Las Vegas is now a Hockey Town?

With the NFL selecting Las Vegas for expansion, the town gets it’s first pro sports team and sheds misconceptions in the process.

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Las Vegas is now a Hockey Town?

Famous Welcome to Las Vegas sign

According to multiple media reports, the National Hockey League has selected Las Vegas, Nevada, as it’s next expansion city. This would bring the first major american professional sports team to the gambling, I mean entertainment capital of the world.

Why does that matter? Professional sports leagues have been concerned about the threat of players, officials and/or others interfering with the quality and outcome of the games. The thought that proximity to large centers of gambling could further compromise the game. However there has always been a major fault in that thinking. The amount of sports betting that happens on a micro & macro level in every city of any size is undeniable. The NBA even had a referree embroiled in a game fixing scandal fifteen years ago without a team in Las Vegas.

It matters economically for the leagues because Las Vegas is a top 40 metro, as well as one of the most visited cities in the world with nearly 30M annual tourists. Thus in total Las Vegas averages more than 5M total population (residents + tourists) making it nearly a top 10 population center, and the only one in the top 40 (in US & Canada) without a professional sports team (in the 4 major North American Sports leagues). They are also hungry for pro sports, an indication of that being the 13 thousand pre-sale season ticket holder deposits involved in the NHL expansion bid. That’s potentially a major new source of ticket, merchandise and ultimately local tv contract revenue to add to the overall pie, an important consideration for all major sports leagues.

This announcement, along with the Oakland Raiders pursuit of relocating to Las Vegas, will fundamentally change the attitudes of the major professional sports leagues. By 2018 it appears likely that the city will have a professional football team (Oakland Raiders) as well as professional hockey team (TBD) playing in the city, and there are rumblings about a major league baseball team relocating there as well.

The beauty of this is the suits that run these professional leagues are owning up to the reality that daily fantasy sports and local bookies have long kept sports betting active in local cities across North America, and by playing games in Las Vegas, there aren’t any additional risks to the integrity of the games than there were prior to calling Las Vegas home. For Las Vegas it starts to satiate a major desire for legitimacy nationally and a local interest in the games.