Las Vegas’ NBA Hopes Rekindled As City Strives To Be 'Sports Capital Of The World'
The NHL is in the Las Vegas spotlight this weekend with its annual player draft being held at the Sphere — but a new twist in the effort to bring an NBA franchise to the area also in attracting attention.
The energy drink company Red Bull, which owns sports teams globally, including Major League Soccer’s New York Red Bulls, is in talks to bid for a Las Vegas NBA franchise, according to Bloomberg.com.
LeBron James, Shaquille O’Neal Also Want Team In Las Vegas
The energy drink company is not alone in wanting to bring an NBA team to Southern Nevada. Los Angeles Lakers player LeBron James has expressed interest in owning a team in Las Vegas, as has television commentator and former league player Shaquille O’Neal.
During a gaming industry conference in 2022 at the Venetian hotel-casino on the Las Vegas Strip, downtown casino owner Derek Stevens said an NBA team in the city is not a matter of if, but when.
Giving hope to those waiting a team in Las Vegas, NBA Commissioner Adam Silver has indicated the league could add two teams to the current 30. Las Vegas and Seattle are considered top contenders.
Both cities have had experience with NBA teams. In Seattle, the SuperSonics, named for the area's aviation industry, spent 41 seasons in the city before relocating at the end of the 2007-08 season to Oklahoma City, becoming the Thunder.
Las Vegas also has hosted regular season NBA action. During the early 1980s, the Utah Jazz played some regular season “home” games at the arena on the UNLV campus.
More recently, the Adelson family of Las Vegas Sands Corp. has bought a majority stake in the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks, but that team is expected to remain in Texas.
'Sports Capital Of The World'
As this continues, two multibillion-dollar NBA-quality arenas are under discussion in Southern Nevada. One proposed arena would be on the north end of the Strip near the Sahara hotel-casino where a water park once stood. The other would be south of the airport at Las Vegas Boulevard and Blue Diamond Road, where a high-speed train station is planned.
If either or both of these arenas are built, they would join two major sports facilities constructed in recent years — Allegiant Stadium west of the Strip near the Mandalay Bay hotel-casino and T-Mobile Arena on the Strip near the Park MGM and New York-New York resorts.
The NFL’s Las Vegas Raiders play home games at Allegiant Stadium, while the Vegas Golden Knights, the NHL’s 2023 Stanley Cup winner, play at T-Mobile Arena. (Though most of the major resorts on the Strip are outside Las Vegas city limits, the entire area commonly is referred to as Las Vegas.)
Even without an NBA team yet, the valley is ramping up its major sports profile, with the recent back-to-back WNBA champion Las Vegas Aces already playing there and MLB's Oakland Athletics headed that way.
The A’s plan on playing their home games at a Major League Baseball Stadium to be built at the site of the Tropicana hotel-casino on the east side of the Strip near the airport. The closure of the Tropicana in April 2024 recalled an era when that resort, which first opened in 1957, was connected to the Mob. During the 1970s, for instance, the Civella crime family of Kansas City used an inside operative named Joe Agosto to siphon untaxed casino revenue from the Tropicana, an illegal process calling "skimming."
The Oakland A’s are expected to start play at the Tropicana site in time for the 2028 season. Until then, the A's plan to finish the current season in Oakland before playing home games at a minor-league park in Sacramento until the stadium in Las Vegas is built.
These developments are in line with a message promoted by MGM Resorts CEO Bill Hornbuckle and others that Las Vegas is no longer “Sin City” but is instead the "sports and entertainment capital of the world," with major teams attracting large crowds and with events such as the recent Formula One race bringing global attention to the area.
Mixed Reactions
This shift in public perception is in sharp contrast with the years when sports teams shunned Las Vegas because of its reputation as a mobbed-up gambling city. With the spread of legal sports betting and casinos across the country, however, that image has softened, as leagues now have aligned with sports betting companies and embraced Las Vegas, including this weekend’s NHL draft at the Sphere.
The city’s current transition has sparked mixed reactions, with some welcoming the economic boost from the sports-capital image and others resenting the increased traffic and higher prices on the Strip.
In a recent comment on the KTNV-TV Facebook page, a reader identified as Cody Culver, addressing one of the proposed NBA areas in the valley, noted that the construction would lead to additional jobs and tourists, “boosting the economy.”
“People must forget that Vegas’ entire existence depends upon people coming here and spending money,” he wrote. “We want big events and large amounts of people coming here in order to thrive and survive.”
A reader identified as Phuc Tuelve had a different take.
“Vegas has always been able to generate income from tourist without sports teams,” he wrote. “This is just an annoyance to the locals at this point.”
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