(Amber Renee Dixon) The Las Vegas Aces bring Las Vegas its very first major league professional sports championship.

Just how significant the accomplishment is, plus, Dance companies, museums, art collectives, and Broadway productions-- Southern Nevada has a lot of arts and culture, and now local leaders want to know how much money it all generates.

And... (Chris Lashua) We settled on a windmill because we really like the idea of being able to tell a story about man's relationship, humanity's relationship with the wind.

-A new show combines modern circus technique, handcrafted machines, and innovative storytelling to start a conversation about humans' use of natural resources.

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.

Evaluating the economic power of arts and culture in Southern Nevada, that discussion is ahead.

But first, Las Vegas history was made when the Las Vegas Aces defeated the Connecticut Sun 78-71 in Game 4 of the WNBA Finals to win Las Vegas its first ever major league professional sports championship.

And joining us to talk about the significance of this accomplishment are Melissa Ferris, Co-Host of Girl Chat Sports , and Monecia Threats, also Co-Host of the podcast Girl Chat Sports .

Ladies, thank you so much for taking the time.

This is the first major league pro sports title in Las Vegas' history.

And it's won by women.

Let's start there.

What does that milestone mean for both of you?

(Melissa Ferris) Okay.

I'm gonna start first because I'm born and raised here in Las Vegas.

So not only is it a thing where it's driven by women to be the first, it's the first we've ever seen in this city.

I would have never thought in my wildest dreams growing up here that we'd have any professional sports teams.

We always looked to other cities, neighboring states that had teams to rally around and support.

So when the Aces got here -- What was it, four years ago?

I mean, it was like an elation.

And the fact that the women just had so much talent and depth that it was bound to happen.

We could foresee it.

And when you saw Becky Hammon come into fruition, it just all played together.

So this win is really huge.

It's huge because it's the first for a major league sports team; and it's huge, secondly, like to your point, Amber, Women, we are doing it.

We are, you know, we secretly have capes on us.

We are saving days and saving cities and putting smiles on people's faces once again.

So it's the city that not only just has to focus on gaming, now we actually have sports to focus on.

We have that type of style of entertainment now.

(Monecia Threats) Well, and I think we've also been talking-- I mean, we've been discussing it for the last three years.

Like, what if women bring the first championship to Las Vegas?

-Oh, yes.

-All this season, listen, I can feel-- As it got closer, I was like, Okay, we're really good.

We're really, really good.

Like, this has to happen.

And lo and behold, it's here; the women bring the first championship.

And that's just monumental in itself.

Plus during Title IX, the 50th anniversary, like, women in sports.

Women having that opportunity, young girls being able to see that happen, it's just, it's amazing.

-I saw a lot of young girls and young ladies out at that parade that we were all at, and what does this mean for them?

-I think it means that sky's the limit for them, that they can achieve anything.

I think that they have these women to look up to as a woman empowerment thing and also seeing what drive and determination looks like and what the outcome of success looks like, as well as trying to stand on beliefs and stand on the fact that sometimes women are still taking a backseat in sports and not getting the recognition they deserve.

They're now seeing that coming into fruition.

They're seeing these ladies play on national sports networks now.

So I think with them, it's like, Hey, I can be the next Dearica Hamby or A'ja Wilson or Kelsey Plum.

I can have the dog in me and get out there and achieve something.

-And for those that aren't the little girls, there's women that can go, Hey, I can coach too.

Because I know when I was growing up playing sports, we didn't have very many.

I had two that I can count, coaches that were women, out of all the coaches I've had.

So for them, for people coming in and asking, Oh, this woman just coached into a WNBA champion on her first year?

Like, come on.

It's just great for all women, all boys, all girls that are growing up to see this happen.

-Well, while you talk about that, the boys, why is it important for men to see this too?

-Oh.

Well, So that women can.

-So that women can.

There's no can't, you know?

And I think it just proves a lot of theories that a lot of men have that it's (A) not a real sport, or they're not really out there, High school teams can take these women on basketball.

No.

These are skilled professional players with a skilled professional coach behind them and a whole bench and team and organization that is paying these women what they-- I mean, I feel like they should be absolutely paid more.

