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By Alan Snel, LVSportsBiz.com Publisher/Writer
It’s one thing to see all the college basketball tournaments setting up shop in Las Vegas in early March.
It’s quite another to see the NCAA college basketball “March Madness” logo at center court inside T-Mobile Arena, a short walk from the Strip.
It took a while — including nasty battles with former UNLV basketball coach Jerry Tarkanian three decades ago — but the Lords of College Sports finally came around and embraced Las Vegas as a destination host for NCAA sports championships.
Long overdue, best city to host anything — UCLA coach Mick Cronin
The players like it, too.
“Las Vegas, it’s a nice city, bright lights. It’s a place that everyone wants to play at,” UConn player Alex Karaban said.
“So to play here is something special for us. And we don’t get the opportunity to play in Vegas a lot,” Karaban said. “So I know the team, we’re excited for it. We can’t wait to get out here and play. It’s the bright lights. So we’re all excited.”
On Thursday night, T-Mobile Arena will host the West Regional semifinals of NCAA college basketball’s March Madness national tournament.
The Gonzaga-UCLA and Arkansas-Connecticut winners from Thursday’s two matchups will tip off Saturday for a ticket to The Final Four. Oh by the way, Las Vegas will also gets its crack at hosting a NCAA Final Four at Allegiant Stadium in 2028.
Here’s a look at the ticket prices for Thursday’s and Saturday’s games via Greg Cohen of TicketIQ
The NCAA — like the National Football League — looked at Las Vegas as the sports gambling boogeyman of the United States.
They stayed away for decades.
No more. After the landmark Supreme Court decision in May 2018 to allow states to adopt their own sports betting laws, the NCAA suspended its sports betting policy of not staging sports events in states with legalized sports gambling. In May 2019, a year after the Supreme Court ruling, the NCAA did away with its sports betting policy.
With sports gambling now legal in 33 states, the stigma and negative stereotype of betting on all sports are gone and sports betting is a mainstream, multi-billion-dollar segment of the sports industry.
The state of Nevada also has tight regulatory oversight on all forms of gambling — not just sports betting.
As Cronin put it, once the NFL planted its flag in Las Vegas after years of avoiding Sin City it was just a matter of time until the NCAA followed. Two years before the Final Four is scheduled for 2028, the NCAA will stage its Frozen Four hockey championship at T-Mobile Arena in 2026.
It’s commonplace for Las Vegas’ publicly-funded tourism agency — the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA) — to spends millions of dollars on subsidizing major events like Super Bowl 58 in February 2024, the Las Vegas Grand Prix F1 road race in November, conference college football and basketball title events and even NASCAR weekends at Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
“It will be a great environment,” Gonzaga coach Mark Few said Wednesday.
Few said Las Vegas has grown into a basketball hub thanks to the five conference tournaments staged here only two weeks ago.
“It’s the place to be now. You can walk down the street and feel the conference energy,” Few said. “It’s like a mini Final Four.”