Las Vegas All-Star Games A Buffet For Sports Fans; NFL Pro Bowl Takes Center Stage Sunday
Story by Alan Snel Photos by J. Tyge O’Donnell
They’re all here in Las Vegas — the fans, the team reps and the best players in the NFL who are not on the two finalist teams playing in the Super Bowl in snazzy SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles next Sunday.
The NFL Pro Bowl is like a football Woodstock where the super, hard-core fans from across the country make a pilgrimage to Las Vegas to watch players like Patrick Mahomes, Justin Herbert and Russell Wilson. Plus Raiders Pro-Bowlers are dressed to play for the AFC — Denzel Perryman, Hunter Renfrow, Maxx Crosby and AJ Cole.
It was a chance for Las Vegas to show off Allegiant Stadium, the Raiders’ home stadium that Southern Nevada helped build to the tune of $750 million.
Las Vegas is the king of the one-off event and this market has accommodated this all-star week that began with the East-West Shrine Bowl Thursday and continued Saturday with the NHL All-Star Game.
Two of the three all-star games are at Allegiant Stadium. The college all-star game, sponsored by the Tampa-based Shriners charity that has more than 20 children’s hospitals, drew a small crowd that didn’t look like there were more than 10,000 fans in the domed stadium. The NHL All-Star event at T-Mobile Arena looked like it had an announced attendance in the 17,500 range.
For sports fans in Las Vegas, it was an exciting week with an NHL fan festival geared for kids at the Las Vegas Convention Center and NFL Pro Bowl practices and skills competitions at the minor league baseball park in Summerlin.
All-Star Games have evolved into high-scoring good times with the emphasis on players leaving the games unscathed and uninjured. For example, the AFC led the NFC, 34-21, in the third quarter as players were not running and tackling at their usual intense levels. There’s not much competition going on, frankly.
In the end, the AFC held on for a 41-35 win with the Raiders’ Crosby winning the defensive MVP award.
Gov. Steve Sisolak’s office sent out quotes crowing about Las Vegas and sports: “As we continue building a more resilient economy, we’re ready to leverage every sports opportunity we can to support our efforts — from bringing more events to attracting more teams. We know that over 50 percent of our visitors will either add or extend a trip because of sporting events — that’s an estimated 23 million people spending more to boost our economy.”
Here’s another Sisolak gem, which has another one of those Super Bowl impact numbers: “Allegiant Stadium has gone above and beyond the expectations set out years ago, despite challenges posed by the pandemic. Since opening its doors, the stadium has hosted 24 events and welcomed more than 400,000 attendees — beating projections by 80 percent. That’s huge, and when the Super Bowl comes to Las Vegas, it could bring up to $1 billion in revenue to Southern Nevada.”
Sisolak did not explain the methodology behind that $1 billion reference.
