Final Sports Event At Cashman Field In Downtown Las Vegas Saturday; Housing Development Planned For Cashman Site
By Alan Snel, LVSportsBiz.com Publisher-Writer
LAS VEGAS, Nevada — This desert city of lights is used to entertainment venues getting reduced to rubble, from the Riviera to the Tropicana, to clear the path for future development.
And Saturday in downtown, the final sports event at 1947-born Cashman Field will unfold as soccer’s Las Vegas Lights drops the curtain on a sports venue that has been eclipsed by Las Vegas’ new generation of palatial sports palaces like the Raiders-built and -managed Allegiant Stadium and a domed A’s ballpark that is supposed to debut on the Strip in 2028.
The former 51s minor league baseball team played its final game at Cashman in 2018 before moving to a $150 million ballpark in Downtown Summerlin in 2019. Howard Hughes Corporation, the 51s’ former owner, built the new suburban baseball stadium thanks to the LVCVA public tourism agency giving $80 million to Howard Hughes in the form of a naming rights deal.
In 2018, Cashman had two tenants — the 51s and the USL Championship Lights soccer team, an independent Triple-A soccer club that attracted thousands of fans for games marked by offbeat marketing gimmicks like a a helicopter dropping cash at halftime during a Lights game.
The Lights are now owned by former MLB player Jose Bautista and the soccer team no longer engages in wacky promotions.
They have tried to market the soccer club as an affordable option like selling $40 tickets for the final “Farewell to Cashman Night” match against Lexington SC Saturday. The Lights have not said where they plan to play in 2027.
The A’s move to Las Vegas and planting roots here after 57 years in Oakland has a connection to Cashman Field in 1996 when the Athletics played six regular season games at Cashman 30 years ago.
In February, March and April of 2023, Cashman even hosted a Las Vegas football team called the Vegas Vipers of the XFL, squeezing a football field into the old baseball park.
It’s unclear when the Cashman complex, which includes the stadium, auditorium and small convention space, will be demolished to make way for a housing development to be built by Lennar.
In January, the Las Vegas City Council voted to move Lennar Homes’ redevelopment proposal along at the 50-acre site off Las Vegas Boulevard by allowing the civic/public use to be changed to high-density residential housing. Lennar proposed 781 homes on the Cashman site and another 290 units across the road at the state Sawyer building. The council gave Lennar four years to take action.
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