Las Vegas Continues to Win, Now in Pro Sports

Las Vegas, Nevada is absolutely winning when it comes to being home to professional sports teams. While leagues, owners and fans may have been skeptical in the past about how teams could be supported in Sin City, the immediate success of the past 6 years should lessen those doubts. On June 13, 2023, the city won its second championship in as many years with the Vegas Golden Knights winning the Stanley Cup after the Las Vegas Aces won the 2022 WNBA Championship. Fans have shown that the NHL’s gamble to open an expansion team in their city was the right move and with a first Big 4 championship coming to the city in just six years - just as owner Bill Foley promised - Las Vegas continues to win. 

There are currently three professional sports teams in Las Vegas with the NHL’s Golden Knights, NFL’s Raiders, and WNBA’s Aces. In a matter of a couple years, the MLB’s Oakland A’s could also be on the move after their ownership group had their stadium plans approved this past week. Clearly team owners and league executives have noticed the early success of teams like the Golden Knights with rumors of both the NBA and MLS looking to expand there as well. Both current and former superstar players have also joined in on the business side for teams. Future Hall of Fame NFL quarterback, Tom Brady, has joined the Las Vegas Raiders and Las Vegas Aces as a minority owner. NBA superstar LeBron James has also expressed his interest to join an ownership group, should the NBA expand into Las Vegas stating, “I would love to at some point down the road own an NBA franchise and be able to bring a winning franchise to a city - Vegas is a really cool city and doing some really great things in sports these days.”

Part of Las Vegas’ success has been the location of their arenas and stadiums. The Raiders and Golden Knights both play just a block off The Strip, surrounded by hotels, casinos, restaurants, and nightlife. They are perfectly located for tourists to get to games with ease. The land that the Oakland Athletics have purchased is a 49 acre lot, also right off The Strip, creating a corner of professional sport facilities by Tropicana Ave. and Las Vegas Fwy. While some professional sport franchises can struggle due to their location not being in the heart of their downtown, Vegas is all in on putting their venues in prime locations for fans.

In the past, leagues had major concerns about having their teams in Las Vegas due to the prevalence of legal sports gambling which at the time inside the USA and Canada, was unavailable. All four major sports leagues (NFL, NHL, NBA, MLB) had strict anti-gambling policies. Without any league personnel being allowed to have any engagement in sports gambling, there could be no way to realistically host a team in Las Vegas. In recent years, states and provinces have started to relax their rules on sports gambling, signing sponsorship deals with betting companies like FanDuel and BetMGM. This opened the door for the NHL to take the first leap of faith and expand to Las Vegas with their 31st team. Soon after and with the success that the Golden Knights had in their first year, the WNBA’s Aces followed in 2018 and the NFL’s Raiders joined in 2020. 

There are still questions that remain for the Las Vegas professional sports scene. Where single events such as Boxing, MMA, WWE, NASCAR and soon to be F1 in November, 2023 have done tremendously well in Las Vegas, there hasn't been any real proof that franchises could maintain long term success in such a big tourist destination. One could look at the success that performers have, maintaining residencies for many years, continuing to sell out events but oftentimes, these are attended by fans once. For a sports team to be successful, they need repeat customers and season ticket holders. Also, how will these teams fare when they inevitably have to go through a rebuild or have a poor season? 

Current and future team owners consistently talk about the positives and at this point, it’s hard to see why they shouldn’t. In just six years, Las Vegas has proven to be a great sports town. As long as teams can keep residents engaged and out of towners making games a must hit, they should continue to grow and create incredible story lines, just like this year's Stanley Cup Champions, the Vegas Golden Knights.