This will look familiar
DMZ · December 9, 2004 at 2:36 pm · Filed Under Mariners
Marlins stadium talks aren’t going as well as the team wants, so… they’re meeting with Las Vegas! They’ll move! No, really, they will! Don’t make them move — give them what they want! They don’t want to have to move, but if they don’t get their stadium, they’ll be forced to!
If only George Argyros wasn’t occupied with other things we could really take this back to the 1980s.
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45 Responses to “This will look familiar”
say, what IS Jeff Smulyan doing these days?
HA HA HA! Vegas.
Miami never should have been given that franchise in 1993; it should have gone to Washington or St. Pete. The only reason they’re in Joe Robbie is because Huezinga waved a big wad of cash in front of the owners. That plus the ownership swap plus the remoteness of Joe Robbie plus the schizo-fickle fan base of Miami has doomed this franchise. Really, the only solution to this is to have the taxpayers pass a 10% sales tax increase with the proceeds going directly to MLB to be, er, “invested.”
Seriously, Las Vegas is a bad choice for a team. The people who work in the casinos aren’t making enough to buy season tickets, and that town runs on tourism. The team would have to have a drawing card in order to get butts in seats, and that means spending a lot of free agents from capital they don’t have.
The Marlins would draw better in Oklahoma City than they would in Las Vegas.
DW,
Vegas would be fine. First the casinos will pay for the stadium becasue they want to use it for conventions on the 270 days a year there isn’t a baseball game. Also tourists who go to Vegas spend a lot of money on stuff besides gambling; a lot of those tourists have favorite baseball teams. Planning a trip to Vegas? Why not schedule it around your favorite team being in town. $100 for lame shows or $40 for baseball tickets?
It could have been worse. Las Vegas Expos, anyone?
Las Vegas is not a bad choice for a team. Affluence-wise, it’s well-off (ha) among contenders. And… the people who work in casinos aren’t making enough money? I don’t know where you’d get that, but Las Vegas is known as being a great place for people without the education or training for white-collar jobs to have careers that pay enough to buy a house, raise a family, and so on.
And I like Eric’s point about visiting Vegas. Fans take road trips now. It wouldn’t be huge per/game, but overall, it’d be a significant factor.
If anyone wants to give me a team, I’ll run it in Vegas.
All i know if they move to vegas I will be hitting it up multiple times a year.
But won’t MLB be worried about the sportsbooks at the casino’s.
If my favorite team had a weekend trip to play The Las Vegas ____________ I would be all over it.
Las Vegas would be better suited for an NBA franchise. Look, the average capacity of a professional baskeball arena is about 15,000. Conversely, the average capacity of a baseball stadium is about 50,000. Moreover, the basketball season only has 41 games at home, while the baseball season has 81 games at home. Ultimately, basketball season is also going on during the peak tourist season in Vegas, while baseball occurrs during the lull. Also, as previously mentioned, most of the people who actually reside in Vegas are middle-class — or, in the outlying counties, are mainly lower middlie-class — and aren’t as likely to be huge on baseball. As it is, too, there already is a Triple AAA franchise in Vegas — the 51s (what a tight name) — so why the necessity for a baseball team? Anyhow, the NBA has the room to fill for two more expansion teams, to boost its number up to 32, and Las Vegas — along with either Kansas City or St. Louis — would be a perfect choice.
Install slot machines on the back of 35,000 seats so everyone can play during the game. 🙂 Forget buying beer at the game, scantily clad waitresses will serve you free cocktails! And you don’t even need to have a large stadium, Vegas could probably fill 2,000 luxury suites a game. The ‘regular’ fan is just icing.
Yeah, I’m mostly kidding, but there is a LOT of promotional potential there.
Maybe they could get Pete Rose to manage and Cecil Fielder to take over as the hitting coach.
Vegas seems like a great spot for a baseball team to me, for the reasons already stated. More generally, it’s a town centered around entertainment. Baseball is entertainment. It’s a perfect match, really. I would absolutely coordinate my annual trip to Vegas so I could see an Ms game there. It’s a cheap flight.
I have heard that MLB is concerned about gambling and having an MLB team in Vegas. I don’t get it. You can gamble on sports from anywhere in the world – who cares if the team is actually in the same physical location as the casinos? I’m probably missing something there.
