Is 2023 the year Las Vegas became a sports town?

That's this week on Nevada Week.

♪♪♪ Support for Nevada Week is provided by Senator William H. Hernstadt.

-Welcome to Nevada Week.

I'm Amber Renee Dixon.

In less than two months, Las Vegas will host its first ever Super Bowl.

And when talking about Las Vegas in early December, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell said, quote, You've really become 'Sports Town USA.'

So what was it that finally earned Las Vegas that nickname?

Perhaps the pending relocation of the Oakland Athletics to Las Vegas, maybe Formula 1 taking over the Las Vegas Strip, or was it something else like the Vegas Golden Knights' Stanley Cup Final win?

Here to debate that and more are Howard Stutz, Gaming, Tourism, and Sports Business Reporter at The Nevada Independent; Alan Snel, Publisher of LVSportsBiz.com; and Jacob Solis, who covers Politics and Higher Education at The Nevada Independent.

I'll start with you, Jacob, because people might be wondering, What is he doing on this panel?

But you were part of the legislative process, covering it up in Carson City, that led to the public funding being approved for the A's to build a stadium on the Las Vegas Strip.

You are also a big Formula 1 fan.

And not saying that you have to pick between those two events, but in your opinion, what was it that led to Las Vegas finally becoming a so-called sports town?

(Jacob Solis) I think you could probably point to a million little things, right?

Now suddenly, you have all these things happening at the same time.

But if I were to pinpoint one thing in particular, it's probably the Supreme Court deciding that sports gambling should be not illegal everywhere, right?

And so you see this cascade of states legalizing sports betting.

Suddenly the stigma is pulled away, and the major big four in the United States can finally put money in Las Vegas.

We saw that with the NFL.

And all these dominoes started to fall in really rapid succession over the last seven years really.

But then, you know, that leads to Formula 1 and the Oakland A's, like you mentioned, but you know, I wouldn't say it's any one thing, even though I just said it was the one thing.

[laughter] -2018 is when that landmark decision came down.

Anyone disagree with that?

That was an interesting answer.

(Alan Snel) I just think in 2016 when the Nevada legislature approved the funding for the Raiders stadium, that was huge.

It really solidified the Strip, the hotel companies, and, generally, the broad community.

There was debate even back then about subsidies, but this community needed a big-time major league stadium, even without the sports they needed for other events as well.

So I thought the Governor, Brian Sandoval, signing that bill into law, the $750 million subsidy, which actually this region is taking 30 years to repay, actually a billion dollars to pay back the 750.

-Interesting so far, because you have a Supreme Court decision.

You're talking about an actual stadium.

We haven't mentioned a specific sport.

(Howard Stutz) Yeah.

You start thinking about it, Vegas really was a sports town going back into the '80s when I came here because boxing, you know, all the big championship fights were here and, you know, all throughout during that time.

We actually have Caesars Palace, actually had a race, the Grand Prix.

They actually had Indy cars also.

I think-- and then you also had the golf tournaments here, Alan King Tennis.

I went and watched the Los Angeles Kings play the New York Rangers outdoors at Caesars Palace in an exhibition game, and it was 97 degrees outside in September.

So there's always been big events in Vegas, but I agree with what Alan said.

I think when the NFL put the Raiders here, that was the game changer.

All of a sudden you have the biggest sports league around, the NFL.

Sorry.

I know Formula 1, but... [laughter] -The NFL being here really changed things, and sports betting did because you had the, for years, when the Supreme-- before the Supreme Court ruled, the NFL, Major League Baseball, NBA, NCAA were all fighting.

This is New Jersey trying to legalize sports betting.

It went all the way to the US Supreme Court.

Once the justices ruled in favor, the waterfall started with sports betting states.

All of a sudden the sports league said, Wait a minute.

We can make money off this?

Okay.

Well, then we're fine with it.

And you have all these partnerships now between the sports leagues and the sports betting operators.

And that all came about.

That's why Vegas became the center of that.

It's the center for the Super Bowl.

I'm sure we'll talk about that in a little bit.

But for all these other events, I really agree, though, with Alan.

I think the NFL, the NFL coming here really kind of set-- -I think the sports driver is venues, and we saw that with T-Mobile Arena.

That was 2016.

That paved the way for the Vegas Golden Knights.

We go back to the Raiders stadium, that paved the way, as Howard mentioned, for the NFL.

