Will Las Vegas Ever Get One of the Big 4, Namely NBA?

Good read, kind of long. Talks about Vegas' struggle to get a pro sports franchise, namely NBA franchise in the city. Do you think it will ever happen?

ESPN's Scoop Jackson Examines Vegas' Potential

LAS VEGAS -- They were everywhere. Especially in places they weren't supposed to be.

This Strip was half-full Sunday night. The usual amount of sin was not out to play. The casinos weren't tilt, there was no big fight over the weekend. LV was slow.

Instead, Las Vegas Boulevard was littered with 16- to 18-year-olds, all at least 6-foot-5. From all over the country. They all had $160 on their feet, they all had backpacks, they all had acne issues. Most of them walked around with their necks twisting, looking at girls and women not much older than them walking through the Bellagio Hotel in white-laced underwear, trying to get into Light.

Another Diora Baird wannabe walks by. You don't see this typa thang in Indianapolis. I look at the face of a kid standing next to me: Sprung.

They came here to play. Not roulette, craps or blackjack. They came to play ball. Three thousand of them, I'm told. All here for adidas, Reebok and Vision Sports. All in the best national AAU basketball tournaments in the country: Super 64, Big Time and The Main Event. All have converged on Las Vegas (The Main Event is held in nearby Henderson) this week to showcase their skills to a city that only sees basketball to this degree a couple of times a year.

LeBron, Cuttino, Lamar Odom, Donyell Marshall and Mike Bibby all have a presence here -- in teams that bear their names and sponsorship.

It's Vegas minus the corruption. For once. High school gyms are over-occupied with games.

Still, the Palms calls them. Pros and future pros.

As does everything on the Strip.

But this story isn't about that. This is about something much bigger.

He said it in an interview in Cigar Aficionado. In a conversation with the publisher, Marvin Shanken, he said the one thing that needed to not be said:

"I'd love to own a franchise in Las Vegas. But who wouldn't? The opportunity it provides just from being in Las Vegas creates a great economic situation. But it's not just (me) who would find that attractive. You could find a lot of other potential owners or investors who'd like to own a team in Las Vegas. Will it happen? I don't know."

Michael Jordan was the last person who needed to put it out there. But he did.

Which just gave the validation needed to make professional sports happen in the one city in need of making something happen in professional sports.

For months, the rumor has been spreading that the NBA is making moves to hold its 2007 All-Star Game in Las Vegas.

As image-conscious as David Stern is, some say they have a hard time believing he would risk having the "black folks' Super Bowl" in Sin City. Those on the other side of the theory believe that this is his or the league's way of testing the waters to see whether there's room for an NBA version of the Washington Nationals.

Memphis beware.

But with three AAU tournaments going on simultaneously and news in the Sun and the Review-Journal about bringing a Major League Baseball team here (although unless they build a dome stadium, the weather -- heat or rain -- for the months of May through August in Nevada is not conducive to outside sports professionally), it seems as though the buzz about Las Vegas legitimizing itself as a major player in the American sweepstakes of sports is real.

Beyond Bob Arum and Don King.

"It needs something else to define it besides money," one Vegas someone said in a conversation adjacent to me while cocktailing at Mix. The motto of "what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas" needs to transcend Vegas.

Things the rest of the country can become interested in -- and be able to see -- need to happen inside the city. Things only an official pro team can provide. The one thing that can be said about professional sports franchises is that they complete cities. Whether it's a one-sport town such as Salt Lake City, or a multiple-team town such as NYC, the impact of having a team in one of the Big Three (no disrespect, NHL) adds something to a city that goes further than revenue and respect.

Teams give cities (and residents) a sense of pride. An identification.

Las Vegas needs that. And the people who live here -- and visit -- know it.

They can only hang on to the 1991 Runnin' Rebels for so long.


Oscar Goodman is a sports fiend.

Hang around Vegas long enough and you'll hear stories. Know the right people and they'll show you the $100 chip that bears his likeness.

Ever since he became Las Vegas' mayor six years ago, he has been on a "low-key mission" to bring a professional sports team to his city.

In a city that's growing in population by an average of 4,000 people per month, the time is right for something bigger than UNLV basketball to take off in Cirque du Soleil-land.

But let Matt Sherwood, PR director of the S.W.A.T House of Las Vegas, tell it: "The fan base here is fickle. Win, and everybody loves you. Lose one game, there'll be an empty stadium the next week."

Which creates a big concern for investors, or potential investors, who might want to look at Vegas as the spot for someone to become the next Dan Gilbert.

"They're building up here, not out," graphic designer Brad Samuels told me. "Look at all of the new towers. The Hotel at Bellagio, Mandalay Bay II, Icon II, all have built new towers in the last couple of years. Trump's ex-wife is about to build a bigger one than his here. The Strip is getting too crowded to build horizontal anymore. Vegas is going vertical."