AK, 50,000 is large for a baseball stadium, 40,000 is more typical, averaging 30,000 fans a game gets you 2.5 mil for the season plenty to support a team.
The gambling issue is there, any team in Vegas would require the Casinos to not take book on their games. Baseball is probably the least bet on major sport so probably workable. It is pretty much a guarantee that there will not be an NFL team in Vegas for this reason:-) Probably also something that will delay the NBA, though it does seem like the ideal location for them to expand, they won’t have much trouble attracting FA talent either.
Pete Rose would be the perfect manager for this team.
Isn’t one of the former mariners owners (Argyros, I think, but it could be Smulyan) now the US Ambassador to Spain, or something?!
Pete Rose, Cecil Fielder, and rename them the Black Sox.
Oh, and they can get Kenny Rogers to pitch…
So who is the next team to threaten to move (Twins? Royals?), and, if Vegas is gobbled up by the Marlins, what location becomes the leverage in negotiations for a new publicly financed stadium?
For my money the metroplitan area that is most deserving of a franchise and has shown that, given the right circumstances, will support a well run franchise and has a knowledgeball fanbase is — Montreal. But Portland will probably be the town to which teams run.
I second Montreal. Loria RAN that team into the ground. When there is no English language radio or TV, you are going to lose fans. Plain and simple.
Note that Montreal’s ex-owner is now Florida’s….
I think there is a conspiracy here…somewhere.
If you checked out the link in the post about Argyros, you would note that it links to a page about just that.
And as for Montreal — it was bad before Loria took over. The thread that binds all causes of baseball failing is MLB’s utterly inept oversight and then active complicity in making it fail.
If there was to be a new ballpark built in Las Vegas, it has to be a retractable roof ballpark.
I think Vegas would be a great fit for a major league team. As mentioned in previous comments above mine, you have the tourists. Let’s see, do I want to go watch a ballgame or go see Celine Dion botch “Panama”?
If Vegas ever landed an NBA team, the arena is already built with the Thomas and Mack Center. I don’t see why the Clippers aren’t in Vegas already. They seem like a perfect fit for Vegas.
All of this being said, Jeffrey Loria is an idiot.
Forget Jeff Smullyan—what is Monica Hart doing these days?
Jeff Kent has signed with the Dodgers, according to SportsCenter. Nice Monica Hart reference by Jo-El, too. Her era was a very weird phase for KIRO.
“And as for Montreal – it was bad before Loria took over. The thread that binds all causes of baseball failing is MLB’s utterly inept oversight and then active complicity in making it fail.”
Add in the Quebec politicians including ruling Parti Quebecois. If they weren’t going to build the Quebec Nordiques an arena to play their national pasttime, they weren’t gonna build a baseball stadium for an Anglophone sport.
Link to the Kent signing.
I will say this on the tourist argument — while I think Vegas would fit in well with many people’s plans, in that if you were a Yankee fan you might schedule a trip to Vegas around the Yankees being there. And it’s a good pretext if you want to go to Vegas anyway.
So for Vegas, there’s a chance for incremental trips (+$) plus people already there might stay longer (3 days for chilling, plus gotta go see a game) which is more money — but I can’t see that people who are there to see Lance Burton (who is totally worth seeing) would skip that to see a baseball game… so no loss of existing revenue.
If it involved taking betting on MLB games out of the casinos no way it would fly.
I agree with the comment that an NBA franchise is a better choice for Vegas. I’m not sure there’s enough community support for a MLB franchise to keep it any more viable than say, the Devil Rays, as enticing as it sounds to me.
Is it true that Maury Wills is Deputy Chief of Mission in Spain?
“but Las Vegas is known as being a great place for people without the education or training for white-collar jobs to have careers that pay enough to buy a house, raise a family, and so on.”
It might be known for that, but my gf has lived there for the last year and the sketch from the gambling world has infested the town. There’s no industry there at all outside of the casinos and a lot of the customer service jobs try to exploit loopholes in the laws to get out of paying the employees (like making everyone private contractors). Unless you’re attractive enough to be a stripper/cocktail waitress or willing to work 80-90 hour weeks, there isn’t much there.
Personally I think they should go the other route and allow people to gamble on the game they’re watching from their seats.
They’d probably strike a compromise like the one they reached with the NCAA and drop the local team from the boards.
Per-capita, Las Vegas income levels I saw were only a little worse than, say, Dallas and Houston, and the cost of living’s about the same.