So, to me, the interesting thing about the big difference between T-Mobile Arena, privately financed; Raider stadium, publicly financed.

And then we'll probably talk later in the show about Oakland A's and their stadium.

Highly controversial, very unusual style of pushing that thing through, but-- -What was unusual about it?

-The speed.

It was most of the time, you see intense political community debates between the people who make the argument for the subsidy and the community.

This thing happened-- in fact, it was almost comical at which some of the debates and the committee hearings were actually going on at the time the Golden Knights were in the Stanley Cup.

I remember, in fact, the committee members wanting updates about the Golden Knights and the Dallas Stars in the Conference Finals, while the committee was actually debating the $380 million subsidy for the stadium.

-Do you agree, Jacob, that it was quick?

-Yeah.

No, it was remarkably quick.

To some extent, that's the way that the legislature works, because it's a compressed session, 180 days.

But also that A's bill dropped extremely late in the session.

Everything gets crammed right at the very end.

So they were not only debating that, they were having fights over the budget.

They were having fights over education spending.

And so of course you have all these multibillion dollar fights, and now you also debate the A's stadium.

And so, yeah, there was a compressed timeline that ultimately led to a special session, which was itself compressed because everyone wanted to go home.

They had been there since January.

-Yeah.

-You have to remember that when they announced-- when the A's announced they were gonna come to Vegas, the original site was up on west side of the I-15 at the old Wild Wild West site.

-Much like the Raiders stadium.

-Yeah, down the road from the Raiders stadium.

Then all of a sudden they announced later on that it's being moved over to the Tropicana.

So I mean, it was just like back and forth.

And this was a-- you know, when you say "compressed," I mean, the A's said they'd been here two years looking.

They were still debating whether they were gonna stay in Oakland.

But it was compressed.

All of a sudden this bill, when the bill dropped, I remember the last day, and then that morning, because we got a copy of the bill, and you and I and Tabitha were up that night writing the story.

The bill drops.

The A's put out pretty pictures of their renderings of the new ballpark to try to, you know, Don't pay attention to those numbers.

Look at these pretty pictures.

So it was a very crazy process the way it was done.

Very different from the Raiders.

At least with the Raiders, they were very upfront on what they were doing.

The A's haven't been this whole time.

It was very-- you had to draw it all out of them.

Mark Davis was here.

He was very supportive of the different events.

-A huge difference with Sheldon Adelson, who was the main driver on the Raiders bill.

You didn't see that kind of overt Strip hotel company support.

They did.

They technically were on the side of it.

You just didn't see it explicitly.

-What happened, what pushed the Raiders bill through was--because we were at those, all those hearings that were going on ahead of it--and MGM and Caesars decided, we'll pay the room tax.

And so when the two biggest companies get together to do that, that kind of pushed it.

-Along with Sheldon.

-And Sheldon.

-It was game over at that point.

-It was.

It was going to happen.

There was really very little debate at the legislature back for that bill, for that special session.

-And to the extent that timing mattered, with the Raider stadium bill, that session happened in an off year where everyone had a lot of time.

Then it was announced by the governor with some time in advance after some debate had happened internally.

With the A's, it happened at the end, again of a compressed regular session.

And the special session only happened because the bill died in the regular session because they couldn't get it done in time.

I think there was sort of an element of no one was really clear about exactly what they wanted.

Because even once we got the special, there was debate because it wasn't clear they had the votes to get it over the finish line.

-And where do we stand now as far as the information that you had to pull out of them?

Are you still trying to find out?

-Well, we were supposed to have a renderings unveiling a couple of weeks ago.

In fact, you know, Howard mentioned, referred to the drawings.

But as you know, they were not exactly specific drawings.

I mean, they were very conceptual stuff to kind of just give-- I mean, the Athletics themselves acknowledged that they were not the actual drawings.

In fact-- -Later, though.

Not initial, correct?

-No, but the drawings showed the ballpark that was taking up the entire 35-acre chunk there at the Tropicana.

In fact, we decided not to even use those drawings anymore because they were just simply not accurate depictions.

-I wondered, because we have those as well.

Should we show them?

Or not anymore?

-You'll have new ones pretty soon now.

I saw Dave Kaval at the Fontainebleau-- -Yes.

- --press opening.

And I talked a little to him about it, and he said they're probably going to do something around Big League Weekend.

