Viva Las Vegas?

Yesterday I returned from a three-day business trip to Las Vegas, Nevada.  Naturally, much of the conversation there revolved around whether or not the city should have some sort of professional major league sports team.  Given that Sin City is, according to Wikipedia, the 31st largest city in the United States (making it larger than a number of pro sports cities including Sacramento, Kansas City and Buffalo) and one of our country's entertainment capitals, many find it surprising that one of the major leagues hasn't expanded to Vegas.  After yet another visit to the city, however, I remain glad that Vegas sports has been limited to UNLV, the Las Vegas Motor Speedway and the Las Vegas 51s of the Pacific Coast League.

Most opponents of professional sports in Las Vegas base their arguments around gambling, and talk about how a Vegas-based team would be more prone to game fixing, point shaving or other unethical behavior.  For me, however, this isn't too much of a concern.  At this point in the evolutionary cycles of gambling and sports, if players, coaches or referees wanted to tamper with an otherwise fair game, they don't need to be in Las Vegas to do it.  So, if I'm not worried about the gambling, why don't I want a pro team located down the road from the Strip?  More than anything, I just don't think a team based in Las Vegas would be financially successful.

An NBA arena on the Las Vegas Strip?  Don't count on it.

Las Vegas is all about glitz and glamour, and the city is filled with forms of entertainment that deliver along those lines.  A professional baseball team isn't going to do the trick for most of Vegas's ~40 million annual visitors.  We all know by now that professional hockey outside of the NHL's core markets doesn't really work, and there's no reason that the cash-rich NFL would force a team into Las Vegas (especially when Los Angeles is still open).  If Vegas were to get a team it would have to be an attention-starved NBA franchise (picture Semi-Pro's "Love Me Sexy"-singing Flint Tropics ABA team).  Even with a few NBA franchises potentially looking to relocate I wouldn't recommend Sin City, however.

First, there's too much competition from other forms of entertainment.  Every hotel and casino on the Strip offers concerts and shows nightly, so you can't treat Las Vegas as a typical one-sport NBA city like San Antonio or Sacramento.  Second, so many of the people roaming the Strip are tourists, making season ticket sales very hard to come by.  NBA teams use season tickets to stabilize annual revenues and build a loyal fan base, and Las Vegas lacks a large pool of upper class residents.  Third, other than casinos there aren't a ton of large companies based in the area, which could make sponsorships hard to sell.  Tack on concerns about gambling, all of the distractions for the players and other ethical concerns, and a professional sports team in Las Vegas seems like a disaster in the making.

This isn't to say, however, that I don't think sports have a place in the city.  One thing that Las Vegas does incredibly well is large events - conventions, for example, drive tons of business for the city.  With the right venue(s) in place, I see no reason why Vegas couldn't host a Super Bowl some day.  The city hosted the 2007 NBA All Star game and holds an annual NASCAR race, so it's already identified itself as a potential host for big time sporting events, and the Super Bowl is 10% game and 90% party anyway.  For large, one-off sporting events, I'm all for giving Las Vegas a shot.  For an NBA team that would have to play there more than 40 nights a year, though, I just don't see it happening.