden Knights lost in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs in April. Howard Hughes Corp. also benefited from unusually cool spring and early summer weather, which made evenings at the ballpark a pleasant outdoor experience. Even Sunday noon games were bearable because of cool weather for those day games.

 

Baseball in Las Vegas will never be the same after Sin City’s oldest professional team had a run in downtown for more than three decades. It’s Howard Hughes Ball now and the ballpark has become another attractive amenity for the Howard Hughes Corporation marketing folks to highlight in their Summerlin ads.

 

And keep in mind, if you live in Southern Nevada, your local tourism agency, the LVCVA, is helping Howard Hughes Corporation generate lots of income thanks to your public contribution in the form of a so-called naming rights sponsorship.

 

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