The A's are coming in to play the Milwaukee Brewers over at Las Vegas Ballpark.

They may do something around then.

There's a lot to get done in the next year, throughout 2024, before this can happen, before they can even touch this money.

It's gotta be done by the end of year, because that's when they're supposed to demolish, close the Tropicana and demolish it, have a clean site by April of 2025 to start construction.

We don't even know where the A's will play in 2025, 26, and 27.

We know they're in Oakland in 2024, but that hasn't been determined.

So there is a lot of, what is it, the Stadium Authority, the agreements with the Stadium Authority, the construction agreement, all these laws and ends have got to be put tied together by the end of 2024.

-So Major League Baseball owners unanimously approved this relocation, but do you think it's actually going to happen, Jacob?

-Probably.

[laughter] -Like Howard said, there's so many steps that still need to happen.

When shovels are in the ground, I'll feel more confident.

But we're sort of at this nebulous stage where so much of it is about agreements that, you know, haven't been signed and still need to happen.

And we're still waiting on real renderings.

What's it going to look like?

Will it fit on the space?

It's written into the bill it has to be on the Tropicana site in this little plot of land that would be smaller than any other Major League Baseball stadium.

-That was one of the things that came out.

When this was first being debated in the legislature, Jeremy Aguero who was from Applied Analysis-- -With Applied Analysis, the economic advisory firm.

-I sat there with Jacob, and I think you were in the meeting when we met with Jeremy and Tabs and Shawn and I.

All three of us or four of us met with him, and he was proud of the fact, this is site agnostic, much like the Raiders stadium.

When the bill was approved for the Raiders stadium, they didn't have the site yet.

They still were going around different sites on where, what is now Allegiant Stadium would be built.

Somehow during this special session, it got locked in to this, this bill is only tied now to the Tropicana site.

Bally's is the operator of the Tropicana.

They're in the process of building, trying to build a $1.7 billion casino in Chicago.

That's got their focus.

We don't really know what the plans are.

They're just gonna continue to operate Tropicana at least through next year, and then we'll see what happens.

So there's still just a lot of things that have got to get tied up at that site.

-I will say one thing that I don't think they're gonna run into a problem is getting approval from the Stadium Authority.

And I think we have to get into some of the actors in this because Steve Hill chairs our Las Vegas Stadium Authority Board.

He also at the same time represented the Athletics before the state committees along with Jeremy Aguero.

The two of them made a joint presentation before multiple committees.

At the same time, Jeremy was still the consultant of record for the Stadium Board that Hill chaired.

Hill also is the CEO of the tourism agency.

So I don't think there's going to be really a lot of problems getting this through the Stadium, the Stadium Board.

There are those physical parts of the site that need to be addressed.

I mean, like Howard mentioned, this thing-- the Tropicana site has to be completely demolished.

I mean, it has to be a complete slate, just a blank slate for construction to begin in 2025.

And another really important point is that in terms of the politics of how this A's funding came through, I think Southern Nevada and metro Vegas would have been much more supportive if they stuck to the same, to the original site.

Because then you can talk about economic development.

And the DOT, by the way, was working on Tropicana.

They were actually improving the sidewalks from the Strip to walk across I-15 to get to that site that Howard had referred to.

It was going to be more of an economic development project.

As we know here, this is a ballpark that will be shoehorned into the back of the site and toward the south side of the site.

And I mean, you know the site.

There's not a lot of economic, more economic development to be made there.

-I want to ask you about Applied Analysis when they went up to the legislature and presented in front of state lawmakers.

They said they expect a $1.3 billion economic impact per year from the stadium and generating about $17 million in total tax revenue each year.

Those numbers don't sit well with you.

Why is that?

-These are numbers that are based on certain expectations that, you know, we still don't know how many people are going to be at the baseball park.

I think it's, what, been up to 33,000 people in terms of the capacity?

This is something that's going to be happening in 2028.

I'm not quite sure that you're in a position to project these $1.3 billion figures or any of these figures.

-And you've taken a stance on this, on these sports teams releasing figures about stadium impact.

-Just this week, I sat down with Michael Crome, who's Chief Financial Officer of the Las Vegas Raiders.

And they came out with a press release saying that the stadium and the visitorship, thanks to the Raiders events and also the stadium events, generated $2.29 billion.

That's nearly 2.3 billion in revenue.

