Las Vegas, the city of gambling also wants to be a capital of sports

Endless casinos, luxury hotels, shows, music, gambling and fun 24 hours a day. Las Vegas has been America’s favorite playground for decades, but now it’s not just a gambling city, it wants to be a sports capital of the world as well.

In recent years, Las Vegas has made a big and unreserved bet on hosting mega sporting events. Thus, this February it became the first city in history to host two All-Stars at the same time: the NFL Pro Bowl and the NHL All-Star game.

Las Vegas has also played its cards to attract top-level franchises, something it has recently achieved with the NHL’s Vegas Golden Knights (created in 2017), the NFL’s Las Vegas Raiders (arrived in 2020 from Oakland) and Las Vegas. WNBA Vegas Aces (landed in 2018 from San Antonio).

Two milestones have crowned the idyll between Las Vegas and sports.

On the one hand, the inauguration in 2020 of the Allegiant Stadium, a splendid stadium with a capacity for 65,000 spectators that is the home of the Raiders and that last year hosted the Gold Cup final between Mexico and the United States.

And on the other, the celebration of the Super Bowl in 2024 precisely at the Allegiant Stadium, the first time that the great NFL party will take place in Nevada (USA).

Entertainment at the service of sport

“Laying out the red carpet for millions of visitors is what we do every day in Las Vegas.” This is how Mary Beth Sewald, president and CEO of the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce, summed up why her city is the perfect place to host huge sporting events.

“Las Vegas, like no other city on the planet, knows how to make these special events. We have the hotel capacity, incredible venues and a wide range of services along the Strip”, he said in reference to the famous avenue that crosses the city and that concentrates the vast majority of leisure options.

Something similar was said by H. Fletch Brunelle, vice president of marketing for the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, who put numbers behind his arguments. “With more than 150,000 hotel rooms, more than 1.3 million square meters of meeting and event space, and a variety of state-of-the-art venues, Las Vegas is the ideal city to host the world’s biggest sporting events,” he said.

In addition, Fletch stressed that the reliability of Las Vegas to host gigantic acts is more than proven by his experience, for example, with the technology fair CES. Even the Grammys, the biggest music party on the planet, will change its usual venue in Los Angeles for Las Vegas this year.

Regarding sports, a fundamental aspect, according to Sewald, is that Las Vegas “considers it as a part of the entertainment business”, that is, as one more component of its DNA.

That is why it is remarkable that he had not previously put his chips into sports with the exception of boxing, since Las Vegas has been synonymous with top-level fighting for a long time. It should also not be forgotten that the mixed martial arts UFC is headquartered in Las Vegas.

“The sports of the major leagues (NBA, NFL, MLB and NHL) were the only entertainment option that Las Vegas was missing,” admitted Sewald, who defended that they have recently grown as a “sports city” by turning games and events in “entertainment experiences”.

However, it is one thing to host large events on an occasional basis and another to be the home of sports franchises.

In this sense, Fletch pointed out that the passion that the Golden Knights, the Raiders and the Aces have aroused “has certainly alleviated any concern that the local fans would not support professional sports.”

In this way, in recent times rumors have increased about a possible landing of the NBA in Las Vegas, with a new team as part of an expansion of the league (the name of LeBron James has sounded like a possible investor); and also from the MLB, with a move from the Oakland Athletics in the spotlight.

In the case of the NBA, it would be a logical step in the relationship between the league and the city, since Las Vegas already held the All-Star in 2007 and is also home to the preseason Summer League.

“Las Vegas is one of the ‘top’ brands in the world and leagues are seeing the advantage of capitalizing on the energy that only Las Vegas brings,” Sewald said.

Finally, Fletch was optimistic about the sporting horizon of the city of the game.

“We are always looking for opportunities to bring high-profile events to Las Vegas, and with the addition of Allegiant Stadium and the recovery underway in the travel industry, the future of sports in Las Vegas is incredibly bright.”