On the average, 60 percent of Americans describe themselves as “sports fans.” Obviously, some Americans are more “fanatical” than others but needless to say the sports industry has become one of the bigger industries in the United States.
Americans not only attend games, but they also spend thousands of dollars on sports logoed clothing and other merchandise, in addition to food and beverages at their local sports bars and restaurants.
For Las Vegas residents, going to a professional sports game means driving to McCarran Airport. However, if you are a hockey fan, all that will change in 2017. Some football fans are hoping that will change for them in the near future as well.
But what does professional sports mean for Las Vegas economically?
The average attendance per regular season home game for the National Hockey League ranges between 15 and 18-thousand for most markets. Phoenix, the lowest market, averages 12-thousand attendees, while Chicago enjoys sold out capacity with over 21-thousand attendees. Individual ticket sales for these events average $42 per game bringing total gate receipts to a range of 500-thousand to one-million dollars.
For Las Vegas, those attendance numbers and gate receipt dollars’ sound like a pretty good deal for MGM’s T-Mobile Arena project and the Las Vegas (something) Knights. The full name of the team is to be announced in November along with the availability of logoed hats, jersey’s, key rings, cups, and whatever else team owner Bill Foley can imagine.
If you look at the per game attendance for an NFL team, averaging around 68,000 attendees (Oakland trails the pack at 54,189), and the average price for a non-premium seat at $85.83, you will see that hockey pales by comparison.
But, for a host city, hockey has a distinct advantage. The hockey stadiums, like MGM’s T-Mobile Arena, are privately owned and regardless of how the team performs, the community is not on the hook for any infrastructure costs.
While the residents of Nevada are not directly on the hook for the new Sheldon Adelson Raiders stadium. This is due to the fact that $750 million is coming from a room tax paid by the visitors to Las Vegas. However, the infrastructure to improve roadways, water, sewer, and electrical generation serving the stadium will no doubt show up on utility bills and effect needed roadway improvements in other parts of the valley.
In addition, if room revenue falls, as it did during the 2008 recession, the State will be obligated to make up the difference to fulfill the bond payment obligations. Meanwhile, all of the revenue generated by the stadium goes into the pockets of Adelson, the Raiders, and the NFL.
Yes, UNLV does get to share in some of the revenue and glory by playing their home football games in the Raiders stadium. The stadium may even entice some outstanding college players to attend UNLV, which in turn will help the school win more games and attract more students. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
As far as the economic benefit to the community, Jeremy Aguero predicts that the new Raiders stadium will bring in approximately 450,000 people annually that normally would not have come to Las Vegas. Of course, there will be quite a number of jobs associated with the stadium giving Las Vegas an economic employment boost.
One of the great things about the new hockey team is the construction of their new practice facility in Downtown Summerlin, privately funded by Foley and the Howard Hughes Corporation. When the (something) Knights are not practicing, the facility will be used for public recreational ice skating, as well as, a youth and adult hockey league, benefiting the public and bringing customers to Downtown Summerlin and the surrounding area.