By Alan Snel of LVSportsBiz.com
Derek Stevens doesn’t measure his colossus of a sports book in square footage.
He’s talking 87 million pixels in the biggest sports book screen in the country that’s part of his 777-room Circa hotel-casino being built in downtown Las Vegas. It’s scheduled to open in December 2020.
Circa’s gargantuan super screen that will be 134 feet wide and 41 feet screen tall is being designed by a company associated with building Jumbotron scoreboards for stadiums and ballparks. Daktronics, which built the giant scoreboard at the Las Vegas Aviators ballpark in Summerlin, is building the mammoth screen for the Circa sports book. (Stevens’ family is a former owner of the Las Vegas 51s, the Triple A minor league baseball team that was eventually rebranded into the Aviators by Summerlin master developer Howard Hughes Corporation.) Take a look at a rendering of the monster-sized screen.)
Sports gambling is, as they say, a growth industry. The 2018 Supreme Court decision that removed the legal barriers for states to enact sports gambling will benefit Las Vegas because more sports gamblers in states around the country will want to experience the Circa sports book as a destination experience, Stevens said. Circa will also have a roof top deck and a half-dozen swimming pools at the site of the old Las Vegas Club, Mermaids Casino and Glitter Gulch that were demolished in 2017 to make way for Circa.
“They want the betting experience and every state that approves sports betting is a good thing,” Stevens said in between glances of a football game at the Longbar at The D hotel in downtown Las Vegas. “I am creating a property that will become a destination property.”
Stevens also owns The D Las Vegas and Golden Gate hotels in downtown a few blocks from the Circa construction site, so betting members at those properties will also be a betting member at Circa under the Circa Sports banner. Noted local contractor McCarthy Building Companies is overseeing the construction of Circa, which is expected to cost in the $1 billion ballpark.
Stevens will not discuss the Circa construction cost and will not confirm or deny any numbers. He did say it’s being financed by 60 percent equity and 40 percent through capital market.
Stevens noted his hotel is private and construction costs have not been publicly disclosed.
An unabashed sports fan, Stevens has always emphasized sports at his downtown properties. The Detroit native and NHL Red Wings fan was among the first corporate sponsors of the Vegas Golden Knights in June 2017.
He built the Downtown Las Vegas Events Center that hosts sports events like VGK watch parties and combat sports shows. And he’s a supporter of the Vegas Stats & Information Network, VSiN, the sports betting channel on Sirius XM Radio that will expand into Circa. VSiN has a main studio at the South Point hotel-casino, with longtime popular broadcaster Brent Musburger as VSiN’s biggest name.
Stevens said the Circa stadium-style sports book will be able to house 1,000 sports gamblers, but he’s expecting a lot of sports bets to be made via his Circa Sports mobile phone app. He expects the Circa sports book to host big bets, offer good lines and provide “old school customer service.”
As he put it, “We’re doing our own thing.” You wouldn’t expect it any other way with Stevens.
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