Vol. 3, No. 2 February 2007
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The Big Leagues
But what gets lost in the shuffle is Las Vegas already has an impressive stable of professional sporting events. The city is home to the Los Angeles Dodgers’ Triple-A affiliate, the 51s; the Arena Football League’s Gladiators, with their new quarterback Shaun King; and the East Coast Hockey League’s Wranglers. Las Vegas also is home to a number of title fights, the Ultimate Fighting Championship, the National Finals Rodeo in December, a PGA Tour stop in October and the World Series of Poker in June. There is some debate as to whether poker is a sport, but there is a group pushing for its inclusion as part of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing.
Sure, the talent-level for the minor league teams isn’t as high as it is for their major league counterparts, but that doesn’t make the games any less competitive or exciting; and watching poker in person can be less exciting than watching paint dry. For those who crave that fast and furious excitement major league sports provide, well, it comes to town every March when the NASCAR Nextel and Busch series drivers come to town.
NASCAR is the fastest growing sport in the country in terms of popularity, and its fans are some of the most committed, die-hard fans of all. They need no extra encouragement to follow their favorite drivers around the country, but when the race comes to Las Vegas, the lure is too strong for most. Hotel rooms are booked a year in advance, and casino floors and the Strip sidewalks become cluttered with throngs of people wearing team jackets and spending money like poets on payday. According to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, NASCAR weekend generated $197 million in revenue for state and local coffers last year—in addition to hundreds of thousands of dollars for local charities—and this year is expected to top that.
But the race also brings the excitement and entertainment of professional sports so many Las Vegas locals crave. NASCAR fans know how to have a good time, and there is no limit to the entertainment value that comes when 160,000 of them gather in a city like Las Vegas. Anyone doubting the excitement surrounding this event should enter our giveaway this month (page 37) for a chance to win two tickets to the Las Vegas Motor Speedway for the time trials and testing runs on Friday, the Sam’s Town 300 Busch Series race on Saturday and the UAW DaimlerChrysler 400 Nextel Series race on Sunday.
Of course, as the city continues to grow, there no doubt will be an ever-strengthening push to land an NFL, NBA, NHL or MLB franchise. This likely will remain an uphill battle, with league commissioners being adamantly—and hypocritically—opposed to locating any team in a jurisdiction that allows sports betting. It was something of a coup that city leaders were able to land the NBA All Star game, considering NBA Commissioner David Stern’s opposition to sports wagering. The NFL is worse than the NBA when it comes to gambling—the league goes so far as to prohibit the national airing of tourism ads for Las Vegas during the Super Bowl.
Until the day comes when league commissioners learn that sports wagering poses no threat to the integrity of their product, we should consider ourselves lucky to have the caliber of events we do. We have world-class facilities in places like the Thomas and Mack, Orleans Arena and Las Vegas Motor Speedway, and world-class events with NASCAR weekend, the NBA All Star game and PGA Tour stop. These events do more than generate money for our local and state economies; they also bring publicity and excitement to our city. There is never a shortage of things to do in Las Vegas, in part because we already have a good number of professional sporting events
