Las Vegas Has Sports Venue, Hospitality Infrastructure To Serve As Western USA Major League Sports Hub For Interim Period Of Televised, Fan-free Games
By Alan Snel of LVSportsBiz.com
These are New Normal Times of #flattenthecurve, social distancing, local telethons and donated masks and gloves. Even after 40 days of stay-at-home messages, people are on edge and edgy about an uncertain future about hearing the growing number of folks getting sick and dying from a worldwide virus that attacks people’s respiratory systems.
Back in the day of other stressful times like terrorist attacks and killer hurricanes, there were always big league sports to ease the emotional pain for several hours during the day.
But the COVID-19 pandemic has wiped out the professional sports world in this country. With the exception of UFC President Dana “I Put On Fights” White forged ahead with UFC 249 for May 9 in Jacksonville, Florida, no major league sports commissioner can offer a date when the games will re-start.
The sports hiatus includes Las Vegas’ beloved but sidelines Golden Knights NHL team, which has been engaging their very devoted fans with social media posts of staffers doing exercises. Even the NFL Draft was scrubbed for Las Vegas last week, though it will be on the Strip in 2022.
On the bright side, LVSportsBiz.com believes pro sports will re-start one day. It just won’t be soon as the number of confirmed cases are growing every day. In response, health officials, governors and celebrities are imploring the public to stay home and to not engage in social interactions to stem the spread of COVID-19. In Nevada, there were 4,690 confirmed cases, 219 statewide deaths as of Monday.
But when the pro sports return, there’s a strong possibility that fans might not even be in the sports venues when the sports return.
Enter Las Vegas with its hot sports market, which is scheduled to open a domed 65,000-seat stadium in the summer. Raiders stadium construction workers are still on the job because Gov. Steve Sisolak deemed construction as essential work. Las Vegas includes T-Mobile Arena, a world-class arena that turns four years old in April; a workhorse 18,000-seat arena, Thomas & Mack Center, on the UNLV campus; and The Orleans Arena, which can host both hockey and basketball. There’s also a Taj Mahal of a baseball park in Summerlin, Las Vegas Ballpark that has a main concourse that rivals the amenities of a big-league ballpark bottom concourse.
These are unprecedented times. It requires unprecedented logistical strategies to ease major league sports back into American society.
LVSportsBiz.com is suggesting Las Vegas serve as a western United States hub to host NFL, NBA, NHL and MLB games in one central market where pro sports can incrementally be phased back.
We all know that coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic will be emotionally difficult. Some fans will hurry back to see games in person, while others will have a wait-and-see attitude about joining crowds of 18,000 at T-Mobile Arena or 65,000 at Allegiant Stadium.
So here’s the plan:
Allegiant Stadium, the Raiders’ new stadium on the west side of Interstate 15 and a 15-minute walk from Mandalay Bay hotel-casino, will be an NFL hub for games. At first, no fans to minimize the re-transmission of the virus. TV crews and essential game personnel only.
The NFL is a TV sport. The sport’s ratings are among the highest in all TV programming.
Las Vegas has the hospitality infrastructure to handle teams coming into McCarran International Airport, traveling only two to three miles to hotels on the Strip and transporting to the football venue.
Same goes for the National Hockey League and the National Basketball Association.
NHL games in the western United States can be played at T-Mobile Arena, City National Arena in Summerlin and at the new Golden Knights community ice center called Lifeguard Arena in Henderson. Again, at first, no fans. Just essential game personnel.
The NBA already brings all 30 teams to Las Vegas in July for its Summer League. The NBA season can also resume in Las Vegas in this centralized market.
It wouldn’t be the NBA Summer League. Just the NBA. Las Vegas is equipped with T-Mobile Arena, MGM Grand Garden Arena, Mandalay Bay Events Center (all three are MGM Resorts International properties), Thomas & Mack Center and Orleans Arena. The arena infrastructure is in place to play dozens of games in a week, while televising them to the teams’ respective markets.
Naturally, players would have to be tested for the coronavirus on a daily basis. Again, by having all the major league sports leagues based in one market, you can have the medical infrastructure and health services in one centralized city that would allow for maximum logistical functions.
This is not a new concept because four college basketball conferences already come to Las Vegas to stage their season-end tournaments because of the city’s central geographic location in the West. There was talk of having the final 16 women’s college basketball teams in the national tournament play out the tourney in Las Vegas.
Major League Baseball has privately discussed multi-city hub concepts, with spring training areas such as metro Phoenix and Tampa Bay in the mix.
And the NBA is here for two weeks in July for its summer league, so the league is very familiar with this market.
Re-starting major league sports will not be easy. We as a nation have bigger things to focus on right now like stemming the spread of a highly contagious virus, coping with the influx of COVID-19 infected patients and testing millions of people to understand the scope of this virus’ impact on the U.S.
But sports have always played a unifying and healing role in this country, bringing people together in ways no other institution can. And one day, big-league sports will return
Eventually, our nation will emerge from this pandemic and one way for sports to be phased back into our lives is for Las Vegas to lead the way as an interim major league sports hub to give the country its sense of normalcy before COVID-19 changed our lives.
The Nevada governor, Steve Sisolak, is a huge sports fan. He can also be the Nevada sports commissioner, too.
Sports will need to consider out-of-the-box, unconventional ideas to return.
Las Vegas thinks big.
Las Vegas can do this.
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