Nonprofit Shriners Made $400,000 From East-West Bowl Game In Las Vegas In 2022, But Shriners Golf Tourney In Summerlin Loses Money
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By Alan Snel, LVSportsBiz.com Publisher/Writer
The Shriners love Las Vegas.
Not only does the nonprofit Shriners Hospitals for Children have the title sponsorship to a PGA event in metro Las Vegas, the Tampa-based organization also stages its annual college football all-star game at Allegiant Stadium just west of the Strip.
The East-West Shrine Bowl, one of the two granddaddies of college football all-star games along with the Senior Bowl in Mobile, Alabama, cleared $400,000 at its game here in Las Vegas in 2022 thanks to revenues like ticket sales and donations, said Kenny Craven, the Shriners CEO, “Imperial Potentate” and chairman of the nonprofit’s board.
The $400,000 is an impressive profit from the East-West Shrine Bowl, which is scheduled for Thursday at 5:30PM at the Raiders home stadium.
But the Shriners Children’s Open, the annual pro golf tournament played at TPC Summerlin since 1983, is a financial loser, Craven said.
But that’s OK, Craven said, because the golf event set for Oct. 9-15 this year, provides the nonprofit with worldwide exposure and a platform to appeal for donations.
“We want our name out there,” Craven explained to LVSportsBiz.com inside Allegiant Stadium today.
The Shriners raise hundreds of millions of dollars annually to provide free pediatric and orthopedic health care for kids at 22 medical locations across North America. The nonprofit says its hospitals have treated more than 1.5 million kids.
Craven said the Shriners like the fact that Thursday’s East-West college football game is part of the same week as the NFL’s Pro Bowl Games event at Allegiant Stadium. He noted 42 players from last year’s East-West game were drafted by NFL teams, with all the other players signing free agent contracts.
The East-West Shrine game, which started in 1925, has moved through the years from the San Francisco area and Texas to Orlando and St. Petersburg, Florida in the baseball stadium used by the MLB Tampa Bay Rays.
The 2021 East-West Shrine game was cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but the Shriners are happy with their current football all-star digs at Allegiant Stadium.
The price to rent the luxurious domed venue in Las Vegas — thanks to some help from the NFL — is not much different than the cost of using the domed stadium in St. Petersburg, Craven pointed out.
“It was a perfect fit,” Craven said of the Shriners football game at Allegiant Stadium.
“We went to this stadium for the same price. It was a no-brainer to move” from St. Petersburg to Las Vegas, he said. Craven said while the East-West Shrine Bowl made $400,000 last year, he also noted that sometimes the game loses money or breaks even.
But forging partnerships with high-profile sports venues and events gives the nonprofit a major platform to tell its story and help raise donations, Craven said.
And with the NFL eliminating contact from its Pro Bowl All-Star game event this year, the East-West Shrine Bowl is now the “only contact football game for the week,” Craven said today. The Manning Brothers — former NFL quarterbacks who have morphed into a comedy team — are putting on something called the Pro Bowl Games in Las Vegas this week.
The Shriners like their college game here, too, because they already have strong contacts with Las Vegas’ hospitality and tourism industry through the PGA golf tournament.
But the location of the Shriners’ 2024 East-West game will be very tricky because the NFL is staging Super Bowl 58 at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas in February 2024 and there’s a two-week lockdown of the stadium before the Super Bowl, Craven explained to LVSportsBiz.com.
So, the site for the 2024 Shrine football game is up for discussion only because of the Super Bowl at the same stadium, he said.
