Before Foley’s Golden Knights, Davis’ Raiders, White’s UFC, Las Vegas Sports Had Michael Gaughan Who Made Vegas A National Bowling Hub

By Pat Christenson for LVSportsBiz.com

After being on the job at Las Vegas Events for only a couple of months in 2001, I went with Julian Dugas and two Vegas showgirls to Bozeman, Montana to bid for the 2009 USBC Open Bowling Championships.

We won the bid and in 2009 – a year when overall hotel occupancy in Las Vegas dropped to 81.5 percent because of the recession – Las Vegas Events spent $1 million transforming Cashman Center into a competitive bowling facility.

Before 2009, Las Vegas last hosted the USBC Championships in 1986, drawing 10,019 teams. Recession or no recession, the 23-year layoff created pent up demand.

In 2009, the USBC Open Championships ran for a record 154 consecutive days with a capacity of 17,200 teams competing from Feb. 21 to July 24. The total estimated attendance for bowling participants and their travel parties was 292,750 with an average room stay of 4.3 nights and a non-gaming economic impact of more than $120 million. We will have a hard time beating that again.

In 2011 we bid looking to host the event again in 2015 – thinking the fact that no one had ever come close to Vegas numbers, we would be a shoe in. We lost to El Paso—El Paso! Which begged the question: What do we have to do to consistently bring USBC events to Vegas? The answer, “Build us a permanent competitive facility.”

We made the rounds to see if anyone would bite. The LVCVA was landlocked and both Boyd Gaming and Stations passed, but Michael Gaughan did not.

When Michael Gaughan speaks, people listen. And they should. He first opened the Royal Inn Casino in 1972, which he sold to build the Barbary Coast which became the foundation for Coast Casinos (Gold Coast, Orleans, Suncoast and South Coast). Having successfully built the value of Coast Casinos, his partners wanted to sell, so he reluctantly sold their shares but not his to Boyd Gaming.

The central premise of Malcolm Gladwell’s book, “Blink”, is the “adaptive unconscious, contains mental tricks that operate without our awareness of them.” Those hugely immersed in one field may build up some intuitive feel for experience in that field.

Anyone that has watched Gaughan operate sees the attributes defined in both “Blink” and “Outliers: The Story of Success.” Gladwell’s premise is outliers have early support and thousands of hours to practice, study, rehearse and experiment.  Michael worked in every position in a hotel and casino…blackjack and craps dealer, busboy, dishwasher, maintenance engineer, bartender, front desk, valet etc.

When you apply that to the level of expertise amassed over the thousands of hours building and operating hotels, the ability to make quick, effective decisions becomes a competitive advantage which makes someone like Michael stand head and shoulders above the elite performers in his industry. It is summed up as “…that one guy who is way better than the 31 other best quarterbacks in the country or that one woman who fearsomely dominates all other female tennis players in the world.”

The philosophy he acquired centered on a unique commitment to his customer and evolved over years of molding it. The track record he accumulated solidly establishes him as one of the top five operators in the history of the Las Vegas gaming and hotel industry.

The merger with Boyd Gaming in 2004 did not allow Michael to exercise the management philosophy he acquired from the 30 years of building Coast Casinos, so he struck a deal with Boyd Gaming that put him back in charge, albeit with one property, the South Coast.

You can’t help but think Gaughan has fun building event venues. The original design for the Orleans Arena was a plain 7,000 seat arena. Not good enough! As he received advice on enhancing the design, anyone that was there will tell you he adopted a “Your wish is my command” mentality as almost every enhancement recommended was added. It helped that he owned the construction company.

His masterpiece included 21-inch padded seats (three inches more than the standard), suites and club seats, center hung, 360 ring beam and 15 by 20-foot end line LED boards. To make sure no one is waiting (no one) there are more urinals (per seat) than any arena in the country.

The concourse is granite tile with a decorative décor, and an east side Strip view. The backstage features finishes like most concourses and the Green Room is better than 50 percent of the major arenas in the country.

Most people forecasted success for Gaughan with the South Point. But no one predicted the level of success he would have by parlaying an Equestrian Center into a Sports Center which includes two new equestrian arenas and the Bowling Center and melding the hotel and local customer.

No bowling plaza in the world has made the commitment Gaughan made designing and building this state-of-the-art tournament facility. Having built five bowling facilities, you can only imagine the pleasure Gaughan had at creating another unparalleled sports experience.

The Bowling Plaza is 90,000-square-feet, features 60 lanes with two parallel rows of 30 lanes, a 360-seat viewing area and two 167-foot state-of-the-art LED boards spanning the two 30-lane competition floors.

Each lane was built on free-floating slabs to ensure the facility is equipped with soundproof barriers. The width of the flooring between the ball return and lane spans a larger length than usual tournament facilities to offer bowlers with the maximum angle of attacks

With a sub 100 average, I can only guess how important an “angle of attack” is to a bowler. But if all of that was not enough, the facility also includes a 720-unit locker room with a 350 seated squad room equipped with a team photo booth area, stub lane, ball check station and bracket room.

2022 marks the fifth year South Point has hosted either the Men’s or Women’s Open Championships. There are eight more Championships in the contract, but don’t be surprised if the bowling facility doesn’t become an annual stop for the USBC.

How can an event producer pass on a facility and operator: “Who’s wish is his command.”

USBC Open Championships

1986                10,019 teams

2009                17,200 teams (87,000 bowlers)

2017                12,775 teams (51,100 bowlers)

2019                13,050 teams (52,200 bowlers)

2021                9,568 teams (38,272 bowlers)

USBC Women’s Championships

2016                6,123 teams (24,492 bowlers)

2020                Not held in 2020