WNBA All-Star Game Preview: WNBA Players Say Las Vegas Franchise Adds Marketing Punch To League

By Alan Snel

LVSportsBiz.com

 

Las Vegas and MGM Resorts International, owner of the Las Vegas Aces, received high grades from WNBA players in town for Saturday’s WNBA All-Star Game for marketing women’s professional basketball.

 

LVSportsBiz.com spoke with Lance Evans, MGM Resorts International’s sports marketing point man who helped launch the Aces franchise in 2018 after MGM Resorts purchased the former San Antonio franchise in 2017 and moved the team into the Mandalay Bay Events Center in 2018 for the Aces’ first season in Las Vegas.

Here’s Washington Mystics star player Elena Della Donne, one of the game’s two captains, who, along with Aces forward A’ja Wilson, picked the All-Star team rosters for Saturday’s game that starts 12:30 p.m. local Las Vegas/Pacific time.

Aces All-Star center Liz Cambage also chimed in that she is very impressed with the Las Vegas market and its support for the Aces.

Cambage is also doing some DJ work, too, this weekend.

 

Other WNBA players said Las Vegas has been a welcome addition to the league.

 

“Vegas is a city of events and experiences. (MGM Resorts)  is doing an awesome job with the marketing the Aces,” said Elizabeth Williams, a six-foot, three-inch player with the Atlanta Dream who is participating in the skills competition later Friday.

 

More players chat about the Las Vegas effect on the WNBA.

The Aces’ Wilson, one the two team captains, will not be playing because of an ankle injury.

 

 

Aces coach Bill Laimbeer explained what it means for Las Vegas to be the host city.

 

While WNBA fans were lining up to enter the WNBA All-Star Game fanfest at a big Mandalay Bay Convention Center room, over at the Mandalay Bay Events Center, basketball emcees Wayne “Big D’ Danielson and CJ Simpson were rehearsing for today’s three-point shooting contest.

 

Here’s the Aces’ Kayla McBride in action in the three-point shooting contest, but she lost in the final today as ESPN televised the event.

Even Della Dunne was into documenting the skills competition.

 

 

 

 

The home arena of the Las Vegas Aces will be the focus of women’s professional basketball for the next 48 hours.

 

Rule changes for Saturday’s game include having a 20-second possession clock instead of 24 seconds and the team with the ball having the chance to substitute on the fly a la hockey.

 

Williams said she is curious to see how the substituting on the fly will work. “At no level of the sport do you do that,” Williams observed.

 

Mandalay Bay Events Center has capacity for about 7,500 fans for Aces game and will expand to about 10,000 for the All-Star Game. MGM Resorts International bought the former San Antonio Stars franchise in 2017 and re-branded the WNBA team into the Aces in 2018. Williams said she was impressed with how well MGM Resorts is branding the team.

 

“You see how prominent the Aces brand is in Las Vegas,” Williams observed.

 

Here’s tonight’s wrap-up with Cassandra Cousineau.

 

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