May 22, 200719 yr I just wanted to throw this question out there: Why doesn't Las Vegas have a major professional sport franchise? It seems, on the surface, like an appealing market.
May 22, 200719 yr I don't think it would be able to sustain anything other than the NFL. Plus, the betting aspect. As well as with leagues looking to clean up their image and the NBA All-Star Weekend fiasco and such I don't think any of the leagues are chomping at the bit to put a team in there and witness the potential fallout.
May 22, 200719 yr Author Fair enough. The majority of the arguments I've heard against placing a sports franchise in Vegas surrounds the whole gambling issue. MLB, NFL, NHL, and NBA all have some major rule prohibiting gambling or anything that would even have the appearance of involvement in a gambling issue. With that said, I know that their XFL team, the Outlaws, drew some of the biggest crowds in the league [especially early on] despite their 4-6 effort.
May 22, 200719 yr i think aside from the gambling issue - it's still a relatively small city (although it has grown in massive amounts recently) - also, a lot of the population is transient and they do not have that built in local loyalty so support could be an issue if you look at recent expansions - who would you give a team to vegas over? in baseball the most recent expansion was phoenix & TB - I could see vegas over TB, however at the time TB was a two sport town - prior to that was miami and denver in 1993 (at the time and probably currently, both clearly better options) the NBA is an interesting story - in the 80s they had a good round of expansion filling out Mpls, Miami, Orlando & Charlotte - keep in mind at the time vegas was a different vegas - all 4 franchises have been fairly good - charlotte had the falling out and moved ........ then the NBA made their major error of going Canadian ....... then finally they gave a team to charlotte based on it being a college bb hotbed and the prior success - i think vegas could be more attractive than either canadian city (or memphis for that matter) along with charlotte - however, you can't argue the reasoning behind it the NFL hasn't been as expansion happy - mainly just making up for teams that have moved by putting team in Cleveland & Houston the NHL has been expansion happy - but would hockey play in vegas? - their expansion has also been most recent - I think either Atl, Columbus or Nashville could of been put in vegas with similar success (which isn't really saying much)
May 22, 200719 yr I think NBA would work there. I have several friends who live in Vegas and they say that there are tons of Vegas residents who are just dying for a team. The whole gambling issue is ridiculous. There are tons of rules in place and a Las Vegas team would be no different than any other team in the NBA. Do it.
May 23, 200719 yr Las Vegas Marlins, with Pete Rose as manager. :mischief2 Let me fix that for you...Las Vegas Marlin$, with Pete Rose as manager.
May 23, 200719 yr Las Vegas is more for tourism, I doubt the actual residents they have would prefer to to to a baseball game than go to a casino.
May 23, 200719 yr Author Las Vegas is more for tourism, I doubt the actual residents they have would prefer to to to a baseball game than go to a casino. I think if you lived there, the whole Casino scene would become blas?. The sport book rooms are always packed in Vegas. So, at least you know that the general interest in sports is there. You could also win over a ton of fans from places you wouldn?t think of like Sacramento. If you think about it, it?s probably faster/easier/cheaper for someone living in Sacramento to hit Vegas than it would be to hit a game in SF or Oakland.
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