Next Major League Sports Team In Las Vegas? Follow The Venues
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By Alan Snel, LVSportsBiz.com Publisher/Writer
More than 100 college basketball teams have played in Las Vegas this week.
The sounds of squeaky sneakers on wooden floors and high-energy pep bands have emanated from T-Mobile Arena and Mandalay Bay’s Michelob Ultra Arena on the Strip to nearby Orleans Arena and Thomas & Mack Center all the way out to The Dollar Loan Center arena in Henderson
Five college conference basketball tournaments have planted their flags here.
And in July, all 30 NBA teams will be in Las Vegas in July when the NBA Summer League takes over Thomas & Mack.
The WNBA’s reigning title-holders, the Las Vegas Aces, play at Michelob Ultra Arena, while UNLV’s women’s basketball team just clinched a spot in the national basketball tournament with a Mountain West championship as the Lady Rebels have won 31 of 33 games.
Here are five reasons why the NBA will be the next major sports league to expand into the Las Vegas market.
One: New venues drive Las Vegas’ expanding sports industry.
Las Vegas began collecting major league sports teams when new, amenity-filled, revenue-generating sports buildings came online.
The NHL Golden Knights are here because of T-Mobile Arena, built privately by the MGM Resorts International-Anschutz Entertainment Group partnership in 2016.
The NFL Raiders are here because of a $750 million construction contribution by Southern Nevada toward Allegiant Stadium.
Arena builder Tim Leiweke has an NBA arena planned as part of a $3 billion hotel-casino proposal at Las Vegas Boulevard and Blue Diamond Road. Leiweke, who used to be the Anschutz Entertainment chief, rebuilt the arena in Seattle to house the NHL Seattle Kraken. You would think he’d enjoy building an arena in Las Vegas, which hosts an arena partially built by his old company.
Two: No public money for the NBA arena.
The Oakland Athletics have hired lobbyists to try and see what public dollars might be around Nevada to help build a possible billion-dollar ballpark at one of three sites along the Strip corridor.
Good luck to billionaire A’s owner John Fisher trying to receive public money for a ballpark. Gov. Joe Lombardo said no new ballpark taxes will be created for the Athletics.
Three: Bill Foley passed on Major League Soccer
The habitual asset collector, Bill Foley, who owns the Vegas Golden Knights, took a very close look at potential sites for a MLS team.
Instead, Foley bought a Premier League team and a minority interest in a soccer team in France.
Foley, who has a business portfolio with a wide range of properties from wineries to hotels, said no thanks to the MLS.
MLS Commissioner Don Garber talks a big game about Las Vegas.
But until even a site for a MLS stadium is discussed, I’d say MLS won’t be in Las Vegas for a while.
Four: Basketball runs deep in the DNA of Las Vegas.
Las Vegas is an old horse town, so the National Finals Rodeo seems like a natural. The motorists around here are reckless with lots of crashes, so car racing works here. And people love a good fight, so boxing and then UFC found a home in Las Vegas.
And UNLV has a NCAA championship basketball banner hanging near the ceiling of Thomas & Mack Center. The Runnin’ Rebels were the Golden Knights of the 1980s and 1990s when UNLV basketball was a national brand competing for national championships. Sure, UNLV has become the Blockbuster Video of college basketball, but people still love basketball in this town.
While the NBA takes over Las Vegas for two weeks every July for the Summer League, NBA superstar LeBron James is already talking about owning a future NBA team in Las Vegas — Sound Bite City on the local TV stations.
Five: NBA expansion works better than Athletics relocation
The National Hockey League VGK succeeded because the franchise was built from scratch and local las Vegas folks emotionally bonded with the sports team.
The NFL Raiders have a national brand footprint with gigantic fan bases in both Southern and Northern California.
The Athletics are a local team in Northern California’s Bay area and would be hard-pressed to sell out a ballpark when low-profile MLB teams like the Marlins, Reds or Royals showed up to play them in Las Vegas. The Las Vegas market is 2.3 million people and selling 35,000 tickets per game for 81 baseball games would be more difficult than selling 18,000 tickets per game for 41 NBA home games.
If the NBA expands to Las Vegas and Seattle for 32 teams in the league, Las Vegas fans would buy into creating a new major-league basketball team in Sin City.
