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Two Venues Took One Market To Major Leagues

By Alan Snel of LVSportsBiz.com

It’s the Vegas Tour de Stadium, a bicycle ride that stops at the two venues in Las Vegas that put this market on the map for major league team sports.

The major leagues of boxing, car racing, golf, bowling, rodeo and MMA were already here in Las Vegas.

But what took Las Vegas to the next level were two buildings — the 18,000-seat arena wedged in between New York New York and Park MGM for the Vegas Golden Knights (opened April 2016) and the 62,000-seat domed stadium on the west of I-15 across from Mandalay Bay for the NFL Las Vegas Raiders (opened July 2020).

 

Twice I bicycled from covering Raiders games at Allegiant Stadium to T-Mobile Arena to report on Golden Knights games in 2021 and the distance of about a mile and a half is easily covered in a 10-minute bike ride.

It makes me think that a Tour de Stadium/Arena bike tour is in order because not only did the venues bring the NHL and NFL to Las Vegas they also brought concerts and other events that would otherwise bypass the Las Vegas market. That’s probably the most important economic impact of the buildings besides being the homes for the Golden Knights and Raiders.

In the case of T-Mobile Arena, it’s also the home of Las Vegas-based UFC, which has another event in the building this weekend.

Look for LVSportsBiz.com’s coverage of UFC this weekend.


 

Alan Snel: Alan Snel brings decades of sports-business reporting experience to LVSportsBiz.com. Snel covered the business side of sports for the South Florida (Fort Lauderdale) Sun-Sentinel, the Tampa Tribune and Las Vegas Review-Journal. As a city hall beat reporter, Snel also covered stadium deals in Denver and Seattle. In 2000, Snel launched a sport-business website for FoxSports.com called FoxSportsBiz.com. After reporting sports-business for the RJ, Snel wrote hard-hitting stories on the Raiders stadium for the Desert Companion magazine in Las Vegas and The Nevada Independent. Snel is also one of the top bicycle advocates in the country.
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