The Ghost of Sports Past
Deserts are often synonymous with barren wastelands bereft of anything interesting. Anyone who has ever visited Las Vegas or Reno understands that this is not the case with Nevada. Unfortunately, this imagery was partially true for many years when it came to professional sports in Nevada. Aside from several minor league teams, the sports industry in the Silver State had a slow start.
“AAA baseball has been part of Nevada for many years,” said Eric Edelstein, assistant city manager of Reno and former president of the Reno Aces. The Aces have been around since 2009 in northern Nevada. Down south, the Las Vegas 51s, originally the Las Vegas Stars, now known as the Aviators, have been an organization since 1983.
Apart from baseball, Nevada has seen success in some college-level sports. “The Runnin’ Rebels were popular when they were winning under Jerry Tarkanian [in the ’90s],” said Willie Ramirez, veteran sportswriter from Las Vegas. The NBA even chose UNLV’s facility, the Thomas & Mack Center, for game four of the 1992 playoffs during the L.A. riots.
Regardless of the previous lack of professional teams, sports fans have been a mainstay in Nevada, especially when it comes to combat sports. Boxing and the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) have been successful and popular since their inception in Las Vegas. However, despite the raging success of these two sports, for years professional sports teams refused to make the move to Nevada. What was keeping professional sports from pursuing a permanent home here? Ramirez and Edelstein agree that the national view on sports betting created a major barrier that professional sports were reluctant to breach. Team owners simply did not want to risk being on the receiving end of the next Pete Rose scandal. In the late ’80s, Rose, a player and manager for the Cincinnati Reds baseball team was banned from the sport for gambling on games. Combat sports have always enjoyed a close relationship with sports betting, so the obstacle didn’t exist for them.
However, the betting obstacle was more like a wall for many franchises and led to the sports desert in Nevada. “The NFL was never interested in Las Vegas; they wouldn’t even let Vegas have a commercial during the Superbowl,” Ramirez explained. Oscar Goodman, former Mayor of Las Vegas, was determined to see professional sports in Nevada and tried for years to convince a team to make Las Vegas their new home. He met with several teams, including the Montreal Expos, but was ultimately unsuccessful in sealing a move to Las Vegas during his tenure. All of that would change when Bill Foley was awarded an National Hockey League (NHL) expansion team and the Golden Knights were born in 2017.
From Tragedy to Triumph
Like Goodman, Foley believed that Nevada could be a thriving home for a professional sports team. The NHL shared that belief because it meant they could put a team in a community known for vacations. The location would hopefully entice people into watching more hockey, and travel to see the game.
Foley’s willingness to take a risk and the NHL’s need for more fans, combined to create the Golden Knights, whose local fans are dedicated to the team’s success. They would make their home in the newly completed T-Mobile Arena which boasted an impressive 20,000 seat capacity.
Filling the team with quality players would be the next challenge facing Foley. To assist, the NHL held an expansion draft that allowed current teams to protect a total of 10 players of certain positions, or nine players regardless of position, from the draft. This draft would guarantee that the Golden Knights would have some skilled players on their newly minted team. However, it also meant that these players would leave their current teams knowing they were not as valued. Those players came to Las Vegas with something to prove.
Just three days before the start of the Knights’ inaugural NHL season, on October 1st, 2017, tragedy would strike the Las Vegas Valley. Stephen Paddock opened fire on a crowded Route 91 Harvest country music festival, which was the largest mass shooting in the nation’s history.
As the NHL season began, Nevadans found themselves in need of a community to rally around. They found this community with the Vegas Golden Knights, who became a beacon that united the players and their newfound fans.
Ramirez said, “The Golden Knights became a positive distraction. It was a fun place to be where you could enjoy yourself, and they were winning. They were called the ‘misfits,’ and while the victims were looking for healing, so were the ‘misfit’ players. It could not have been more perfect.”
In a single season, the Golden Knights made it to the Stanley Cup Finals. While they would fall just short of the top prize, their community outreach efforts and immediate success turned Las Vegas into a hockey town. As of press time this year, fans find themselves rooting for the Knights in the Stanley Cup Finals once again. The Golden Knights proved multiple things during their inaugural season. First, fans would support a new team without a famous history. Second, the proximity of sports betting did not create immediate scandals within the NHL. Finally, when the quality of the show is made paramount, fans will continue to purchase tickets. Bill Foley’s dream became the catalyst that broke open the floodgate of professional sports in Nevada.
Sports Today
No one 10 years ago could have predicted that, within a single decade, Las Vegas would go from zero professional teams to three, with more on the way. Joining the Vegas Golden Knights are the Las Vegas Raiders and the newly crowned Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) champions, the Las Vegas Aces. Coming soon is the Major League Baseball (MLB) team, The Athletics (Oakland A’s). Last month the team reached an agreement to build a stadium on the site of the Tropicana hotel on the Las Vegas Strip. The 35-acre site would potentially hold a 30,000 seat stadium.
