Your Public Dollars At Work: Las Vegas Tourism Agency Gives $7.75 Million To Las Vegas Motor Speedway For Sponsorship Through 2031
By Alan Snel of LVSportsBiz.com
Always in a generous mood to give public dollars for private sports events, venues and organizations, the Las Vegas public tourism agency gave $7.75 million in public money to Las Vegas Motor Speedway as a sponsorship through 2031.
The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority approved the nearly $8 million sponsorship at a meeting this week.
The LVCVA is known for doling out millions of dollars in public money in the form of sponsorships to all types of sports events that range from the National Hockey League awards show to an astounding $80 million to Summerlin master developer Howard Hughes for a ballpark naming rights deal to call the minor league baseball park in Downtown Summerlin, “Las Vegas Ballpark.”
The LVCVA gives money to college sports conferences to stage basketball tournaments, the National Finals Rodeo and even the NFL for its player draft event on the Strip.
Public money. Your money. Typically, there’s not much public debate over the tourism agency giving public dollars to sports groups and event organizers. Here was Tuesday’s agenda item for the $7.75 million sponsorship to Las Vegas Motor Speedway, which holds two NASCAR race events a year.
Las Vegas Motor Speedway sent out a press release heralding the LVCVA sponsorship.
It’s a pleasant press release.
Except it doesn’t include the $7.75 million in sponsorship dollars.
Apparently, it’s common to announce LVCVA sponsorships and not inform the public how much public money is being doled out.
Here’s the NHL announcing the LVCVA deal to have its awards show in Las Vegas. But for how much? The public contribution is not mentioned.
In April 2019, it took five days to find out, but LVSportsBiz.com finally learned the LVCVA was giving $3.85 million to the NHL s part of a three-year deal.
Your public money at work.