And I said to the Raiders, if you want to sit down and explain the math, we will report that.

And I think that's responsible journalism.

But just putting these broad, general multibillion dollar figures out there without explaining the math is just, it's just not an accurate portrait of what's going on.

For example, we saw multiple figures for the Formula 1 race.

First it was 1.2 billion.

Then it was up to 1.3 billion.

And then if you remember, the CEO of Liberty Media apologized, and he said, Well, we're gonna give you $1.7 billion of spending on the weekend.

One thing to consider when I-- Jeremy, I did print the $1.3 billion figure.

Jeremy Aguero, who-- -With Applied Analysis.

- --with Applied Analysis and is pretty much the consultant to the teams, he did sit down and explain what he thought was 1.3 billion.

Keep in mind that 1.3 billion included the $500 million construction bill for that paddock building, which was a one-stop-- which was a one-time economic jolt there.

-And we're talking about Formula 1 now.

Because we talked about Jeremy Aguero, and we associate him with the A's.

And the Raiders at one point.

-But it's a small web of people who pretty much are involved in pushing Las Vegas into this, quote, Sports City persona.

-I have another topic I would like you guys to debate, and we'll go with you, Jacob, first because it's Formula 1 based.

And with the high end clientele that that event drew in from all over the world, it makes me wonder whether Las Vegas is truly a sports town or sports destination.

Which do you think?

-The latter probably, right?

Because I think you can extend this past Formula 1.

If you look at who's going to Raiders games, are the Raiders faithful filling up Allegiant Stadium?

Most of the time, I mean, they're common, right, but they're not the dominant fan base there.

It's usually traveling visiting fans.

Certainly when the discussions in the legislature were happening about the Athletics, that was one of the arguments.

Visiting fans will want to fly to Las Vegas to fill that ballpark.

The Knights, even as popular as they are in Vegas--you can't go to a high school graduation without hearing "Knight" during the national anthem.

But like even the Knights have to suffer Canadian fans flying down to Las Vegas.

So there is some degree to which Vegas is just a small market and an isolated market that even as a sports town it becomes suffering from success because Vegas is a destination on its own right.

If you're gonna bring a sport here, it will be a destination for that sport.

-Anyone want to disagree with that?

-I don't disagree.

I remember when Phoenix got the Coyotes years ago.

And I went down the first season, went to a game there.

There were all these-- we saw them play Chicago Blackhawks.

It was all these Chicago transplants in Phoenix, and they were all rooting for the Blackhawks.

And Jacob was right.

I went to the Steelers, the Raiders/Steelers game, the first game of the year, and it was 75% Steelers fans.

I mean, that was expected.

They're talking about this with-- So we really are a destination.

Look, it's always going to be that way.

Fans who have bought their tickets through the PSLs or won't have season seats have the right to sell them if they want.

That's gonna happen, and I think we will always be a sports destination.

-I will say that Las Vegas is an outlier in the sense that it just focuses so much on the tourist fan.

We have seen this to other degrees in other sunbelt markets, like your Tampa Bays and South Florida and San Diego.

I mean, when the Chargers were playing in a temporary stadium and the Steelers came to town, it was a Steelers home game in that temporary stadium.

But the 2016 bill for the Raiders stadium, that came out of the Tourism Infrastructure Committee, tourism.

Tourism, again, is part of literally the semantics and the moniker of the bill that is, you know, paying for the A's, $380 million.

-For the Raiders, because it was the room tax.

The room tax collection to pay for the-- -Which is another key difference is that the room tax has, quote/unquote, the visitors subsidizing paying for Southern Nevada's debt, right, on that $750 million.

This is different.

-For the A's.

-For the A's.

The $380 million, if I recall, includes 120 million that will be floated in bonds by Clark County.

And that money will be generated from charges on everything in that stadium district, right, that nine-acre stadium district.

And they'll charge everything from beers and, you know, the rides to the ballpark.

-So locals will be impacted?

-There will be some impact, but that's a really different-- Howard brought up a good point about the fact, and it was really one of the strong arguments made at the time was that, Oh, it's the visitors and the outsiders, which is kind of ironic, because, you know, when Jacob mentioned all the fans at the Raiders games, the visiting fans are helping us, Southern Nevada, pay off our debt.

-Yeah.

I want to make sure we get in the gaming numbers for the month of November.

They came out this morning.