While these are the top tier professional teams, they are joined by a plethora of other teams. The Dollar Loan Center arena holds events for the Silver Knights, an American Hockey League (AHL) affiliate of the Golden Knights, as well as the Knight Hawks, an arena football team.
Nevada has become an eclectic sports state. In any given month a fan can travel to the state and enjoy a hockey game, a rodeo, a NASCAR race or even a lacrosse match. This explosion of growth is not entirely owed to the Golden Knights success, however.
“The real growth of professional sports has been prioritizing the venues, creating a really great venue with a really great venue experience,” said Edelstein. An unforgettable experience is what is promised for sports fans in Nevada. Las Vegas is no stranger to tourists, but now these same tourists are scheduling vacations to coincide with their favorite teams playing rather than just to vacation. One need only attend a Golden Knights game to encounter this truth. The audience is filled with hometown fans, but there are always opposing jerseys dispersed throughout the crowd. Those fans may not be supporting the Knights, but they are coming for the experience that few other states can offer.
Another factor in the explosion of professional sports in Nevada is the national change in temperament towards sports betting. “Sports betting is legal all over. Now you can leave your seat at halftime and place a bet at a kiosk inside the stadium,” said Ramirez.
Allegiant Stadium opened in July of 2020 and Las Vegas welcomed the NFL’s Raiders as their newest professional team. Allegiant Stadium is a massive 10-story domed building with a capacity of 65,000. Mark Davis, owner of the Raiders, affectionately nicknamed the team’s stadium the “Death Star”.
The venue hosts more than NFL games; it has become the home of numerous concerts and was even chosen for World Wrestling Entertainment’s (WWE) SummerSlam. Recently, the NFL’s Pro Bowl was held at Allegiant Stadium and was a success. The event generated $54.7 million dollars across the economy and welcomed more than 30,000 out-of-town football fans. Allegiant Stadium is scheduled to host the Pro Bowl game again in 2024.
Davis also upgraded the venue for the Las Vegas Aces, another franchise team he owns. The Aces have just moved into a state-of-the-art facility. “Many team owners and other leagues are beginning to take notice of the opportunity and money to be made in Nevada,” said Ramirez. It might be easy to assume that professional sports have peaked in Nevada, but the best is yet to come.
A Future Brighter Than the Strip
In November of 2023, Las Vegas will host a Formula 1 (F1) event that few could have ever predicted. Formula 1’s Las Vegas Grand Prix will be raced over a 3.8-mile track which weaves past world-famous landmarks, casinos and hotels. Excitement for this event is building and general admission tickets have already sold out. In fact, the only way a fan can get tickets now is to inquire via email through their website. Nevadans and out-of-state race fans will get the opportunity to watch as drivers push their skills to the breaking point at speeds averaging 212 mph.
Seeing Allegiant Stadium as host of the Pro Bowl and the NFL Draft would likely have satiated even the most avid of Nevadan football enthusiasts. Fortunately, Mark Davis and the Raiders did not stop there. Allegiant Stadium and Las Vegas have earned the honor of hosting one of the biggest sporting events in the world: The Super Bowl.
“This event has been decades in the making and was the culmination of a collective effort state and region wide,” said Sam Joffray, president of the Super Bowl Host Committee. The Super Bowl has always been a big event for Las Vegas, but hosting the game will be next level for the region.
Joffray’s team consists of 11 sub committees, including transportation, who are all dedicated to making the event the best it can be. “We have events planned for the entirety of the week leading up to the Super Bowl,” said Joffray.
When asked what his goal was for this event, he said, “The goal of the host committee is to create a memorable experience for this Super Bowl that will ultimately position Las Vegas as a fan favorite and frequent host of major sporting events, including future Super Bowls.” With Joffray and his team committed to making this Super Bowl memorable while attracting more major events, it’s a certainty that Nevada will continue to grow as a sports destination.
When the Raiders moved from Oakland to Las Vegas many assumed it wouldn’t be long before the Oakland A’s followed in their footsteps. Some doubted this, owed primarily to MLB’s stance on sports betting.
“Major League Baseball has a storied history of being aggressive in keeping gambling out of baseball,” said Edelstein. Despite the concerns, however, the Oakland A’s are now committed to the southern Nevada move. What makes this even more momentous is that the Oakland A’s are one of only two MLB franchises to move cities in the last half century.
Gov. Joe Lombardo released a statement in April that said, “Welcoming the A’s to Las Vegas would be great news for southern Nevada as well as our entire state. The prospect of bringing new jobs, more economic development and a historic MLB franchise to Las Vegas is exciting on many levels. As we continue to navigate this opportunity, I’m in regular communication with the A’s, Major League Baseball, legislative leadership and local and state stakeholders.”
The NHL and Bill Foley dared to dream that Las Vegas and Nevada could support a professional sports team. Their combined dream has resulted in an outpouring of sports growth in Nevada, and the future is only getting brighter.
MVP
Don Logan
President and Chief Operating Officer
Las Vegas Aviators
League / Sport: Baseball
Team’s Inaugural Season: 1983
Executive Joined Team in: 1984
Location: Las Vegas, NV
Executive’s Hometown: Tonopah, NV
Full Time Employees: 41
Part Time Employees: 400+
What words do you live by?
