Last week’s Las Vegas stadium groundbreaking event reminded representatives of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority about the impact of something few of us saw coming: Southern Nevada’s sudden emergence as a center for professional sports.
We’re strutting our major-league swagger as a result of the phenomenon: the surprising early success of the Vegas Golden Knights; that feeling of reality that we will have the NFL and the Las Vegas Raiders here by 2020; new NASCAR races at the expanding Las Vegas Motor Speedway; MGM Resorts International’s surprising acquisition of the WNBA San Antonio Stars, widely viewed as an investment toward a larger prize, an NBA franchise for Las Vegas.