I know you all disagree, but I just don’t think Las Vegas is a good option for a team right now.
Yes, Vegas is a tourist destination city, but so are Tampa and Miami. You’re under 2 hours from a D-Rays game if you’re at Disney World, but you don’t hear about large crowds of tourists packing the dome. Ditto Miami. Heck, look at the New Orleans Hornets — they’re just down the road from the French Quarter, and they can’t even get half that arena filled.
Yes, I know, if they build a stadium in Vegas it will be on the Strip. But it’s not as good for casinos as you think. You go to see Celine Dion screech about her heart going on, you’re sitting in the casino. Along the way, you’ll pass the one-armed bandits and the card tables. If you spend cash, you’ll be in the casino lining their pockets. Casinos can afford to give out free drinks and Celine Dion tickets because you’ll drop a couple large on THEIR craps tables.
What happens if you put a stadium in at the end of the Strip? You’re NOT spending in the casinos, you’re spending at the stadium. In effect, it’s not only an attraction, it’s competition. I don’t think the casinos will put up with that, not without putting some slots in the seats. If they do, you could tap K. M. Landis’ spinning body to light the whole eastern seaboard.
The convention/tourist part, honestly, is overrated. There are a lot of tourists. There are a lot of conventions. But could you get 10,000 tourists and conventioneers a night, every night, buying tickets? Because, honestly, that’s what you’re probably looking at needing just to offset the lack of season ticket sales in LV. Sure, MGM and Caesar’s Palace will buy skyboxes out the wazzoo, but you need a solid season ticket base to get the money to build a team. And we’re talking about what would be an NL West team, BTW, so 3-4 games a year of the Cubs, 3-4 of the Cards, 9 each for the Dodgers and Giants… and 9 Rockies games. I just don’t see planeloads of Astros fans coming in for a M-T-W series in the middle of May.
A vast majority of the ticket sales will be coming from the Las Vegas metro area. It’s growing rapidly, but wagewise you’re looking at a lot of people who are making $28K a year and working nights. Neither one of these bodes well in the short term for ticket sales.
I’m sorry, but I don’t think a “destination team” is going to work in Las Vegas. It works for the old, established teams with deep and large fan bases and classic stadiums, but the LV team will be none of these. In ten years, LV will have 3 million people, and I think by then there will be a large enough fanbase to offset the issues I’ve pointed out. As is, it’s Kansas City with brothels and a water shortage.
I can see why keeping the players and anyone else directly connected to the outcome of the game away from gambling would be an obvious necessity, but why keep the fans out of it? Expand thier action! Pitch-by-pitch betting. With odds no more complicated than a roulette wheel, it could be a big draw. And all those casino managers getting involved in figuring the true odds would be great for statistical analysis. 🙂
“Seriously, Las Vegas is a bad choice for a team. The people who work in the casinos aren’t making enough to buy season tickets, and that town runs on tourism. The team would have to have a drawing card in order to get butts in seats, and that means spending a lot of free agents from capital they don’t have.”
Kind of an ignorant, only been here to gamble statement…Living in Vegas is definitely different than visiting here. we are the fastest growing city in the world 9yes there are homes here, not just casinos). I paid $207,000 for my home 13 months ago, and last month it appraised for $470,000..which ain’t to shabby. the economy is very strong, we posted our lowest unemployment rate in history in October..3.7%, not to mention the fact that several tech companies are moving to vegas because of Nevada’s business friendly attitude. we are stealingsome fairly big companies from CA and OR.
On another note, it cracks me up every time i here people talk about it always being hot here (we had snoow twice last week, even though it didn’t stick). I also find it amusing when people talk about the gambling, etc. away from the strip, Vegas is actually a pretty nice city, clean, nice people….if i had one complaint, it would be the drivers, usually tourists though.
Vegas is very ready for a professional sports team.
“I can see why keeping the players and anyone else directly connected to the outcome of the game away from gambling would be an obvious necessity, but why keep the fans out of it? Expand thier action! Pitch-by-pitch betting. With odds no more complicated than a roulette wheel, it could be a big draw. And all those casino managers getting involved in figuring the true odds would be great for statistical analysis. :)”
I envision an arrangement like the casinos have with UNLV, where all home games are taken off the board. As to gambling, don’t be niave. With Indian casinos and the internet, gaming is available everywhere, people can’t use that as an excuse anymore. As to income and cost of living, it is fine here. also, a stadium would not be built on the strip, probably eith south of town, near henderson, or west toward Summerlin….but i guess we are all just a bunch of old, drunk, gamblers who live in shanties outside the casinos…..