“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference, living one day at a time; enjoying one moment at a time; taking this world as it is and not as I would have it; trusting that You will make all things right if I surrender to Your will; so that I may be reasonably happy in this life and supremely happy with You forever in the next. Amen.” —Reinhold Niebuhr
What made you want to go into executive operations for sports franchises?
My love of sports, and baseball, specifically.
How did you come to work with the Aviators?
My mom and dad spoke to former Governor Mike O’Callaghan who encouraged me to reach out to the Stars.
What are some of the challenges the Aviators have experienced?
The deterioration of Cashman Field and the surrounding area; learning how to entice people to attend games during the summer heat; and handling the competition of so many sports and entertainment options [have all been challenges].
What excites you about this team?
Every year it is invigorating to see young players in Triple A for the first time realize they can compete, which lets them know they’re a big leaguer.
Have there been any surprises along the way?
Always but nothing overwhelming.
What is your proudest professional achievement?
That we have survived and flourished for 40 years while 27 other teams have come and gone.
What’s your favorite sport?
C’mon – [it’s] Baseball.
Who’s your favorite player of all time?
Willie Mays, center fielder in Major League Baseball.
What do you hope for the future of sports in Nevada?
[I hope] people keep attending games and staying active because they are inspired by the games they follow.
If you wrote an autobiography, what
If you wrote an autobiography, what would title it?
“Baseball Lifer from Tonopah”
What is the best moment of your career?
Having my daughter work at the stadium, proposing to my wife and having our reception at Cashman Field [have all been highlights].
What has been your most challenging moment?
Having so many professional teams enter the market in such a short period of time [has been a challenge].
What might someone be surprised to learn about you?
We didn’t have high school baseball in Tonopah when I grew up there.
What advice do you have for aspiring professional sports athletes?
Be patient!
Why is community involvement important to you?
It is the essence of any worthwhile and enduring professional team. You must be a good community partner.
Sports Management Education in the State of Nevada
Cary Groth
Director, Sports Management Programs
University of Nevada, Reno
The sports industry is growing and changing nationally, and Nevada has uniquely benefited from the industry’s expansion. The state now has major league teams, the Golden Knights, the Las Vegas Raiders, the Las Vegas Aces and the Athletics are on the way. In addition the state hosts Formula 1 Racing, Ultimate Fighting Championship, minor league teams for baseball and hockey, women’s soccer and intercollegiate sports at colleges and universities across the state. The industry will likely expand even further, as Las Vegas often comes up in discussions of the expansion of other professional sports franchises.
Recent changes in intercollegiate sports, including policy changes to allow student-athletes to profit off their name, image and likeness (NIL), have made the industry even more complex. Athletic directors also have an increasingly important role in not only understanding sports but also business, and athletic departments have multi-million-dollar budgets, which need to be managed strategically and equitably.
Supporting this booming industry requires hiring more people into sports management professions. With career opportunities in communications, marketing office management, community partnerships, coaching and leadership, the sports industry needs well-trained, highly skilled professionals who are equipped to competitively navigate the industry as it evolves. Preparing for this career path takes an education in sports management.
Sports management education teaches students necessary skills related to management, finance, marketing and law within the sports industry. A multi-disciplinary understanding of the industry is vital to being a successful leader. Both the University of Nevada, Las Vegas and the University of Nevada, Reno offer programs in sports management designed to address the growth and complexities of an ever-changing industry.
At the University of Nevada, Las Vegas College of Education, students can pursue a Master of Education in intercollegiate and professional sport management or a Sport Leadership and Management Certificate. The program offers emphases in intercollegiate and professional sports. With either program, students receive a comprehensive overview of sports management, taking courses focused on topics such as leadership, marketing and analytics.
The University of Nevada, Reno approaches sports management from a business perspective. Through the College of Business, students learn from industry professionals and can pursue an online executive certificate program at the graduate level or a minor at the undergraduate level. All curriculum for the program is guided by the sports management executive board, which is comprised of industry leaders with a wide breadth of experience.
Both programs work with representatives from the growing sports industry in Nevada, providing students with real-world experience and exposure to professional and intercollegiate sports. While both programs currently offer education at the graduate level, there is an increasing demand for sports management education at the undergraduate level. Higher education institutions in Nevada would benefit from offering a sports management major, preparing more young professionals to fill vital roles within industries connected to sports.
As the sports industry in Nevada grows and changes, so will sports management education. Growth within the professional sports arena will not only create jobs directly supporting professional teams but will also increase the workforce needs within sports betting and sports tourism. The NIL policy changes have and will continue to alter the landscape for recruiting within intercollegiate sports as prospective student-athletes consider the additional financial opportunities offered by corporations and individuals as part of their college decision-making process. All of these needs call for the expansion of sports management education curriculum and increased access to programming for more undergraduate and graduate-level students. With more professionals prepared and willing to navigate the industry, Nevada will continue to rise as a competitive contender in sports.
