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By Alan Snel, LVSportsBiz.com Publisher/Writer
The high-profile governor’s race in Nevada will have a profound influence on Las Vegas’ growing sports market.
Incumbent Steve Sisolak is an unabashed sports fan who used Las Vegas sports like the Las Vegas Aces and the Formula 1 Las Vegas Grand Prix race in two different political TV commercials to promote his re-election bid.
Sisolak contended that sports development of new professional teams and the Raiders stadium called Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas was an economic driver.
Sisolak counts Raiders owner Mark Davis among his allies and was a major supporter of Southern Nevada’s $750 million construction subsidy for the NFL team’s stadium just west of the Strip.
Sisolak’s Republican challenger, Joe Lombardo, however, has not mentioned sports in his ads.
As of Wednesday morning, the governor’s race is still too close to call. Lombardo was leading Sisolak by about 40,000 votes statewide with a little more than 70 percent of the results counted. There are thousands of mail ballots to be counted, so there is uncertainty about the winner. It will take all week to count the mail-ins.
Lombardo has been mum about whether Southern Nevada or the state should pay public money to help build any potential ballpark for the Oakland Athletics, the Major League Baseball team that has mentioned Las Vegas as possible new host city if the MLB team fails at forging a baseball park deal with the city of Oakland.
Besides Southern Nevada contributing $750 million toward building Allegiant Stadium, the Las Vegas public tourism agency — the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA) — gave $80 million to Howard Hughes Corporation in the form of a naming rights deal in 2017 to help build the $150 million Las Vegas Ballpark for the Triple-A baseball Aviators. The LVCVA board also voted in May for a $19.5 million, three-year partnership with Formula 1 race organizers to help put on the F1 grand prix race on the Strip starting in November 2023.
It should be noted that LVSportsBiz.com has reported several times that neither Sisolak nor the Clark County Commission have supported giving public money for an Oakland Athletics ballpark.
There have not been any public comments from Lombardo on where he stands on the issue of public money being used for sports venues and subsidizing sports events.
Gov. Sisolak when he was addressing the Laborers Local 872 members at a union gathering in August 2017 when Sisolak was Clark County Commission chairman. Photo credit: Daniel Clark/LVSportsBiz.com