LVCVA Tourism Board Tuesday Approves Certifying F1 Race’s ‘Economic Impact’ Of At Least $250 Million To Post Ad Signs On Highways
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By Alan Snel, LVSportsBiz.com Publisher-Writer
Las Vegas’ public tourism board typically approves anything related to sports sponsorships and deals these days.
The Las Vegas Convention and Visitor Authority (LVCVA) looks at sports events as tourism drivers and the public agency functions as a promotional arm for the Strip, area hotels and casinos.
That’s why the LVCVA board Tuesday at its monthly meeting approved an item that sounds rather routine: endorsing something called an “economic impact certification” that says the Nov. 21-23 Formula 1 Las Vegas Grand prix event will generate at least $250 million in “economic impact.” The economic certification and special event designation are needed, under law, for F1 to install race ads on highways.
The problem is the LVCVA does not quite define the criteria for “economic impact” because economists point out that “economic impact” — or whatever that means — is not the same as the net income benefit to a market.
In fact, last year’s inaugural grand prix race actually had alleged negative economic impacts on several local businesses that allege in lawsuits filed this year that the F1 race has cost their businesses millions of dollars in revenues because the race track barriers and fences have blocked customers from using their businesses. Big hotels, however, reported they generated more income than usual for that weekend.
LVCVA head Steve Hill quoted an economic impact number that LVSportsBiz.com could not confirm so we are not repeating that number.
The LVCVA board typically goes along with the public tourism agency staff, so this item was approved at Tuesday’s meeting. Here’s the background:
Sadly, the “LVCVA’s Research Department” never explains the methodology behind how it determines “economic impact.”
For example, all the revenues lost by businesses because of the 2023 race are not included in the “economic impact” number, which is not the same as a net economic number.
Economists have told LVSportsBiz.com that figuring out a net income number is very difficult and complicated, and it’s more sophisticated than a tourism agency citing the number of visitors to an event and then multiplying the visitors’ per capita spending for one big gross number.
Also, the LVCVA board approved a $300,000 sponsorship for the Las Vegas Marathon for 2024 and 2o25.
Other LVCVA sports nuggets:
-Staff crowed about the announced attendance of 63,969 at Allegiant Stadium for the USC vs LSU college football game Sept. 1.
-LVCVA will be an advertiser at the NFL football games in London.
