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For the first time since the early days of the pandemic, no cars were driving on Las Vegas Blvd. But the scene was very different this April than in those quiet days two years earlier.

Instead of empty streets, thousands of T-shirt-clad fans and workers filled the Strip, hitting the Bellagio and Caesars Palace. The 2022 NFL Draft was an announcement that Vegas was coming back, and it also served as proof that the city could handle a large-scale event for America’s biggest sports league.

“I talked to Roger Goodell three or four times since the draft, and he was surprised at how well it went,” Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak said in an interview with The Athletic in May. “He says, ‘It was better than perfect.’

Once more taboo in the sports world, Sin City is now home to the Golden Knights, Aces and Raiders, one of the NFL’s most iconic franchises. Vegas will host the Super Bowl at Allegiant Stadium in 2024, an idea that once seemed almost impossible for a city that not so long ago was a professional sports reject.

“I moved here in 1985 and I honestly never thought there would be professional sports here in Las Vegas,” said Jeff Stoneback, director of sports betting operations for MGM Resorts International.

But through decades of trade deals, red tape and shifts in public perception, Vegas has transformed from a wasteland to a sprawling sports metropolis. And he hasn’t finished growing yet.

In 1984, then-Utah Jazz owner Sam Battistone considered moving the team to Las Vegas, so he planned a split home schedule with a handful of games at Thomas & Mack Center.

There was a catch. The NBA wanted sportsbooks to take Jazz games off the board when they were in town. Sports betting took a step back. When it became clear that the NBA wasn’t going to come any other way, they caved.

“The sports betting community came together and universally said, ‘OK, we’ll do it as a favor.’ We don’t like it. We don’t think that’s right. But to get the Jazz here, we’re going to take the games off the board,’” said 8NewsNow anchor Ron Futrell, who has covered sports in the city since 1984.

“But I also got the impression that it was, Never again, too, from the sports betting community: No, we won’t take it. And of course, they never did it again.”

Other than hosting Game 4 of the first-round series between the Lakers and the Blazers after the 1992 Los Angeles riots, the NBA did not have a major presence in Las Vegas until the inaugural Summer League in ‘NBA in 2004. Former mayor Oscar Goodman pushed to get the NBA All- 2007. Star Game in Las Vegas, but the weekend went badly, with more than 400 people arrested. The Summer League was held, but it was clear that it was going to be that way.

The NBA’s stance illustrated a broader trend: Major professional sports leagues flirted with Las Vegas, but were unwilling to commit.

Still, the flirtations were central to the final breakthrough. In 1997, the NHL launched an annual preseason contest called the “Frozen Fury” between the Los Angeles Kings and Colorado Avalanche at the MGM Grand Garden Arena. The event regularly sold out and brought an influx of tourists to the city, along with significant sponsorship dollars, eventually becoming a week-long affair.

“And all of a sudden we were looking around and saying, ‘My God, the amount of people who want to come from Southern California and spend a three- or four-day weekend to go to a preseason hockey game.’ , said Oak View Group CEO Tim Leiweke, who helped direct Frozen Fury as president of Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG). “What does that tell you about Las Vegas?

“It’s not about the two or three million people who live there: it’s about the 50 million people who come.”

It wasn’t exactly a new idea. The late Las Vegas Sands founder Sheldon Adelson and current CEO Rob Goldstein, for example, raised money by building convention and exhibition spaces. Combined with the city’s existing hotel rooms and seemingly endless entertainment options, it made Vegas the ideal location for these events. Through the tourism that followed, conventions would dominate the city.

Major players in the world of sports business began to appear in Las Vegas as a legitimate market. And they became more optimistic about the ability to build state-of-the-art facilities.

In 2007, Leiweke and AEG entered into a partnership with Harrah’s Entertainment to build a 20,000-seat arena, with plans to break ground in 2008. That deal never materialized thanks in large part to bureaucratic gridlock , but in 2012 AEG formed a new partnership. with MGM Resorts International, which had devised a project that would rely solely on private financing for the estimated $375 million in construction costs. The association announced the plan in 2013, and in 2014 construction began on what would eventually be called T-Mobile Arena, built to meet NHL and NBA specifications.

