Inside LVSportsBiz: End Game of Leagues Cup Is North America Super League; Golden Knights Prez Says Raiders Arrival In LV Will Help VGK Business

By Alan Snel

LVSportsBiz.com

 

Where there’s a buck to be made, there’s a new league to be made.

And that’s a story line of Wednesday’s night final of the inaugural Leagues Cup at Sam Boyd Stadium not drawing a lot of attention.

Four teams from Major League Soccer and four teams from Liga MX participated in the first-ever Leagues Cup in an eight-team single-elimination tournament.

The public narrative was bringing together North America’s two most prominent soccer leagues would create more soccer buzz in the U.S. and Mexico and unite soccer fans across two giant markets.

But behind closed doors, there’s lots of talk of a master plan to unite Major League Soccer and Liga MX into a North American super soccer league that would compete for headlines with the big leagues of European soccer, said a soccer source with knowledge of MLS operations.

MLS Commissioner Don Garber is in town for the Leagues Cup title game at Sam Boyd Stadium, matching Cruz Azul against Tigres UANL.

The conventional story line is having Garber in Las Vegas can only help the city’s aspirations for hosting an MLS team one day. A representative for a downtown Las Vegas development group looking at re-developing the Cashman Center site and buying the United Soccer League Las Vegas Lights club attended the most recent MLS board of governors meeting two months ago.

And it’s true that Las Vegas-based MGM Resorts International, the official sports betting partner of MLS, played a pivotal role in arranging the Leagues Cup final game here in Las Vegas.

But it’s an open secret that there are efforts underway to have a combined MLS-Liga MX league to showcase North America’s best soccer.

And this summer’s eight-team MLS/Liga MX competition served as a trial balloon for the super league concept.

 

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The Raiders are coming to Las Vegas in 2020 and Golden Knights President Kerry Bubolz said the presence of the NFL in Las Vegas will bring national corporate sponsors to this market that could potentially also sponsor the Knights.

That’s why Bubolz is so bullish on the Raiders planting roots at Allegiant Stadium near the Strip and at their corporate headquarters in Henderson near the Henderson executive airport.

The Las Vegas market is a busy sports market, but has not drawn major national advertisers because it’s still not a Top-35 market in terms of size.

But having the Raiders and the NFL in Las Vegas next year will bring major corporate advertisers, which can potentially mean sponsorship deals with the Golden Knights.

“Adding the Raiders will attract companies into our valley,” Bubolz told LVSportsBiz.com in an interview on VGK’s season 3.  “We’re excited about (the Raiders’) arrival.”

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