It is Thursday morning.

We don't have the visitation numbers yet, though.

But let's talk about gaming and the significance of that.

-It was $821 million on the Strip.

It was the biggest November ever, the second highest number.

The highest number on the Strip that we ever saw was 834 million in July.

A lot of it came from baccarat, high end baccarat play.

But what's associated with baccarat is the high end customers that came in with Formula 1.

-Right.

And that's why we were looking for the gaming numbers.

-I think a lot of analysts expected a higher total than 821 million.

Now, and the casinos still held very well in baccarat.

They held 19% of all of almost a billion dollars in wagers on baccarat.

That's, you know, far higher than a normal hold.

A normal hold is like 11%.

So it still wasn't that big of a number.

Now, we'll wait and see what the visitation numbers say and the airport numbers for the month, but I think there's a little bit of a, That's all?

-Yeah?

-When I first saw the number coming out, I thought, that's it?

821 million in the month of November?

I thought it would be more.

-Well, and resort leaders on the Strip did say it was a good economic weekend for them.

-It'll be the visitation of the hotel room rates and the nongaming spend on meals and restaurants that that'll be pretty high.

-We are almost out of time.

What are you looking forward to finding out about the Super Bowl and its impact on Las Vegas?

Alan?

-Well, you know, fascinating about the Super Bowl is we already got a ton of people in that weekend anyway, without the game.

More than 300,000 people come to this market for the Super Bowl when we're not hosting.

So I'm curious about how many more tens of thousands of people will this market be able to cram into, you know, Super Bowl Week.

-I want to see the locals.

Locals were really kind of shut out in a sense from Formula 1.

I think the locals are looking forward to going down, you know, the fan experience that they'll be at Mandalay Bay during the stuff during the week.

Maybe not so much the game but, you know, all the other stuff surrounding the Super Bowl.

I think that'll be interesting.

-Jacob?

-I'm just curious to see how broad the impact of the Super Bowl is.

Obviously, Allegiant will be the epicenter of everything.

With Formula 1, it was so hyperfocused on the Strip that the rest of the city didn't see much of Formula 1 because it was literally closed.

So with the Super Bowl, not having those logistical issues, how wide does that impact go from that sort of epicenter?

-Gentlemen, I'm getting the hard wrap from my producer.

Thank you so much for joining us in 2023.

And we'll see you in 2024 as well.

And we close out our last show of 2023 with a heartwarming story involving a local couple on a mission to make a difference in the lives of students throughout the state.

Nevada Week's Maria Silva met up with the couple in Laughlin as they took part in a very festive school assembly which has now become a yearly holiday tradition.

-...rocking around the Christmas tree... (Maria Silva) Dancing and singing merrily on stage, the talented Bennett Elementary pre-K students.

-You will get a sentimental feeling... -Getting that sentimental feeling watching these adorable students perform, Bob and Sandy Ellis whose generosity makes all of this holiday cheer-- [cheers] - --possible, not just in Laughlin, but at nearly 40 schools throughout Nevada, and all thanks in part to the couple's very own Santa's helpers.

They're equally kind and generous family members, friends, and volunteers.

(Bob Ellis) And then Ileana Dorkin, she is the person behind this.

If we didn't have her, we wouldn't be able to do this.

This year we ended up buying over 7,000 Sketcher tennis shoes, 14,000 pairs of socks, and probably close to 6,000 toys.

-Before all of the toys were handed out, some very special guests took the stage.

They all had important messages to share with the students.

-The biggest thing about bowling we need to remember we need to treat everybody with respect.

-Treating everyone with respect will definitely get you on Santa's nice list.

[singing] (Santa) You've got to work hard here at school!

[cheering] -These hardworking and nice students walked away with special memories and toys almost too big to carry.

-A new toy!

-I mean, assembly is fun, but I-- today I looked at those gifts and I thought wow!

Wow!

For some, it means the gift, the only gift they might get at Christmas.

-As for Bob and Sandy, they walked away with the greatest gift of all.

-We couldn't ask for more than what we've seen today, the smiles on the kids.

-We just love to see these kids be happy, you know, for however long they want to.

But forever, hopefully forever.

[singing] [cheers and applause] A big thank you to our Maria Silva for her reporting this year, and thank you for watching.

For any of the resources discussed, go to vegaspbs.org/nevadaweek.

And I will see you in 2024.