“There was always a lot of momentum and chatter. I think the fact that we, along with our partners at AEG, took the leap to go ahead and build a state-of-the-art site helped,” said Dan Quinn, vice president of entertainment at MGM Resorts International and general manager of T. – Mobile Arena. “If another team had wanted to move here or talk about adding an expansion team here, the natural question would have been, ‘Well, where are they going to play?’

The arena solved that problem. Both AEG and MGM Resorts were confident it would be profitable just from concerts, boxing matches, UFC events and conventions, but as Leiweke noted, when it came to sports franchises, the venue was built on the concept of: “If you build it, they will come.”

Now, Vegas just needed one to bite.

The NHL had already been spicy. With a two-decade presence in Vegas thanks to the Frozen Fury, the league held talks with businessmen Bill Foley and George Maloof about leading a potential ownership group for an expansion team after construction began. Still, longtime NHL commissioner Gary Bettman was skeptical.

“It was unbelievable that we could sell so many tickets in the desert for hockey,” Sisolak said.

Foley was given the green light by the NHL to conduct a season ticket drive in December 2014 with a goal of 10,000 deposits. That mark was reached in April 2015, clearing Bettman’s doubts. In June 2016, two months after T-Mobile Arena opened, Foley’s bid was approved by a unanimous vote of NHL owners.

Major professional sports were in Las Vegas for the first time, but there was an even more massive change.

In July 2015, then-Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval created a committee to explore what it would take to build a 65,000-seat stadium large enough to attract a potential NFL franchise. The same month that T-Mobile Arena opened, the Raiders met with representatives from Las Vegas in one of the committee meetings to discuss their possible move from Oakland.

The biggest question was how the stadium would be financed. Raiders owner Mark Davis said he would contribute $500 million to the projected $1.84 billion cost, and Adelson, who at the time of his death in January 2021 had a net worth of about $40,000 million dollars, was on board to make a $650 million contribution of its own, but the project would still need significant public money. In September 2016, the committee approved a plan with $750 million funded by a hotel room tax increase.

“The biggest thing to get the community involved was the jobs,” said Sisolak, who was working on the Clark County Commission at the time. “We were coming out of a tough time: jobs were scarce, and it was a lot of permanent and construction jobs.”

Opponents argued that the money raised through the increased room tax would be better spent on public and social needs, according to LVSportzBiz founder Alan Snel, who covered the debate.

“This whole streak of building stadiums and stadiums (happened) against the backdrop of a market that is literally at the bottom of the country in terms of primary care physicians per capita, surgeons per capita , health and medical resources and … education and teachers,” Snel said. “Las Vegas for so many years refrained from subsidizing and supporting the sport with public money, and now it has both feet completely in the pool.”

After passing through committee, the plan had to go through the Nevada Legislature. It did, but not without controversy: One Republican lawmaker called the procedure “shameful” and a “stacked battle” after the bill was voted through the 42-seat state Assembly without first being debated.

Three months later, the Raiders officially filed relocation paperwork with the NFL.

“The NFL was the 900-pound gorilla,” Snel said. “And it certainly made Vegas big overnight.”

The city was still reeling from the deadliest mass shooting in American history as the Golden Knights began their inaugural season. On October 1, 2017, a gunman had opened fire on a crowd of people at a music festival from a room at the Mandalay Bay hotel, killing 58 people and wounding hundreds more.

Nine days later, after honoring the victims and first responders, the Golden Knights took to the ice at T-Mobile Arena amid banners with the hashtag #VegasStrong.

“The community has latched onto them,” Sisolak said. “They were very active in the community. They were in the schools and working with all the civic organizations. They really had a great presence here.”

A week later, the NBA and WNBA approved the sale of the San Antonio Stars to MGM Resorts, which moved the team to Las Vegas and renamed it the Aces. In just 16 months, three major sports franchises had chosen to make the city their new home.

And as it became clear that the Golden Knights were very good (they went 51-24-7 on their way to a Stanley Cup Final appearance), Vegas played sports in a way that he had done so since the days of the high flight. UNLV men’s basketball teams under Jerry Tarkanian.

