Clark County Commissioners Approve $440,000, Las Vegas City Council OKs $290,000 For Corporate Combine Efforts At Super Bowl 58 In Hopes Of Recruiting Businesses To Vegas
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By Alan Snel, LVSportsBiz.com Publisher-Writer
It’s no secret that Las Vegas’ tourism-based economy could use an infusion of new businesses that don’t rely on people wanting to visit Vegas to gamble or watch a Raiders game.
So, business development people have created a corporate combine committee to use the global stage of the high-profile Super Bowl 58 in Las Vegas Feb. 11 to entice CEOs to move their businesses or operations to the Vegas market or Nevada. The corporate combine is a 501 (c)(3) nonprofit and is called, “Locate.”
The corporate combine made news this week when it asked Clark County and the city of Las Vegas for hundreds of thousands of public dollars to help fund the business recruitment pitches.
Clark County Commissioners voted, 7-0, Tuesday to allocate $440,000 in federal dollars to the corporate combine, which is looking to raise $2.25 million in a 50/50 split in private and public dollars for the CEO recruitment efforts. Former Las Vegas Mayor Jan Jones and Tom Burns, executive director of the Nevada Governor’s Office of Economic Development, are part of the corporate combine’s efforts.
Meanwhile, the Las Vegas City Council, at its Wednesday meeting, approved $290,000 for the corporate combine to make its pitches during the Super Bowl weekend. The corporate combine is modeling itself after a similar effort in Arizona, where Super Bowls and other big sports events are also held.
The corporate combine money will not be spent on a Super Bowl 58 suite at Allegiant Stadium for economic development officials to talk with company execs, said Greg Bortolin, spokesman for Nevada Governor’s Office of Economic Development.
But Super Bowl tickets could be bought to get time with corporate executives in hopes of luring their businesses in Las Vegas, Bortolin said. Las Vegas business people say money is needed to buy time to spawn relationships with top corporations and their CEOs and executives.
The corporate combine would stick around after the Super Bowl 58 event to recruit execs at the F1 race in Las Vegas in 2024 and even college basketball’s Final Four at Allegiant Stadium in 2028.
Some county residents like political consultant Lisa Mayo DeRiso criticized using public dollars to “wine and dine potential relocation executives.”
Mayo DeRiso told the county commissioners the effort “should be a private money endeavor.” She noted, “Just because you have extra money doesn’t mean it has to be spent unwisely.”
It should be noted the Las Vegas Super Bowl Host Committee is a separate entity from this particular corporate combine group.
“The idea is to leverage the Super Bowl to help lure good-paying businesses to the Las Vegas Valley,” Clark County spokesman Erik Pappa said a day after the commission vote.
“No local public dollars will be used on our end. We’re allocating federal ARPA monies designated for economic development and none of those dollars will be used for the game day activities,” Pappa said.
The Las Vegas Global Economic Alliance, which tries to recruit businesses to the Las Vegas market, said it’s working with other regional partners as part of the Corporate Combine to develop a strategy for these major events like Super Bowl 58 at Allegiant Stadium.
“The Corporate Combine has identified LVGEA as a possible fiscal agent in which to host donor restricted funds specifically for the purpose of economic development activities coinciding with major events,” a global economic alliance statement said.
