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By Alan Snel, LVSportsBiz.com Publisher-Writer
LAS VEGAS, Nevada — Las Vegas and its tourism-based economy are hooked on sports.
In just the last few weeks, major annual events like Formula 1 came to the Strip, National Finals Rodeo cowboys and fans filled hotels and now the NBA comes to Las Vegas to play its in-season tournament semis and final at T-Mobile Arena in the next few days.
Throw in WWE WrestleMania in 2026, college football national championship game in 2027, college basketball’s Final Four in 2028 and a possible Super Bowl in 2029 and you have a Las Vegas economy pushing all its sports chips into the center of its tourism industry. (Oh, by the way, the A’s $2 billion baseball stadium is slated to open on the Strip in 2028.)
Bear witness to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, the publicly-funded tourism agency looking to hire a chief sports officer for a tidy annual salary of $248,600 to $347,400. The chief sports officer would work on drawing major sports events to Las Vegas and negotiating multi-million-dollar sponsorship deals with sports promoters.
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Only a few days after college football’s 12-team playoff tournament was unveiled, it was a little after 8 AM Wednesday when Abe Madkour stood on a small stage and welcomed Atlantic Coast Conference Commissioner Jim Phillips to the Sports Business Journal conference at the Aria hotel-casino.
Phillips made news for calling for the CFP 12-team setup to be expanded to 16 teams — especially after its conference championship game winner, a five-loss Duke team, did not make the 12-team playoff tourney. ACC member Miami did, however, with Notre Dame left on the playoff tourney sideline.
The timing for the Sports Business Journal to stage its two-day collegiate conference could not be more perfect with controversy swirling around the College Football Playoff while NIL money flowing to college athletes and students routinely switching colleges via the transfer portal has transformed the once stable college sports scene into the Wild, Wild West where college students have unprecedented leverage in shaping their university futures.
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So many speculate about the NBA expanding to Las Vegas.
But as NBA Commissioner Adam Silver has stated many times, the Las Vegas Summer League is the NBA’s 31st team with the Association’s Cup semifinals and final at T-Mobile Arena providing more NBA presence in a city with NHL (2017), NFL (2020) and MLB slated for 2028.
While the Sports Business Journal was staging its collegiate conference at Aria today, the NBA was only ten minutes away at T-Mobile Arena, installing its Cup tournament equipment and gear in the home arena of the NHL Vegas Golden Knights.
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On the first day of the Sports Business Journal conference in Las Vegas Tuesday, A’s President Marc Badain was only a mile away down the Strip and telling media members about the progress of the MLB team’s stadium construction on a tour at the old Tropicana hotel-casino site on Las Vegas Blvd. and Tropicana Avenue.
The A’s — like their former Oakland Coliseum mates, the NFL Raiders — are here in Las Vegas for one reason: government money and assistance to help build a stadium.
Using public dollars to help a team build its stadium is a highly controversial and debated public policy topic.
And hardly new.
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A’s owner John Fisher, who says he and his family have enough money to build the team’s $2 billion domed stadium with the public aid of $380 million, said the baseball park can be used for more than just baseball games.
The Raiders stadium is also used for much more than football. There are concerts. And WWE will be back in 2026.
Allegiant Stadium is the top revenue-producing stadium in the U.S., and, in a market with a one-dimensional economy, sports tourism is essential for Las Vegas.
But who gets the tourists’ money and how do the stadiums effect the quality of 2.3 million lives in the Las Vegas market?
The LVCVA budget for the Super Bowl was $55 million, while it spent $20 million in public dollars for a sponsorship for the F1 Las Vegas Grand Prix (typically, sponsorship deals include free event tickets, but the LVCVA also spent another $1.25 million on F1 race tickets.)
Oh, the WWE event next year? The LVCVA gave $6 million to them for WrestleMania 42.
Compared to these costs, that chief sports officer salary sounds like a bargain. I guess.
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PSA