“There was tremendous pride here when the Runnin’ Rebels won the national championship. This town was lit up. It was electric. You could feel it,” said Futrell, the 8NewsNow anchor. “I don’t feel like he came back until the first season of the Vegas Golden Knights.”

The official capacity for hockey games at T-Mobile Arena is 17,500, but the average attendance in the first season was 18,042. The city had grown something organically and embraced it as its own.

“I think he had a profound influence on everyday residents, literally buying their first sports equipment franchise,” Snel said. The Golden Knights “had great success.”

The Golden Knights were an immediate success, going 51-24-7 on their way to a Stanley Cup Final appearance in their first season. (Ethan Miller/Getty Images)

As recently as 2016, the NFL, NBA and MLB had joined forces to oppose challenges to the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act of 1992 (PASPA), which banned sports betting nationwide , excluding some states. They were concerned about the integrity of the game, but Nevada’s counter was that its gaming industry was as well regulated as anywhere else. The Raiders referenced a 2015 study by UNLV International Game Institute Executive Director Bo Bernhard in their proposed move to the NFL.

“Because the regulation of the game is so strict and so severe here, it’s one of the safest places to do it,” former Raiders president Marc Badain said. “It was attractive to us and to the NFL people. I think that played a big role in changing some people’s archaic beliefs and what the link was between sports betting and the sports teams themselves.”

The NFL agreed and on March 27, 2017, approved the Raiders’ relocation offer. With the league on board, Vegas had officially marked itself as a major sports market. “It’s the entertainment capital of the world,” Badain said. “And it’s becoming the sports and entertainment capital of the world.”

With the Aces playing their inaugural season and the Golden Knights entering Year 2, as well as the expansion of the USL Championship’s Lights FC, the Triple-A Las Vegas Aviators, UFC and boxing, the city continued to advance as a destination sports in 2018. But the most significant development that year came when the U.S. Supreme Court voted to strike down PASPA that May, opening the door to the legalization of gambling nationwide.

The same sports leagues that were so staunchly opposed to the proliferation of gambling a couple of years earlier began exploring ways to profit from it.

“When (PASPA) was repealed, everybody wanted to take advantage of it,” said Stoneback, director of sports betting trading operations at MGM Resorts International. Through fantasy leagues and sponsorship deals with sports betting, leagues and teams became directly involved in the industry. And with the influx of media coverage, more people began to participate.

“It’s become a lot more popular,” Stoneback said. “I remember when PASPA was repealed, people said, ‘Boy, this is going to hurt you in Nevada,’ but it’s only raised the stakes for us.”

This increase provided a new boost to the local economy that lasted until 2019, but growth stalled in early 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic brought the entire world to a standstill. The NFL had planned for Las Vegas to host the draft that April before the Raiders’ first season in the city, but was forced to postpone. And even though the NFL season would be played, Mark Davis chose not to allow fans to attend games at Allegiant Stadium. The Raiders’ show in Las Vegas was called off.

The Raiders were able to survive losing ticket sales for a season, but many others in an economy driven by tourism and hospitality weren’t so lucky. As of April 2020, the city’s unemployment rate had risen to 30 percent. And while that number dropped, there was still a troubling trend: From November 2019 to November 2020, unemployment in Las Vegas rose from 3.6% to 11.5%. Heading into 2021, the city needed a rebound in a big way.

Recovery was gradual. In March, the Golden Knights became the first local sports team to allow spectators back into the arena; in June they were at full capacity. The Aces allowed fans in May, and that August, the NFL officially debuted in front of fans when the Raiders held a game at Allegiant Stadium in front of about 20,000 people. The vision for Las Vegas’ evolution into a sports hub finally came together.

Through nine home games that season, the Raiders’ average attendance of 61,185 ranked just 26th in the league, but they brought in $119 million in net ticket revenue, according to Sportico. That money wasn’t funneled directly into the Las Vegas economy, but it still had an impact through tourism spending and stadium occupancy.

“He made a difference in the city’s recovery from the pandemic,” said Steve Hill, CEO and president of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. “The stadium has performed about twice as well as we had expected from a tourism and economic standpoint. … It will continue to grow that market.”

