My Conspiracy on Pro Sports in Las Vegas

With the recent news that the NBA has approved expansion to Seattle and Las Vegas, it has got me thinking that it is odd that all of a sudden Vegas is getting all of these pro sports teams. Since 2017, Las Vegas has gone from having minor league teams to having all of the big four leagues playing in Vegas. The NHL was the first to jump into Vegas with the Golden Knights in 2017. The Aces of the WNBA joined them the next year. The then-Oakland Raiders announced they would depart for Vegas in 2017, but wouldn’t officially move until 2020. The A’s would be the next team in 2023 to announce that they would call Vegas home. Now the NBA is planning on putting a team in Sin City. However, if you think this seems random, and all of a sudden, you wouldn’t be alone on that. As up until the Golden Knights, the most successful team in Las Vegas was the Las Vegas 51’s/Aviators, the AAA team, to the drum roll please................future Las Vegas A’s. I’m sure that the A’s moving to Vegas has nothing to do with that at all. Besides the Aviators, it has been a whole bunch of one-and-dones in Vegas. 35 former pro sports teams called Vegas home from 1947 to as recent as 2023. Out of those 35, only six lasted more than five years. Out of those six, two of them were semipro women’s football teams, and a third was a rugby team that may or may not have played every year. A fourth team played in the National Premier Soccer League. The other two teams? The Las Vegas Wranglers of the ECHL and the Las Vegas Thunder of the IHL. Hockey seems to be something that Las Vegas really enjoys. 

Las Vegas Skyline

The simple answer as to why all these pro teams are going to Vegas could be explained as “well, the population is booming.” Vegas has seen growth, but if you didn’t know any better, you would think that it’s the size of San Francisco or Seattle. Not smaller than St Louis, San Antonio, Austin, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, or Orlando. All cities that should’ve been considered for any sports team before Vegas. There is, however, another part that does not get talked about.  Sports Betting. You can’t watch a game on TV, scroll social media, watch YouTube, listen to the radio, or even walk downtown anymore without hearing or seeing an ad for sports gambling. And the vipers' nest is in Las Vegas, Nevada, and sports leagues and owners know it. Nevada is willing to foot the bill for more sports teams, but those tax dollars aren’t coming from sports books, because no one wants to make them mad. That’s the cash cow for the leagues, and that’s the real reason teams are moving to Vegas. The Golden Knights were just the tip of the iceberg. If leagues thought Vegas was viable, then we would’ve seen more teams in the 80’s and 90’s threaten to move there, but they didn’t. When the teams in New Orleans got displaced, Vegas wasn’t a thought. For the Hornets, it was OKC, and for the Saints, it was San Antonio and Baton Rouge. 

It may just be for the all-mighty dollar, but it’s not the dollar of the fans but of the corporations who exploit the fans and prey on them in their wicked ways to sow fear amongst other cities.