Las Vegas, a city once known for its underworld origins, dazzling neon signs, and 24/7 party atmosphere, is now something else, the unexpected epicenter of American sports. . The arrival of the NFL, Formula 1 racing, the National Hockey League, WNBA, and soon Major League Baseball turned Sin City into a sports city. There, fans will be able to watch some of the country's greatest professional athletes and still have time to watch several games at the same time. stake.
New York City, Boston, and Chicago are home to legendary sports teams and fan bases, but the number of people who book trips to Vegas to watch live sporting events is lower, according to Las Vegas Convention and Las Vegas Convention. From 2022 onwards, the number will triple to more than 2 million people each year. Visitor permissions. “Fans will come to see their team play and then extend their stay to enjoy concerts, shopping, dining, golf and more,” said Steve Hill, CEO and President of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Bureau (LVCVA). points out.
Just last month, F1 took over the Strip for the second Las Vegas Grand Prix, with Mercedes' George Russell winning Saturday night's race. In February, the Kansas City Chiefs defeated the San Francisco 49ers 25-22 in a thrilling overtime game at Allegiant Stadium to win Super Bowl V. It was the first time the NFL's signature game, the most-watched television event in the United States each year, was held in Las Vegas. Tourism officials said the game had an estimated $1 billion economic impact on the region.
According to ticket resale giant StubHub, last February's Super Bowl was the site's best-selling Super Bowl since 2020. The average ticket price was $8,400, with some seats selling for as much as $22,907. The 2023 Las Vegas Grand Prix was StubHub's highest-selling F1 race. [2023] It was one of the top 10 annual grossing sporting events worldwide in 2023,” said StubHub spokesperson Joseph Bocanegra.
Few cities are more ideal for hosting big events like the Super Bowl or Formula 1 than Las Vegas. With approximately 151,000 hotel rooms, the city can accommodate a large number of people. Not only that, but football stadiums, hockey and basketball arenas, and a Formula 1 track are all within walking distance of the Vegas Strip. Raiders fans don't have to endure the same grueling commutes as Giants and Jets fans on the East Coast. “Las Vegas is in a category when it comes to hosting. [large-scale] It’s an event,” Hill says.
Aside from hotel rooms, the hotels that dot the Vegas Strip know how to throw parties for their wealthy guests who attend events like the Super Bowl and F1. After the Chiefs' big win last February, Taylor Swift and boyfriend Travis Kelce celebrated at Zouk Nightclub at Resorts World Las Vegas. During the Super Bowl, the hotel ensured that those in town for the game could immerse themselves in related activities. “You have to think about activating the entire campus or the entire property,” said Ron Nicoli, chief marketing officer for Resorts World Las Vegas.
Las Vegas is no stranger to reinvention. In the 1990s, kitschy-themed hotels such as Luxor and Excalibur opened, giving the city a more family-friendly image. That didn't last long, ushering in the era of “What happens in Las Vegas, stays in Las Vegas,” as the city did its best to enjoy its hedonistic reputation 24/7. Now it's all about sports.
Hosting F1 in 2023 means Las Vegas can target wealthy racing spectators from around the world who flock to see racing greats like Lewis Hamilton. Demand for this year's race weekend remained strong, with more than 300,000 fans in attendance. Attendees purchased tickets ranging from general admission seats for $150 to paddock club passes for up to $45,000. Last year's race was StubHub's best-selling F1 race in the world this year.
To give you an idea of how much money is at stake, the average F1 fan spends about $4,100 during race week in Las Vegas. The average Las Vegas visitor typically spends about $1,200 per trip. The Las Vegas F1 race was expected to have an economic impact of $1.5 billion for the local area.
The Vegas Grand Prix's 6.8-mile course incorporated a portion of the Strip, offering free advertising for the city's bright lights and large casinos as it passed iconic properties such as the Bellagio, Caesars Palace, and the Venetian. The Las Vegas Grand Prix is also the only F1 race held at night in North America. “No other city can host events like Las Vegas. It's in our DNA,” says LVCVA's Hill.
