By Alan Snel of LVSportsBiz.com
The worldwide virus deprived Las Vegas last year of one of its annual signature sports tourism events — the March Madness hysteria in sportsbooks up and down the Strip where visitors from every corner of the country converge to consume huge amounts of beer, wipe out mountains of nachos and place bets on hundreds of college hoops games.
It’s a national tournament, after all, ideal for reunions of college buddies and gals who scattered to jobs and homes from coast-to-coast since their college friendship days.
This March pilgrimage of hoops fans and Big Dance gamblers to Las Vegas is a spring rite — well, up until a year ago when a novel coronavirus spread globally and shut down the Strip for April and May. Not only did the novel coronavirus force the NCAA to cancel March Madness it also prompted Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak to force the Strip’s hotel-casinos to go dark.
The NCAA college basketball tournament’s secret sauce has always been the fans of these college teams who add the emotional juice to these few weeks at the start of spring.
The pent-up enthusiasm and rapidly growing interest and availability of mobile sports betting in the months since last year’s cancellation have set the stage for what we anticipate will be the most successful event in the history of mobile and online betting. I view this as a transformative moment in the convergence of sports, mobile gaming and the evolution of the fan experience, and I couldn’t be more excited to watch it all unfold amid the energy and drama the tournament brings with it. — Bill Hornbuckle, MGM Resorts International CEO/President
Las Vegas is the front door to five conference champs who receive invites to The Big Dance.
The week before the national tournament starts, literally dozens of men’s and women’s hoops teams from the Pac-12, Mountain West, West Coast, Big Sky and WAC take over four different arenas on the Strip or a mile or so from Las Vegas Boulevard.
Last year, the Big Dance was grounded. But this year, It’s back. And that means, even during this pandemic, the March Madness revelers will descend on Las Vegas to bet, eat, drink and help enrich the hotel room tax coffers that are paying off the public’s share of the construction bill for the Raiders’ Allegiant Stadium.
The virus that grounded sports a year ago is still a threat, but a vaccine and continued steps like mask-wearing and social-distancing have reduced the COVID-19 positivity rate to less than six percent in Nevada. That’s one factor why Sisolak issued a directive saying that large gatherings can have up to 50 percent capacity — a loosened restriction that will help both live sporting events and the places where people gather to watch those March Madness games.
The Big Dance centralized in Indianapolis will give Las Vegas a taste of what Vegas is all about on the Strip and in sportsbooks around Nevada.
Nevada COVID stats as of Monday: