Basketball 

MGM Resorts To NBA: Come To Las Vegas To Play Season; Disney World In Orlando Also Wooing NBA

Alan Snel ,

By Alan Snel of LVSportsBiz.com

In March, LVSportsBiz.com suggested the notion of making Las Vegas an interim sports hub during the phase when major league sports return to action.

Apparently MGM Resorts International likes the idea, too. MGM Resorts is reportedly wooing the NBA to use its hotels and sports venues to complete its season that was halted March 11.

LVSportsBiz.com has argued Las Vegas would serve as an ideal interim home for the NBA because of the market’s hospitality and sports arena infrastructure that is very close to Las Vegas’ major airport. Plus, the NBA comes to Las Vegas every July for the Summer League, which included all 30 league teams in 2019.

MGM Resorts is competing against Disney World in the central Florida/Orlando arena because the Disney complex also has its own internal infrastructure that could potentially accommodate the NBA. In fact, at one time Disney also hosted an NBA Summer League.

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver knows MGM Resorts well. The Las Vegas-based hotel-casino company was the NBA Summer League’s title sponsor and is an official gambling partner of the association.  Former MGM Resorts International CEO Jim Murren used to chat with Silver about MGM Resorts’ interest in having an NBA team be a tenant at T-Mobile Arena.

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver at CES in 2018.

 

LVSportsBiz.com believes the hotel and venue infrastructure in Las Vegas can also accommodate the NHL’s Pacific Division games, and why not play NFL and MLB neutral site games at the Raiders’ Allegiant Stadium just off the Strip and the Las Vegas Aviators’ baseball park in Summerlin?

Create a COVID-19 testing system for all the pro athletes in all the leagues in Las Vegas. There will be plenty of extra rooms on the Strip to house the players in not only the NBA but in the other leagues, too. It’s a pitch the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority should be making to the pro leagues.

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Alan Snel

Alan Snel brings decades of sports-business reporting experience to LVSportsBiz.com. Snel covered the business side of sports for the South Florida (Fort Lauderdale) Sun-Sentinel, the Tampa Tribune and Las Vegas Review-Journal. As a city hall beat reporter, Snel also covered stadium deals in Denver and Seattle. In 2000, Snel launched a sport-business website for FoxSports.com called FoxSportsBiz.com. After reporting sports-business for the RJ, Snel wrote hard-hitting stories on the Raiders stadium for the Desert Companion magazine in Las Vegas and The Nevada Independent. Snel is also one of the top bicycle advocates in the country.

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