Las Vegas is known for its high-stakes gambling, the questionable decisions people make, and, most recently, for being the home of a ridiculously successful expansion NHL team, the Vegas Golden Knights. With the Oakland Raiders moving to the Sin City in the near future, Vegas will have gone from having no Big Four pro teams to having two within the span of a couple of years.
To land an expansion or relocated baseball team, the city would need to invest in a new MLB caliber stadium, which is unlikely. To bring either a relocated or expansion NBA team to Vegas, all the city needs to do is show off its brand new T-Mobile Arena, the home of the Golden Knights. The arena could easily host both teams, just like the shared venues in Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Chicago, Toronto, Boston, New York, Washington D.C., Brooklyn, Dallas, and Denver, and was created with that specific purpose in mind.
T-Mobile Arena was opened in 2016 and has the capacity for 17,500 hockey fans, and can expand to 18,000 for basketball. T-Mobile Arena is also in a prime spot, located right off the Strip and sitting directly behind the New York New York and Monte Carlo Hotel and Casinos.
Despite the arena’s terrific location and its relative newness, Madison Square Garden and Las Vegas Sands have decided to team up and build a another new arena less than two miles away. The venue, which has no team attached to it and is just a bit redundant, would also be right off the Strip and also located behind two pristine hotel and casinos.
According to the Las Vegas Sun, the proposed Las Vegas Sands-Madison Square Garden arena will be seated behind the Venetian and Palazzo, which are both owned by Sands Corp. The new arena is “on track to begin construction this summer.”
This is so ridiculous.
“You’re going to see something that’s pretty spectacular and I know our neighbors across the street, the Wynn, got to see it and it looks extraordinary,” Robert Goldstein, president and chief operating officer of Las Vegas Sands.
It will be around 600,000 square feet and have a capacity of 18,500. The unnamed venue is currently scheduled to open up during the summer of 2020, which is the offseason immediately after the third season of the Vegas Golden Knights.
“It’s a great place to live and work. The growth is returning around Las Vegas — it’s more of a lodging-based market than it’s been in the past,” Goldstein told to the Las Vegas Sun. “The Golden Knights have done extraordinarily well and the hockey has been terrific, football is coming, why not.”
Why not? WHY NOT? Let’s see: there is another brand new arena less than two miles away, the chances of the NHL adding a second Las Vegas team two miles away is less than zero, the chance of the NBA adding a team and that team playing at the new spot is pretty much non-existent, the city of Vegas doesn’t need a second arena and third stadium (even without an anchor tenant), and finally, THERE IS A NEARLY IDENTICAL ARENA LESS THAN TWO MILES AWAY.
There is really no good reason for Sands and MSG to invest the time and money necessary into this venue. By the time this new place opens, concert companies will already have an established relationship with T-Mobile Arena. On top of that, both the UFC and Golden Knights already have exclusive deals with T-Mobile Arena that would make it incredibly hard for them to jump ship and move to this new arena.
In short, what on earth is this new arena going to attract? It’s not like if Taylor Swift is doing a concert at T-Mobile Arena, Justin Bieber’s reps would let him do a concert at the same time less than two miles away. It would just be stupid to try and compete on the same night for the same fans.
Congratulations, Las Vegas! You’re getting another arena for no reason! Hopefully, you don’t have to pay for this one!
We didn’t pay for the first one. So let’s not forget that we have 45.8 million visitors a year. The success of T-Mobile to have concerts and events leads to the if you build it, they will come mentality. It will work…. maybe we could put our NHL farm team in it….
This arena is not for a pro sports team, think something more like what MSG has done in Inglewood with their renovation of The Forum. It will host concerts as well as smaller sporting events like boxing matches. Now you could question the need for another large venue primarily for concerts, as in addition to T-Mobile Arena, there’s the Thomas & Mack Center (Which has managed to keep the NFR despite the allure of a brand new arena.), MGM Grand Garden Arena and the Mandalay Bay Events Center (Which is where the MGM Resorts-owned Las Vegas Aces of the WNBA will play, and is the smallest of these venues.). Over at the Orleans, the Orleans Arena seats just under 9,000 for concerts. There are smaller music-centered venues like Park Theater over at Monte Carlo (Currently in the process of being renovated and rebranded as Park MGM.) that seats 5200, the Coliseum at Caesars Palace that seats just under 4300, the Axis Theater at Planet Hollywood that seats 4600-7000 depending on the act (Residency shows there typically seat 4600.), the Joint at the Hard Rock Hotel that seats up to 4000. You have venues like the House of Blues at Mandalay Bay, the Pearl at the Palms that seat up to 2000-2500, and there are still some showrooms at some properties that seat around a similar number.
Sands is owned by Adelson who was in on the big con job back on Oct 1st profiting by the millions when he shorted mgm stock in the market days before. Guess he had cash to burn.
They will host boxing events rodeo events arenacross plus concerts awards shows basketball and other sports.
>> ..located behind two pristine hotel and casinos.<<
"Pristine"? Where's the Comeback editor? Lakes and forests are pristine; not hotels and casinos! 🙁
Just another 20 something snowflake schmuck bloviating about something he knows nothing about. How do you know the NBA opputinity is non existent? Do you think BILLIONAIRES don’t do there research before committing BILLIONS of dollars to a project?
Unfortunately I can’t the 3 minutes of my life back that I wasted reading this millennials piece of shit opinion.
See you at the new Arena jerk off. You’ll do great as a popcorn vendor.
Repeat after me… POPCORN HERE!
This comment is an example of an idiotic, attention-whoring, jilted ex-girlfriend-styled ad hominem. An unnecessary, blindsided attack on the author, not based on the actual subject, (which is a sensible argument) but based on presumptions about his AGE?
And then, THIS: “Do you think BILLIONAIRES don’t do there research?” REALLY? “THERE” research? Since you don’t know the difference between “there,” and “their,” I hope you’ll have your popcorn hawking ready too.
You seem to be under the mistaken impression that ANYTHING makes sense in Las Vegas.
There will be an NBA franchise in Vegas within 5 years. As shown by the VGK fans of other teams like to go to Vegas to see their teams play. The winter weather in Vegas is better than most NBA cities, and it’s easier and cheaper to get a room and flight than anywhere else. The NBA is less risky than the NHL was; there was no history of locals supporting hockey but there’s a long history of them supporting the Running Rebels.