We'll talk about that more.

-We're going to talk more about pay.

-Yes.

-Let's talk about-- Well, the first major league pro sports team in Las Vegas was the Vegas Golden Knights.

And in their inaugural season, they reached the Stanley Cup Final.

And there was a big deal made about, This will be the first major league team to win a title in Las Vegas.

Are the Aces getting the same amount of recognition for this accomplishment?

-Of course not.

Of course not.

Unfortunately, no.

I do believe there was a great coverage of the parade or the celebration, the rally.

But leading up to it, yeah, there were some events that-- Leading up to the Stanley Cup Finals, there was, you know, the Statue of Liberty was donned in a jersey, and everybody's colors of lights were, black and gold and, you know, Vegas Golden Knights colors.

And there was so much going on for them.

And here it's kind of like, Well, we're having a rally; we're having a celebration.

But we didn't see that same stuff to happen throughout the county.

We didn't see it through the whole city, kind of what were the other companies doing or other, you know, establishments doing to help support and celebrate that.

-Yeah.

That was a big miss.

I think it wasn't until they were called out that they posted a congratulatory.

-You're talking about the Vegas Golden Knights?

-The Vegas Golden Knights, yeah.

And to what we were discussing before, you go on their Instagram page, and you see UNLV athletics has acknowledged these girls and their sports teams, the Lights and other local teams, but nothing from the Knights until it was a tweet about their congratulatory.

So I thought that was kind of interesting.

And I know the city rallied behind an anomaly, because that is an anomaly to have a first board franchise out of Vegas go to the Stanley Cup Finals, not once but twice.

They didn't make it, but that is something that doesn't happen in other NHL leagues.

And I don't know if it's gonna happen again with us, but I think if one is not winning, then we need to support the ones that are.

We're all one, you know?

And I just feel like that needs to be a bridge that needs to definitely kind of-- That gap needs to be bridged together in some kind of way where they need to kind of link up, because you see the attitudes of fans for the Golden Knights, because they were just so upset that this was not them.

And I don't understand it because we're all in the same community of Vegas.

-Are there people who do not believe the WNBA to be a major league?

-Oh, yeah.

-Oh, yeah.

-We get those comments throughout our posts on social media and, Why would we even want to watch women play basketball?

I'm sorry, did you see the Seattle Storm and the Las Vegas Aces series?

That was probably some of the best basketball I've seen this year.

-Right.

-Like, amazing.

And I think, unfortunately-- -More competitive than the final.

-Most definitely, most definitely.

And sometimes it takes a person to see something like that or to be at a parade to think, You know what?

Maybe this is when I start becoming a fan.

That's fine.

Become a fan whenever you can, but support and become that fan because this is our city now; and this is where we're supporting.

-And actually, you had that.

I did see that two-fold in that celebration.

You had people that weren't Aces fans that actually got on board and said, You know what?

They're the real deal.

I'm getting some merchandise.

I've seen that.

I've seen now.

And then we've seen sell-out arenas at Michelob Ultra leading up to this monumental moment.

I mean, the arena was completely electric, it was sold out.

I mean, the fans are showing up.

Tickets were very reasonable, very reasonable; whereas, the Golden Knight tickets, you know, they're priced a lot higher because of the success that that league has had.

So it kind of boxes out some people that may not be able to afford to go but still secretly rally behind it.

You didn't get that with the Aces.

That was so weird to me.

-There was discussion about WNBA pay, and had it-- if it were better, Brittney Griner would have never been in Russia playing.

-Right.

-She would have just stayed here and made enough money here.

-Right.

-She's now stuck there.

She's in prison.

And it is a very scary situation for these women who are going to be traveling in Europe now.

What is the pay rate like?

What's the discrepancy still between WNBA and NBA?

-Well, you got to look at the history of NBA.

It's been around for 76 years to our WNBA, 26 years.

You're looking at now the growth of recognizing WNBA and seeing it on a national stage.

They have to build up sponsorships.

Diana Taurasi, Jewel Loyd, Breanna Stewart are probably the three top highest paid.

And that's only at 200,000 plus salary, compared to a Steph Curry who's getting the 84 million with Golden State and then the endorsement deal with Under Armour.