During the Raiders’ first season, the NFL announced that Vegas would host the Pro Bowl the following February, the NFL Draft months later and the Super Bowl in 2024, making it the first city to host all three events. The league granting its approval appears to have opened the door to other high-profile suitors, such as Formula 1, which will come to Las Vegas in 2023 for the first time since the 1980s.

But the NFL’s introduction to Las Vegas wasn’t all positive. Head coach Jon Gruden was forced to resign in October after his racist, misogynistic and homophobic emails were uncovered during the league’s employment misconduct investigation into the now-Washington Chiefs. And a number of issues raised concerns about the potential dangers of owning a franchise in Sin City.

On November 2, 2021, second-year wide receiver Henry Ruggs III, the 12th overall pick in the 2020 draft, was involved in a car accident that killed 23-year-old Tina Tintor and her dog. Las Vegas police later revealed that Ruggs was speeding on a residential road – 120 miles per hour at the time of the crash – and that his blood alcohol content was more than twice the legal limit hours later of the accident Ruggs was released by the Raiders and charged with multiple felonies, including DUI, resulting in death. He is currently awaiting trial.

Less than a week later, the team released cornerback Damon Arnette after a video surfaced on social media of him brandishing weapons and making threats to an unidentified person. Just over two months later, Arnette was arrested in Las Vegas on charges of assault with a deadly weapon, carrying a concealed weapon without a permit and drug possession.

The back-to-back nature of the events led to speculation about whether living in Las Vegas made athletes more likely to get into trouble and, as the Ruggs case demonstrated, could harm civilians living in the community.

Data is a mixed bag. Vegas has a higher crime rate than most cities in the United States, but it ranks pretty similarly compared to other major cities. And while it may not pose more dangers than cities like Los Angeles, New York or Miami, Vegas still stands out from the pack in certain areas. For example, BuyAutoInsurance.com ranked it as the most dangerous city in the country for drunk driving, with an average of 4,311 DUI arrests per year.

“I think there’s a public perception with it, but obviously there’s been some issues with some of the young players,” Sisolak said. “And I think sometimes what we don’t realize, especially people my age, is that these are kids…

“Yes, there are many opportunities, but every town has opportunities. I think it’s up to the coach and management to make sure they’re made aware of what those pitfalls could be.”

Badain worked in the Raiders organization for more than 30 years before abruptly stepping down last year. (Mark Davis revealed a few months later that the departures of Badain and former Raiders CFO Ed Villanueva were forced due to “accounting irregularities” that began when the team was in Oakland.)

While still working for the Raiders, Badain met Leiweke in the early 2000s, and they reconnected through the Adelson family, which hired Leiweke as an adviser when the Raiders began discussing the partnership on a transfer to Las Vegas. The Adelsons eventually withdrew, but Badain and Leiweke stayed in touch. In late 2021, Leiweke asked a question.

“What if we build the best scenario in the business?”

Leiweke had been pondering the idea for years. He had seen T-Mobile bring the NHL to Las Vegas, and now he wanted to do the same with the NBA. The Golden Knights’ home was built to NBA specifications, but Leiweke and Oak View Group (OVG) didn’t want to risk a potential franchise not wanting to share T-Mobile. In his mind, bringing the NBA to the city would require another arena.

“There are a lot of people I know who want to buy an NBA franchise if one is available in Las Vegas,” Leiweke said. “We have one or two groups that we’re working with, and I’m sure there will be people who will step up if the NBA decides to expand and pursue a franchise. But what they need is the certainty of an arena. You can’t have a question mark”.

In partnership with Badain and led by Leiweke, OVG announced last March that it planned to erase that question mark with plans to build a $3 billion sports and entertainment center, including a 20,000-seat 1,000 million dollars, close to The Strip. The complex, which will open in 2023 and is scheduled for completion in 2026, will also include an amphitheater, hotel and casino.

Like Leiweke’s first arena project in the city, and his other projects around the country, the new rink is being built before securing a franchise commitment. It sounds risky, but those behind the project similarly believe the resort can sustain itself through entertainment and live events. They know they can’t assume the NBA is coming.

