Las Vegas Market Pays Pac-12, Mountain West, West Coast Conferences More Than $1 Million To Stage Postseason Tourneys In Sin City
By Alan Snel of LVSportsBiz.com
Sports are fun.
They’re also not free.
You’re paying. And when I say, “you,” I mean the city of Henderson, which found $42 million in public dollars to subsidize Golden Knights owner Bill Foley’s new $84 million arena that just opened today.
Or Southern Nevada, which contributed $750 million to help build a Raiders’ NFL stadium that has made Raiders owner Mark Davis a very rich man.
Or the Las Vegas public tourism agency called the LVCVA that approved $40 million of your public money to host Super Bowl 58 in February 2024. (And $80 million to Summerlin master developer Howard Hughes Corporation in the form of a naming rights deal to help build the $150 million ballpark in Downtown Summerlin.)
And the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority’s non-profit events arm — Las Vegas Events — is doling out more than $1 million in sponsorships for three of the five college basketball tournaments that are taking place in Las Vegas this month.
Las Vegas Events is sponsoring the West Coast Conference Basketball Tournament (The Gonzaga tourney at Orleans Arena) to the tune of $300,000; the Mountain West Basketball Championships (UNLV’s league) for $300,000 also; and the Pac-12 Men’s and Women’s Basketball Tournament (Bill Walton’s conference of champions) for $500,000.
Not every sport or venue in Las Vegas is publicly subsidized. Las Vegas-based MGM Resorts International and Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG, headquartered in Los Angeles) teamed up to privately build T-Mobile Arena with no public money. That arena hosts the Vegas Golden Knights and Las Vegas-based UFC fight events like UFC 272 Saturday.
Speaking of Ultimate Fighting Championship, Dana White’s MMA promotion organization with the worldwide business footprint doesn’t ask government for free public money.
The chamber and tourism types say using public money to subsidize sports events, teams and venues is the price of doing business in the one-trick pony tourism economy of Las Vegas.
But the bigger picture is that Las Vegas is more than just sports.
It’s hardly a blockbuster news item that Las Vegas does not have a strong reputation for public education quality. For example, a national report ranked the Las Vegas market 49th for school quality among the 50 largest metropolitan areas in the United States.
Enjoy all the college basketball tourneys in Las Vegas this month. In most cases, you helped pay to make them happen here.
PSA
PSA
