I know, I know we have all heard this one before but this is the latest plan to move professional franchises to Las Vegas, Nevada. A developer, Chris Milan, has bought the Las Vegas 51’s a minor league baseball team had some big dreams. He would like to pair them with a Major League Soccer team and a NBA team to anchor a Mega Sport Complex to be located west of Mandalay Bay. It is an ambitious project, but I have several concerns.
The first is the economy, the economy still sucks and Vegas has been hit hard by it. Worse than that I don’t know if basketball, baseball, and soccer can compete with the casinos and shows. We all know the casinos will work had to keep the people at the tables betting, and I really wonder if outdoor sports can compete with that. Which brings me to my next point, it is way hot in Vegas and I wonder who will sit in an outdoor facility to watch sports.
Ya see the second part of the plan is to build a baseball stadium with enough expansion to one day bring a MLB to Sin City. Simply put I don’t see it. Vegas has a lot of residents, but the main population are people who travel there and then return home, I don’t see enough of a season ticket base to keep even one professional franchise much less three. NASCAR does pretty well in Vegas, but that is a one time a year event. I don’t see an 81 game MLB or 41 game NBA schedule being able to reproduce those results.
