Welcome To The Big Leagues, Las Vegas: Now Pay Up; The Costs Of Playing In The Majors In Sports Town USA

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By Alan Snel, LVSportsBiz.com Publisher-Writer 

Well, Las Vegas, you’re in the major leagues.

The old horse town where rodeos, boxing matches and minor league baseball defined sports entertainment has soared into the upper stratosphere of sports events.

Las Vegas already had the big leagues of car racing, golf and mixed martial arts by the time the NHL Vegas Golden Knights set up shop at T-Mobile Arena in 2017 and the NFL Raiders played their first game in a partially-subsidized stadium in 2020.

But Las Vegas, always the outlier, had a peculiar feature.

For a smallish major league market at 2.3 million residents, Las Vegas’ two big league teams — the Golden Knights and the Raiders — had among the most expensive tickets in their respective leagues, according to Team Marketing Report, a Chicago-based sports marketing organization that tracks the costs of attending major league games.

Team Marketing Report, based on the 2021 season, reported the Raiders’ average ticket price of $153.47 was the NFL’s most expensive average ticket cost, while TMR said the Golden Knights’ $124.09 average ticket cost in 2022 was the fourth highest in the league.

Even preseason games are costly. Bear witness to Sunday’s Raiders-49ers game at Allegiant Stadium:

Both the Raiders and Golden Knights report sellouts for all their games.

Here’s the twist. The median income in Las Vegas, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, is $61,356 — about $10,000 less than the country’s median household income of $71,784.

Las Vegas’ salaries rank below those of much of the rest of America.

Yet, its major league teams have among the costliest tickets in their leagues at a time when government at the state, county and public tourism agency levels are forking over public dollars to private sports interests.

And now comes the costliest tickets ever in Las Vegas’ gentrified sports market.

Formula 1’s Las Vegas Grand Prix has spawned a race deal ticket package for the Nov. 16-18 event that is being sold by Caesars for $5 million. Meanwhile, Wynn is selling a $1 million ticket deal.

Behind the glitzy race promotions is some local public policy that also needs to be sorted out.

Formula 1 wants Clark County to pay $40 million for road paving work of the race’s 3.8-mile route. It’s an odd part of the sport that Clark County’s public street infrastructure is the setting that will allow F1 and also ticket promoters to make millions of dollars.

It’s a also tourism-based sports event that has been marketed to appeal to F1 car race fans from Europe and other global sites.

Here is a typical F1 race event ticket package being hyped: Club SI on the Strip is peddling a three-day, $7,000 ticket deal that includes a watch party hosted by major sports personalities Shaquille O’Neal and David Beckham.

You’re a Las Vegas local and want to attend the F1 event?

The cheapest $500 general admission ticket has long been sold out.

But the high prices of attending the Las Vegas Grand Prix has drawn the ire of not just locals.

LVSportsBiz.com interviewed a New York City-area F1 fan who intended to attend the Las Vegas Grand Prix after the race was unveiled.

But soon later he looked at the prices and said, no way. Instead, he plans a less expensive Vegas sports field trip by traveling to Las Vegas the weekend of Nov. 11-12 to attend the NFL New York Jets at Raiders game at Allegiant Stadium.

Speaking of the NFL and Allegiant Stadium,, there’s Super Bowl 58, which is set for the Raiders’ home venue on Feb. 11. The Super Bowl is a lavish week of parties and promotional events, with tickets on the secondary market skyrocketing into the thousands of dollars.

If the Las Vegas market is not a wealthy market of residents, then how does sports events get away with charging such expensive tickets?

The answer is simple.

It’s the tourists, the visitors who look at Las Vegas as a sports destination.

Tourism was a focus of the Oakland Athletics’ successful pitch to garner $380 million in government assistance to help build a new baseball stadium at the Tropicana hotel-casino site at Las Vegas Boulevard-Tropicana Avenue southeast corner on the Strip. That 30,000-seat ballpark is supposed to open in 2028.

In fact, the A’s ballpark state legislation approved by both Nevada houses and Gov. Joe Lombardo during a special session creates a tax increment financing district at the stadium site where 17 different types of taxes will be charged on all kinds of items and services bought in the ballpark tax district. The $380 million in public stadium aid includes $120 million in Clark County bonds. The revenues from that tax district are being counted on to pay off the $120 million that Clark County is on the hook for.

Clark County can only hope the tourists will keep on coming. The LVCVA, the county and the state are counting on them to bolster a sports industry that is financed, in part, with public dollars.

In the last 12 months that LVCVA can report, from July 2022-June 2023, the public Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority said 40,574,200 visitors came to Las Vegas.

The total occupancy rate was nearly 83 percent during those 12 months, while the average daily room rate in the Las Vegas area was $181.33 — a healthy 14.2 percent increase during the same 12-month period from the prior year.

For all the rhetoric about Nevada and Las Vegas trying to diversify the local economy, metro Las Vegas has double-downed on its use of public dollars to invest in sports events like the Super Bowl and the F1 race and sports stadiums like the MLB Athletics baseball stadium on the Strip. The LVCVA spent $40 million to bring the Super Bowl to Las Vegas, while spending nearly $20 million on a three-year partnership with Formula 1.

 

Sports fans in Las Vegas who can afford to attend events are happy about Vegas’ sports-centric ways.

But placed against the backdrop of a market that receives low marks for school resources, health care options and limited transportation options, the emphasis on increased public money on expanded sports development has angered many who look at sports as one of many alternatives in Las Vegas’ entertainment economy.

While the Las Vegas Grand Prix is marketing ticket deals in the thousands of dollars, UNLV Athletics is trying to sell a family four pack of tickets plus free parking to the UNLV vs Bryant football game at Allegiant Stadium on Sept. 2 for $96.

While F1 race ticket deals included parties with Shaquille O’Neal, UNLV was trying to entice football fans to buy season tickets by giving away a free 20-ounce Yeti tumbler.

UNLV is also peddling single-game tickets at Allegiant Stadium for $24 for the Bryant game, $31 for the home games against Vanderbilt, Colorado State, Wyoming and San Jose State and $38 for the game with Hawai’i.

The Henderson Silver Knights, the minor league team of the Vegas Golden Knights, sent an email blast hyping a preseason game for Oct. 6 when the cheapest ticket is $36. The price range, though, goes all the way to $131.

Speaking of the Golden Knights, the defending Stanley Cup champs are trying to cash in on their NHL title by pitching a partial 11-game ticket deal that ranges from $979 to $1,980, not including fees. Under that 11-game deal, the per-game cost ranges from $85 to $185. There’s also a $30 service fee, plus a $3 fee per ticket for arena improvements.

Expect the Las Vegas sports hype to only get louder.

UNLV’s football ticket deal that included the free Yeti tumbler expired Aug. 1.

But Las Vegas will be hearing about the F1 race and Super Bowl well into the new year.

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