That's slated to be a billion if he wanted it.

It's huge.

I mean, that's-- It's unreal.

It's almost unrealistic.

And we talk about the travel and what they have to go through, flying commercial as opposed to flying private.

I mean, there are a lot of things that we still have to work on to get these women the respect and the earned respect through their pay that they deserve.

And like I said, it is a young franchise; and we talk about this because 26 years seems like it's something, but it's still small.

So I think once this recognition of the team winning, I think endorsements will come, I think more representation will come from sponsorships, from local support, national support.

I mean, they're really on the world stage.

If Barack Obama can send out a tweet to these Aces, I think everybody's eyes are now opening to that.

-We just gotta give it a little bit more time.

But of course the thing is, people always ask, Why aren't they getting paid more?

Well, are you buying merchandise?

-Right.

-Are you buying tickets?

How are you supporting the women to get those salaries?

That money doesn't just come out of nowhere.

-Yeah, that's true.

-We've got to be able to put the revenue in too.

So if we're buying knickknacks here and there for other teams, why can't we buy it for the team that's won the championship?

-Yeah.

-Last question, about Becky Hammon.

She became the highest paid coach in the WNBA with a $1 million per year salary.

What is the threat of her leaving to perhaps the NBA?

-Mo talks about borrowed time.

"We're on borrowed time with her."

I mean, she's had the experience with the NBA and has done so well, like you mentioned in the summer league with the Spurs, but it's, you know, who knows how long we have her for?

We'll take it for as long as we can.

If she wants to stay here and give us five championships.

-Yeah.

-I mean, the ladies in the celebration all mentioned, Hey, we're coming back next year.

We'll be here every year doing the same thing.

We're all for it.

And if Becky wants to stay with that, that's great.

But, you know, I think she does deserve to have a shot and be that first woman head coach for the NBA.

-And so if she were to leave, then it would be something.

It'd be bittersweet.

-It would definitely be bittersweet, and it would be tough shoes to fill.

-Yeah.

-Huge bench, huge shoes to fill.

Don't know where the players would go from there.

Don't know if it would be a dismantling of them, or if they decide to choose other franchises.

We just don't know.

But to Mel mentioning the borrowed time, that is pretty much what we're on.

But I look forward to seeing them back to back and back to back, and these girls.

-Listen to Girl Chat Sports .

Thank you so much.

-Thank you.

-Thank you for having us.

-From sports to the arts now.

Clark County and the City of Las Vegas want to know how big of an economic impact their arts and culture scenes have.

That's why they're taking part in Arts and Economic Prosperity 6, the sixth national study by Americans for the Arts.

And here to explain that study are Mickey Sprott, Public Art Supervisor with Clark County Parks and Recreation, and Sarah O'Connell with Eat More Art!

Vegas.

Ladies, thank you for joining us.

Sarah, quickly, what is Eat More Art!

Vegas?

And what is your role in relation to this study?

(Sarah O'Connell) Eat More Art!

Vegas is a platform for the local arts and culture community.

It's run by the community for the community.

And it's where people can learn about local arts, whether you're a practitioner or just a member of the public.

-Okay.

And then how are you taking part in this study?

-Well, we're working with the City of Las Vegas specifically to help make sure that the participation with surveys is fully successful.

So we're doing a lot of outreach in coordination with the City to administer the study.

-So the City of Las Vegas has contracted you-- -Yes.

- --to implement this study?

And you are doing it for Clark County, Mickey?

(Mickey Sprott) Correct.

-How does this study work?

-So with the study, there's a couple different facets that are happening.

One of them is identifying all the nonprofits that are identified as an arts company--yeah, as a company--that is delivering arts to our community.

So we're identifying that list.

We're getting in touch with these nonprofits to have them help us roll out these surveys during their cultural events.

So then the survey focuses on questions about, Hey, you've come to this event.

How much money have you spent?

What are the things that you did today in preparation of coming to this event?

You know, a dinner and a performance goes hand in hand, right?

So people are spending money.

We know they're going out to dinner.

They're, you know, paying for public parking.

Maybe they bought a new outfit for the special occasion.

