Was the Formula One weekend in Las Vegas worth all the trouble? Well, it probably depends on who you ask.
Certainly, for the promoters of the world’s most expensive per-ticket F1 event, there’s a lot to be happy about — even if the economic impact falls short of the $1.7 billion projected by F1’s parent company, Liberty Media.
For locals, smaller venues and countless workers disrupted by a year of race-related operations, however, it’s been far more pain than profit. Whatever economic “benefit” might have occurred obviously wasn’t shared equally by all those who bore the costs — raising an important question about whether or not record hotel revenue for MGM Resorts International should really be the benchmark for gauging broader “economic development” in Southern Nevada.