“There are no guarantees the NBA will come, and that’s been made very clear,” Leiweke said. “Then what you have to do is go build (the arena) and make everything else work. I guess they’ll be more interested and fascinated by Las Vegas if there’s a world-class, billion-dollar arena.” .

The hope is that the arena will host at least Summer League, preseason games and NCAA basketball games and tournaments. The MGM Sphere at The Venetian, a 17,500-seat auditorium set to open in 2023, will be a competition for music and entertainment events, so Oak View sees it as critical that its stage have some sort of element sporty

“The goal, and Tim has done this before, is to build a venue that’s ready for these tenants, program it with strategic partners that he’s done business with in the past, and build the next stage for Las Vegas.” , Badain said. said “It’s about time.”

Leiweke has taken a similar approach in other cities. He helped build the Sprint Center in Kansas City in 2007 in hopes of landing an NBA or NHL franchise, though none came. But OVG’s $1.15 billion redevelopment of Seattle’s Climate Pledge Arena, formerly KeyArena, is already home to the NHL’s Kraken and the most logical landing spot should an NBA franchise return to the city

“The day (the NBA) makes a decision, they can turn around and start playing up there tomorrow,” Leiweke said. “It’s wise for us to do that in Las Vegas as well. It doesn’t mean we’ll get one, but it does put us in a better position in case they decide to expand.”

The late NBA commissioner David Stern made annual visits to Las Vegas for the Summer League, and current commissioner Adam Silver has done the same. Sisolak, who took office as Nevada governor in 2019, has been in talks with NBA leaders for the past decade. He can’t be sure, but he’s optimistic about the league coming to town.

“I talked to Roger Goodell three or four times since the draft, and he was amazed at how well it went,” Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak said. (Jeff Speer/Getty Images)

A much more immediate development is the potential relocation of MLB’s Oakland A’s, whose lease at the Oakland Coliseum is set to expire after the 2024 season. The club has threatened to move if Oakland does not approve plans to build a new stadium

The Aviators have been his Triple-A affiliate since 2019, and Sisolak has been in active talks with A’s owner John Fisher. The club has scouted for land in Las Vegas and could theoretically play at the Aviators’ Las Vegas Ballpark while a new stadium is being built.

“I think they need to pull the trigger and say, ‘Look, are we going to move or not,” Sisolak said. “The city is ready for them.”

The tricky part? Like their former neighbors in Oakland, the A’s would target a public contribution to build a new stadium. Considering the city just committed $750 million to do the same for the Raiders, it could be difficult for this legislation to pass.

“I know everyone is a little discouraged about baseball and the Oakland Athletics; I’m not really drinking the Kool-Aid until there’s a source of public funding for a baseball park,” said Snel, the founder of LVSportzBiz. “If there is a significant public subsidy for a baseball park, then I think the Oakland Athletics would have a crack at the Las Vegas market.”

Major League Soccer is another league in the mix. It has a goal of adding a 30th team through expansion, and commissioner Don Garber said Vegas was the “frontrunner” to land that potential franchise last December. And while a stand-alone soccer stadium would need to be built (Cashman Field, home of Lights FC, won’t cut it), MLS has held several games at Allegiant Stadium over the past two years.

It seems clear that it’s a matter of when, not if, more leagues will come to Las Vegas. The city has arrived as a national and international sports center. The only question that remains is how high it can go.

“These are early years,” Leiweke said. “I don’t think we are at the end of this cycle; I think we’re at the beginning.”

(Illustration: John Bradford / The Athletic; Photos: Ethan Miller, Christian Petersen, Hulton Archive / Getty Images)

The quarterback’s new contract with the network will be the most lucrative in sports television history. According to Andrew Marchand of the New York Post , Brady has agreed to a 10-year, $375 million contract with Fox that earns him an average of $37.5 million annually.

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How old is Dorsey High School? In September 1937, Susan Miller Dorsey High School opened for instruction and partnered with the Rancho Cienega Recreation Center to use its 6,000-seat stadium for high school athletic events. And in 1938, Dorsey graduated its first class of 52 high school students.

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