Sports continue to grow in importance for Las Vegas, its tourists, and the tax dollars they leave in Nevada. That was the theme of the Vegas Chamber of Commerce business outlook conference held at Fontainebleau Las Vegas.
The event attracted about 1,500 people to hear from executives from Formula 1, Oakland A’s owner John Fisher, and Peter O’Reilly, an executive vice president of the NFL who’s overseeing the Super Bowl at Allegiant Stadium on Feb. 11.
Fisher’s short Q and A with Vegas Chamber President Mary Beth Sewald attracted the most attention. Fisher re-emphasized his commitment to relocating to a $1.5 billion stadium in Las Vegas that is slated to open in 2028. During a session with the media afterward, Fisher said plans will be forthcoming for the stadium on the site of the Tropicana Las Vegas, which is operated by Bally’s with GLPI as the land owner. Bally’s will rebuild a casino on the site.
Fisher, heir to the founders of the Gap, said equity from his family would be used to finance the portion of the stadium that isn’t publicly funded.
Fisher declined to talk about where the A’s will play beyond 2024 when its lease expires at the Oakland Coliseum. Oracle Park, home of the Giants in San Francisco, is considered in play, as well as several minor league stadiums, in Las Vegas, Sacramento, Reno, and Salt Lake City.
Though F1 generated a lot of controversy among Las Vegas residents for the depth and breadth of the disruptions it caused, Applied Analysis Principal Jeremy Aguero said the race week before Thanksgiving in November attracted 145,000 visitors, including about 25,000 who were in Las Vegas for other reasons.
Visitors spent roughly $561 million that week, with race goers accounting for $4,128 on average, while non-race goers spent $2,662, he said. The race generated about $64 million in tax revenue.
In his presentation, Steve Hill, CEO of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, called 2023 “the best year in the history of Las Vegas.” He cited gaming revenue and touted the average daily hotel room rate that, at $191, set a record.
“Our most important metric is revenue per available room. That easily set a record and gaming revenue will easily set a record,” Hill said. “We set a record for the number of passengers at the airport. Every financial record out there was broken in 2023.”
Las Vegas is also back to 95% of its 2019 international seat capacity. Brightline, the high-speed rail service planned between southern California and Las Vegas, recently received $3 billion in federal funding and authority for $2.5 billion in industrial revenue bonds.
Las Vegas remains the number-one meeting destination in the U.S. Its 20% growth year over year in convention attendance went from five million to six million.
“We’re hoping in 2024 to exceed our previous record of 6.6 million,” Hill said. “The Wall Street Journal ranked the convention centers in the United States and Las Vegas has the most and best in the world. We’re the only city to have multiple convention centers on the list and we had three of the top seven. They’re assets for the community and help Las Vegas be what it is.”
Hill said Las Vegas had an “amazing year in sports,” with the Vegas Golden Knights winning the Stanley Cup, the Las Vegas Aces winning the WNBA Championship for the second consecutive year, and the inaugural Formula 1 race.
“In 2019, November was the eighth best month, but that changed dramatically a couple of months ago. November 2023 was the second best month in the history of Las Vegas, thanks to F1. When we get full fourth-quarter numbers, they will be very difficult to comp to next year. All the financial numbers were off the charts compared to what Novembers have been.”
Las Vegas had 110 billion impressions around Formula 1. In a typical year, between social-media and earned-media impressions, Hill said Las Vegas is in the 10 billion range for an entire year.
“This event was 10 times the amount of coverage that we typically get,” Hill said. “What’s exciting is we still have room to grow. If you compare where we are to 2019, we have more hotel rooms. We haven’t recovered from a hotel-occupancy standpoint and visitation compared to 2019. Those two work together to provide quite a bit of additional capacity. We’re riding into 2024 with a bunch of momentum and it’s going to be a fantastic year.”