Sports have always been a big part of the Las Vegas scene. For decades, Nevada was the only state in the United States where you could legally bet on sporting events. As a result, making the pilgrimage to watch and gamble on major sporting events such as the Super Bowl and the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament has become a rite of passage for sports enthusiasts.
But for a long time, you could only watch the game on TV at one of the many sports betting sites in Las Vegas. Leagues like the MLB, NHL, NBA, and especially the NFL wanted their teams and games to stay away from cities for fear of gambling getting too close to the games. When casino owners George and Joe Malouf owned the Sacramento Kings, the NBA prohibited their property, the Palms Resort Casino, from betting on professional basketball games.
NBA commissioner Adam Silver changed his tune in 2014, declaring that sports betting should be “bred out of the basement and into the sunlight where it can be properly monitored and regulated.” In 2018, the Supreme Court struck down the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA), which effectively made sports betting illegal outside of Nevada. This decision opened the floodgates for the legal sports betting industry to take advantage of. nearly $120 billion Last year, legal sports betting was wagered.
The staggering amount of money at stake particularly caught the attention of major sports leagues. Currently, you can't watch an NFL game without being bombarded with ads from legal sports betting apps.
Once the gambling guardrails came down, so did the fear of sports teams setting up shop in Las Vegas. Las Vegas' first major professional sports franchise, the Las Vegas Golden Knights, debuted as an expansion franchise in 2018 and quickly found success. They reached the Stanley Cup Final in their first season and won the Cup in 2023. The city is embracing the Knights. The production value of the pregame show is more akin to a Broadway show than a hockey game. Fans from 49 different states are purchasing tickets to Golden Knights home games on StubHub this season, more than any other team in the NHL.
As popular as hockey is in the desert, Las Vegas' rise as America's premier sports city can be traced back to 2020, when the Oakland Raiders officially moved home. Owner Mark Davis happily put the team together and rebranded it the Raiders. Las Vegas Raiders. Why not? He got a brand new stadium with a permanent dome and plenty of luxury suites to accommodate High Roller fans.
When I visited Allegiant Stadium in October to watch the Raiders play the Pittsburgh Steelers, the stadium was packed with 65,000 fans, at least half of whom traveled from out of town to support the Steelers. According to StubHub, the number of visitors was The best-selling NFL game on the company's platform so far this season.
“Since the Raiders moved to Las Vegas in 2020, the Raiders have been a top 10 team for us every year and are second only to the Cowboys in ticket sales,” StubHub's Bocanegra said. This season, 89% of all Raiders tickets sold on the site have come from out-of-state buyers, more than any other team.
Located within walking distance of the Mandalay Bay Hotel casino, Allegiant Stadium is now as popular as the Bellagio Fountains. LVCVA's Hill said the stadium was key to Las Vegas' rise as a major sports city. “The construction of Allegiant Stadium was transformative for Las Vegas,” he says. “Not only have we provided a venue that can host an NFL team, the Super Bowl, international soccer, and a Taylor Swift concert, but other world-class leagues and events like Formula 1 and the National Rugby League also want to come to Las Vegas. Now it's like that.''
Las Vegas' status as a premier sports city still has plenty of room to grow. The former Oakland A's team is scheduled to come to town in 2028. The team will play in a brand new 33,000-seat domed stadium being built on the Strip on the site of the former Tropicana Las Vegas hotel. But the NBA might beat the A's all the way to Town. The league is reportedly considering an expansion plan that could put a team in Las Vegas as early as 2027.
“With the addition of the A-Team and, in the future, NBA and MLS teams, this will become one of the country's sports hubs,” said Resorts World's Nicoli. “If I had said that 20 years ago, everyone would have looked at me like I was crazy. But now I think it's true.”