And where will this leave room for a stadium or arena?

"Off the strip," yellow cab driver No. 1451 tells me. "In downtown Vegas, right by City Hall." Where there's nothing but land being broken. Miles of untapped desert. Home of the Las Vegas Sharks, if they decide to go that route. Where every NBA team except the Lakers would have two-night stays, where no Eastern Conference team would have a back-to-back game the next night.

Where Jack Nicholson or Spike Lee wouldn't be the mascot … Jerry Tarkanian would.

On May 15, Las Vegas celebrated its 100th birthday.

And after those 100 years, this is what Vegas has to show for itself, in terms of contemporary involvement in sports outside of boxing: a Canadian football team, three IHL teams, UNLV athletics, an Arena Football team and the Dodgers' Triple-A squad, called The 51s.

But whenever the Lakers or Kings come to play an exhibition game here: a sellout.

The sins come in the form of this: Lure in the Wynn Hotel, Pure in Caesars Palace, Curve in the Aladdin, Drai's after hours, the Foundation Room and its Godspeed Monday night "musical orgies" in Mandalay Bay, and the Skin Pool Lounge in the Palms.

Bigger sins will appear next year with Jet inside the Mirage, and the pro players' paradise of downtown Las Vegas, the Club Renaissance Condo Tower. If there is to be a team sanctioned for southern Nevada, this is where every athlete will decide to stay.

Or 662 if Suge decides the real ballers need a place to "relax."

But the biggest sins will be the ones committed inside the casinos that make Las Vegas an almost impossible place from which to win a bid on an American sports vacancy.

The NBA, MLB and NFL (if it decides to get into the discussion) all have that aura hovering over any franchise's existence if one decides to shake hands with Goodman.

But just like the urban legend about the '95 Super Bowl -- according to myth, a phone call was made to ensure a San Diego loss because a win (because of Vegas odds, the national betting line and shady casino involvement) possibly would end the existence of the MGM Grand, Mirage and Hilton hotels -- the reality of Vegas having a final say in games played by a team the city actually has a vested interest in will make it impossible for any win or loss to be accepted as "untouched."

At the same time, what's the point in having a team in Vegas if there's "no touching allowed"?

Like Sherwood said, "You really think they make the injury reports on NFL teams public for the teams? That's all done for the oddsmakers here in Vegas."

And in order to get a team here, professional sports have to act as if "Vegas" doesn't exist, like the activity on the Strip doesn't affect the games they'll be playing.

Not even MJ -- the gambling god himself? -- would bet on that happening.

OJ Mayo is averaging 25.3 points per game (plus seven assists and almost three steals) during his run in Vegas.

His D1 Greyhound squad isn't making the splash it hoped to, but he's giving the city something to talk about once he leaves.

But if you're here, you have to ask … what's the point? Ultimately? What's the purpose in being able to watch Spiece Indy Heat's (and Ohio State's) Greg Oden ball here for five days without any hope of ever getting a chance to see him play for a team in this city once his draft day comes in 2008?

Vegas might be good at teasing people with hopes of grand payoffs, but does it deserve to get teased back like that?

Inside the Race and Sports area at Mandalay Bay, all 10 MLB games are posted on the board. As are the odds on the 51s' game against the Salt Lake Stingers.

The waitresses walk around informed. They can give you the latest update on the Terrell Owens situation in Philly, or chill and dialogue with you about the odds on Larry Brown coaching the Knicks.

In Vegas, it's all in a day's work.

Jordan also said one thing in that interview that somewhat sums up why a pro team might never see the light of night in LV.

"Gambling," he said, "can initiate greed."

And that's the last thing any owner of a professional sports franchise wants to be accused of. Greed. That's the reason they pay their players such large sums, so that the nature of greed -- or the perception of it -- falls in their laps.

And somewhere in between the lap dances and the lap of luxury every player who would play for a team here would have to "endure" while under contract, the risk of having so much activity so close to a franchise might not be in the best interest of ownership and the commissioner of whichever league makes the first move.

The heat in Vegas sometimes has nothing to do with the weather.

But at the same time, you have to understand -- Las Vegas needs a professional sports team more than a professional sports team needs Las Vegas.

David Stern knows this. As does Bud Selig.

But it's impossible for them to ignore (especially Stern), especially when "the next LeBron" is already making a name for himself across Nevada.

As a dealer who lives in Vegas told me, when I asked if he thought having a pro team in Vegas would be good for sports: "Not really," he said, as he dealt me a king on top of my nine of spades.

"But it would be good for the city. And that's all I care about."

 

No, got a link or something where I can read the story?