#32 & #33 Thanks for the chamber of commerce stuff. Now all you need are about 20,000 bogus season ticket deposits and, you’ll have early 90s Tampa/St. Pete all over again.
Actually I think an NFL or NBA franchise would work in Vegas better than MLB. I don’t think there are that many new viable MLB markets cities left. Carpetbagger Loria has to go talk with somebody after all.
dude, see, another person who has no clue what they are talking about. Its funny when friends come here to visit, then they finally realize there is an actual city here, noyt just the strip…but as usual you guys know everything.
As to the NFL, they have pubicly said they will never allow a franchise here as long as the sports books are operational, as to the NBA, they do play here alot, but there is a real strong hunger for baseball in Vegas.
How often do you come to vegas? Do you honestly go anywhere other than the Strip? Probably not. BTW, it isn’t Chamber stuff, its called facts, maybe you should try doing some research before you start popping off.
Oh, BTW, explain why baseball wouldn’t work here, other than the lame arguements already posted, and why you think football or the NBA would.
Another point to consider, though not as important as some of the others, is that every west coast team except the m’s is blacked out here (SD, Ana, LA, Arz, Oak, and SF). so for people like me that love baseball, you rarely get to see any games after 4pm…..figure that the m’s play about 1/3 of their games against those teams.
An article from our local paer that worth checking out
http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2004/Dec-09-Thu-2004/news/25440119.html
The NBA will have no issue with a basketball team in Las Vegas. Note the NBA-owned WNBA team “Connecticut Sun” who are owned by the Mohegan Sun casino/resort and play in a Mohegon-owned Arena.
Other than the gambling, the reason why I think Vegas shouldn’t get a team is that right now the area is having an unsustainable population boom. Take a ride down I-515. Look at all of the development they’re doing down in Henderson and beyond. Keep going to the Hoover Dam.
While at the dam, park your car and look at Lake Mead. You’ll notice that the bottom 100 ft or so of the rock wall is white. Why is it white? Because it was underwater until 1999. Unless the weather patterns shift again to deliver a LOT more rain to the region, there is going to have to be an exodus – or at least a stabilization – at some point. The idea of putting a team there is still based around the projections of continued growth and I just don’t see that happening.
(For those who don’t live there, I took a photo on my recent trip. To put things in perspective, that entire hill in the foreground was underwater before the combination of drought and population increase started.)
Any further discussion you want to have with me about this where you tell me how wrong I am can be done via email.
First of all, about 70% of the water used from lake Mead goes to LA. We actually just signed a deal to quadruple our water allotment.
As to the growth, it won’t be like it is forever, but it is sustainable. like i said, try living here, you are wrong,very wrong. people made an issue out growth because Pulte Hpmes was jacking their prices way up, and people weren’t paying it. I live in the largest growing portion of Vegas, the NW section of the Valley. Again, check your facts. As to populatiopn, there are almost 3 milllion people in the city and outlying area, Alot of businesses are moving here because of the business friendly atmosphere….I’m wasting my breath, some people just have an image in their heads, and no matter what you tell them, they can’t be shown the light.
I’d warn on tone, but.. too late.
#40, the reason why the NBA has no problem with the sun being owned by mohegan is this: That casino has NO sportsbook. That is the reason, they don’t care about people playing slots or blackjack, they care about people going into a sportsbook and betting on the game.
A bunch of points:
I had a chat with Jonah about publically funded stadia in Montréal. I still think that MLB would have had a better shot at getting stadium funding if they’d gone after the federal government rather than the provincial government. The feds are forever funnelling money into Québec, and never more so than they did from 1995-2002.
I thought Lake Mead was used primariy for irrigation. That’s what the tour guide told me when I was there last year. And while the water level is dropping badly, apparently there’s still enough water in there for the next 90 years or so, even if no new water is added.
I hate the Mohegan Sun casino. It’s impossible to count cards there – they reshuffle the shoe as soon as they’re halfway through it. They completely overreacted to a card counting ring taking them for $800K on their opening weekend, and now I don’t know why anyone is willing to play there. They’ve effectively changed the rules of a classic game.