Then they go, they buy the tickets to actually go to the performance, and then maybe they have dessert afterwards.

If they have children, they're paying for the babysitters in the end.

And then you think on the production side.

That's clothing, that's printing, that's so much local money being spent.

So that's what the survey is about.

-And that money also is being spent to put on the production.

-Yes.

-So this survey seeks to find out what people who are going to the events are spending.

But then there's the other aspect of spending as well.

Do you mind talking a little bit more about that?

-Sure.

This is really about quantifying the economic impact of arts and culture in our communities.

And what we've learned over the years in previous studies is that it's over 4% of our GDP, which is larger than transportation.

And that's with numbers that have data that isn't always counted correctly.

So what we're doing with this study is we're looking at all the different places where we don't normally count, and we're catching them.

So we're catching the nonprofit organizations, we're catching libraries, we're catching educational institutions.

It's a lot of places that provide arts and culture that we might not think of as cash drivers; but actually, in a place like Las Vegas, everything we do drives on gatherings like that.

-So GDP, you mean here in Nevada, or-- -Nevada and nationwide.

Nevada's GDP for arts and culture, creative economy, is larger than that of mining?

-Wow.

-And nationwide, it's larger than that of transportation and things in agriculture in some cases.

So this is about the new century, the new industrial revolution; and that's all about the creative economy.

-And why are we making the distinction in this study with nonprofit as opposed to-- So I'm assuming Cirque performances on the Strip are not going to be counted?

-No.

While we are going to get a list of for-profits as well from the Americans for the Arts, the focus is on nonprofits.

We're-- As Clark County, we're a local government agency.

We want to partner with nonprofits.

Nonprofits are typically the places that are getting government funding.

And so there's that focus there.

They're also the people that are also bringing in revenues right back to the government, and it's the revenue that stayed within our community.

So it's just important to focus down.

And then, you know, the reality is, is if you start looking at arts so globally, that's almost-- All jobs have it.

Everything around us is arts.

It's creative from seeing where trees are planted; that's a creative landscape architect.

So we want to whittle it down a bit.

-Will you be using this data to help convince people who are perhaps confused by why tax dollars are spent on public art?

-Well, that's-- That's one of the main points is to meet people where they're at.

And if you're a creative person, you understand your world.

But from the outside looking in, the word "art" can be terrifying to someone who considers themselves not an artist.

But everyone is creative.

If you learned to tie your shoes, you learned how to turn vision into reality in a complicated way.

And what artists do is they professionalize that and they monetize that.

And our "nonprofit" arts sector does not mean that it's not professional.

It just means that everything that the organization might earn goes back into the work, as opposed to some stock broker or something.

So when we are talking about measuring our nonprofit arts communities, we're talking about the small business community that is never counted but is very important.

And if we understood that aspect of our small business community, then we would better diversify the economy for the state based on our endemic forces.

The people who are already entrepreneurs, which are largely creative, we wouldn't be overlooking them.

We would be fueling their fire and growing from the inside out, instead of importing from the outside in.

-Quickly, what are the nonprofit arts we're talking about?

Could you give me some examples?

-Yeah.

You know, it's anywhere.

Obviously local entities is one of our stakeholders.

We're the local entity.

And then we're looking at places like libraries.

We're looking at the museums, professional associations, or you think of like German American Club, right?

Those things that are nonprofits are part of arts and culture.

And even PBS is part of our stakeholder group.

-All right.

I think this is getting you fired up when we talk about job creation and the role in the economy.

The Las Vegas Global Economic Alliance, which is a public-private partnership, listed the creative industries as one of its target industries, saying, quote, While the gaming, tourism, and hospitality industries were the historical pull factors that attracted creative workers, Southern Nevada has established itself as a hub for creative talent beyond the Strip.

So they're acknowledging that this is an economic force to be dealt with.

But then when I go onto the governor's website for economic development among their key industries, this is not mentioned.

Why do you believe that is?

-Well, up until this point, there hadn't necessarily been a level of leadership dedicated to the advancement of the sector and explaining it to people.

But Eat More Art was founded seven years ago to try to shift the paradigm and build partnerships so that people in the public arena could better understand how we are partnering on the nonprofit side.

