Las Vegas is now America’s most exciting sport town

Las Vegas, a city once known for its underworld origins, blinding neon signs and 24/7 party vibes has become something else — an unanticipated epicenter of America’s  sports world. The arrival of the NFL, Formula 1 racing, the National Hockey League, WNBA and soon, Major League Baseball has helped transform Sin City into Sports City – where fans can now watch the nation’s greatest pro athletes — while still finding time to place a few wagers.

While New York City, Boston and Chicago are blessed with legendary sports teams and fan bases, the number of people booking trips to Vegas annually to see a live sporting event has tripled since 2022 to more than 2 million, according to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. “Fans will come to see their team play and then extend their stay and catch a concert, shop, dine or golf,” notes Steve Hill, the CEO and president of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA).

Just last month, Formula 1 took over the Strip for the second edition of the Las Vegas Grand Prix, a Saturday night race won by Mercedes’ George Russell. In February, the Kansas City Chiefs beat the San Francisco 49ers in a 25-22 overtime thriller at Allegiant Stadium to capture Super Bowl LVIII. It was the first time the NFL’s signature game, annually the most watched televised event in the U.S., was held in Las Vegas. The game had an estimated economic impact of $1 billion in the area, according to tourism officials.

Ticket resale giant StubHub says last February’s Super Bowl was the bestselling Super Bowl on the site since 2020. The average ticket price was $8,400, with some seats selling for as much as $22,907. The 2023 Vegas Grand Prix “was StubHub’s bestselling F1 race of [2023] and was among the top 10 highest selling sporting events of the entire year globally in 2023,” says StubHub spokesperson Joseph Bocanegra. 

Few cities are as ideally suited to host big events like the Super Bowl and F1 like Vegas. With approximately 151,000 hotel rooms, the city can accommodate large crowds. Not only that, but its football stadium, hockey and basketball arenas as well as its F1 track are all within walking distance of the Vegas Strip. People attending a Raiders game don’t have to endure a brutal commute like Giants and Jets fans must on the East Coast. “Vegas is in a category of one when it comes to hosting [large-scale] events,” says Hill.

Aside from the hotel rooms, the hotel properties that dot the Vegas Strip know how to throw a party for deep-pocketed guests that attend events like the Super Bowl and Formula One. After the Chiefs’ big win last February, Taylor Swift and her boyfriend Travis Kelce celebrated at Zouk Nightclub inside Resorts World Las Vegas. Throughout Super Bowl week, the hotel made sure visitors in town for the game were immersed in related activities. “We have to think about activating the entire campus or the property,” notes Ronn Nicolli, Chief Marketing Officer for Resorts World Las Vegas.

Vegas is no stranger to reinvention. In the 1990s, it went for a more family-friendly image, as kitschy themed hotels such as the Luxor and Excalibur opened up. That didn’t last long, leading to the “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas” era, where the city went all-in on its hedonistic 24/7 reputation. Now it’s all about sports. 

The arrival of Formula One in 2023 meant Vegas could now target the affluent global racing audience that flock to see racing greats like Lewis Hamilton. Demand remained strong again for this year’s weekend of racing, with more than 300,000 fans in attendance. Those who turned out bought tickets ranging from $150 general admission seats to Paddock Club passes that go for as much as $45,000. Last year’s race was StubHub’s bestselling F1 race of the year globally. 

To give an idea of how much money is at stake, the average F1 fan spends around $4,100 during race week in Vegas. The average Vegas visitor typically spends around $1,200 per trip. The Vegas F1 race was expected to have a $1.5 billion economic impact locally. 

The 3.8-mile course for the Vegas Grand Prix provided free advertising for the city’s bright lights and big casinos, since the track incorporates parts of the Strip and passes iconic properties like the Bellagio, Caesars Palace and the Venetian. The Vegas Grand Prix is also the only F1 race in North America to take place at night. “No other city can host an event like Las Vegas — it’s in our DNA,” the LVCVA’s Hill says.

Sports have always been a big part of the Las Vegas scene. For decades, Nevada was the only state in the US where you could legally wager on sporting events. As a result, making the pilgrimage to watch and gamble on major sporting events like the Super Bowl and the NCAA men’s basketball tournament became a rite of passage for sports bros. 

But for a long time, all you could do was watch the games on televisions at one of the many Vegas sports betting sites. Leagues like MLB, NHL, NBA and especially the NFL wanted their teams and their games to keep their distance from the city, for fear of gambling getting too close to the games. When casino owners George and Joe Maloof owned the Sacramento Kings, the NBA prohibited their property, the Palms Resort Casino, from taking bets on pro basketball games.

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver changed his tune in 2014 when he declared that sports gambling should be “brought out of the underground and into the sunlight where it can be appropriately monitored and regulated.” In 2018, the Supreme Court struck down the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act (PASPA), which had essentially made it illegal to bet on sports anywhere but Nevada. That decision opened up the floodgates and the legal sports gambling industry has taken advantage. Nearly $120 billion was wagered on legal sports bets last year.

The staggering amount of money at stake caught everyone’s attention, especially the major sports leagues. Today, you can’t watch an NFL game now without being bombarded with ads for legal sports betting apps.

Once the guardrails on gambling came down, so did any trepidation on having sports teams setting up shop in Vegas. The city’s first major pro sports franchise, the Las Vegas Golden Knights, debuted as an expansion franchise in 2018 and found immediate success. They reached the Stanley Cup Finals in their first season, and won the Cup in 2023. The city has embraced the Knights; the pregame show’s production values resemble a Broadway show more than a hockey game. Fans from 49 different states have bought tickets to a Golden Knights home game this season, on StubHub, more than any other team in the NHL.  

As big a hit as hockey is in the desert, the rise of Vegas as arguably America’s premier sports city can be traced to 2020, the year the Oakland Raiders officially moved in. Owner Mark Davis was happy to pack up his team and rebrand them as the Las Vegas Raiders. And why not? He got a brand-new stadium with a permanent dome and tons of luxury suites to accommodate high-roller fans. 

An October visit to Allegiant Stadium to see the Raiders take on the Pittsburgh Steelers saw the stadium packed with 65,000 fans, with at least half of them being out-of-town visitors there to cheer on the Steelers, a game that StubHub says is the best-selling NFL game this season to-date on their platform. 

“The Raiders have been a top 10 team for us every year since they relocated to Vegas in 2020 and are second behind only the Cowboys in terms of tickets sold,” notes StubHub’s Bocanegra.  This season, 89% of all Raiders tickets sold on the site come from out-of-state buyers, more than any other team. 

Allegiant Stadium, in walking distance behind the Mandalay Bay hotel casino, is now as much an attraction as the Bellagio fountains. According to Hill at the LVCVA, the stadium was key to Vegas’ rise as a bigtime sports city. “Building Allegiant Stadium was transformative for Las Vegas,” he says. “It not only provided a venue that could host an NFL team, the Super Bowl, international soccer and a Taylor Swift concert, but it also made other global leagues and events – like F1 and the National Rugby League – want to come to Las Vegas.”

Vegas’ status as a premiere sports city still has lots of room to grow. In 2028, the former Oakland A’s are set to arrive in town. The team will play in a brand-new, 33,000-seat domed stadium being built on the Strip on the site of the former Tropicana Las Vegas hotel. But the NBA may beat the A’s to town. The league is reportedly considering expansion plans as early as 2027 to possibly put a team in Vegas. 

“With the addition of the A’s and, potentially, down the line, an NBA or MLS team, this will become one of the sporting hubs domestically,” Resorts World’s Nicolli says. “If I had made that statement 20 years ago, everyone would’ve looked at me like I was crazy, but today, I think it holds true.”