That has beared fruit.

I was actually in conversations at some of the higher levels.

The conversations are leaning toward including the creative industries into Nevada's bigger picture.

So I would say that we have made positive progress, and seeing the Economic Alliance finally acknowledge it is a positive step to reinforce that.

-Mickey, could you give me an example of a piece of public art that has been beneficial economically that perhaps county leaders had no idea?

-Yeah.

So Seven Magic Mountains came in quite a few years ago at this point.

And I don't think we knew how successful that would be.

So it was the Nevada State Arts Museum that funded it, brought it out to Vegas, and it's really far away from the Strip, you know?

It's a travel.

But as it came out and as the world found out about these pieces being here, you see more and more tourists coming to that site to take a look.

And so when you're there, there's even-- I've seen food trucks there because there's been so many people.

You're there and you start hearing different languages.

So, you know, we know that tourism and the arts go hand in hand, and people will travel specifically to a city to see those arts.

So Seven Magic Mountains is a wonderful way to see that.

-I'd like to add that that's a two-way street because a local artist by the name of Jason Favela, he's a-- He does a lot of visual art, and he's very successful.

And he's from here.

He created his own reaction to that exhibit on the East Side with tires that were painted the same as the rocks, and they got new tourists.

-Oh, my gosh.

Well, that is wonderful.

Ladies, thank you so much for joining this discussion.

And speaking of the study, audiences at the UNLV Performing Arts Center may be asked to complete the Arts and Economic Prosperity survey.

That is where Vegas PBS held the Vegas PBS night for Zephyr-A Whirlwind of Circus , the performance benefiting the local economy and UNLV students.

With a windmill at center stage, Zephyr-A Whirlwind of Circus explores humanity's relationship with wind, says Cirque Mechanics' founder, Chris Lashua.

(Chris Lashua) It goes back like 4,000 years, which is absolutely crazy.

But somewhere along the line we, humanity, kind of lost faith in that idea.

And we thought we could do better with other technologies, industrial revolution, internal combustion, electricity, all of these things.

And we've tried that out, right?

And in some ways now in the past 10 years, five years, we're trying to-- we're re-exploring all these things and saying, Wow, wait a minute.

These things like wind-- solar is newer, but wind-- maybe we should re-explore that relationship.

-And our relationship with art is also worth exploring, says Lori Cobo, Executive Director of the UNLV Performing Arts Center.

(Lori Cobo) I think that there are misconceptions out there as to the value that arts contributes to the communities that it supports, not only in terms of the number of jobs that it provides, but also the economic impact that it gives back to the community in dollars, whether it be ticket sales, whether it be expenses to other businesses.

If you take Cirque Mechanics, we had to go and rent a lift for the week to be able to focus all the lighting changes that happened on the sidelight.

You have to purchase gel for all the lighting instruments.

You have to purchase cabling if you don't have enough.

You have to rent audio equipment if the sound system isn't what they asked for.

Us being a good community partner in terms of supporting our local businesses is substantial.

-The partnership between UNLV and Cirque Mechanics serves UNLV students as well with hands-on experience.

-We had the university Technical Direction students helping with load-in.

We're now doing a class with the Entertainment Engineering and Design students.

They're doing another class on Wednesday next week with the Department of Theatre.

They're doing another class on Thursday with the Department of Dance.

-Like most things, you really learn so much on your feet.

And so we can share a lot about the nuts and bolts of what it really means to do the thing, the craft that they're studying in the real world.

-Lashua began his craft with Cirque du Soleil before branching out to create his own Las Vegas based company, Cirque Mechanics.

Combining acrobats with engineering, he exemplifies turning a passion into a career.

-I think that's hopefully inspirational to people who maybe aren't sure, Should I do that thing?

People are saying, like, maybe that's not the best career choice.

And for us, it's like, Oh, my God.

Wow, I hate hearing that because circus is definitely not the best career choice I could have made, but it's the one I made and I love it, you know?

I wouldn't change it for the world.

-Lashua said he hopes that last bit provides a bit of inspiration for us all.

And for all of you watching, thank you for joining us for Nevada Week.

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

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