Hey David Stern, lighten up!

[soccerbob]

The main reason an NBA team won't be coming to Las Vegas is the size of the television market. It's still on the small side and rates that a network can charge advertisors are hugely based on a given city's television market. Although the population has certainly increased rapidly here, Las Vegas can't command and get anywhere near what major cities can get on an NBA telecast.

The betting aspect isn't as much of a stumbling block as people think. If David Stern called Mayor Oscar Goodman and the Nevada Resort Association today and said you will get an NBA team if you stop booking NBA games, the NBA would be off the board in 10 minutes. They could take the NBA games down and there aren't a dozen people in this city that would care. The square tourists would just bet on something else or throw their money in the nearest slot or poker machine.

When you mix in the small TV market issue with the fact that Las Vegas doesn't support sports teams particularly well, the NBA is not coming to Las Vegas now or anytime soon.

 

[WildBill]

I disagree Bob. I have talked with a few of the book directors and they said they won't give up the NBA unless the state or the regulators tell them they can't have it. The key for them is that if they gave up the NBA, it could essentially kill off MANY books from being a year-round operation and even worse create a clear path to no NCAA hoops betting either, something that would absolutely hurt with the March Madness business they do. Think about it, how could Las Vegas justify to the irrational world that they have banned NBA betting while allowing the world to bet on college kids playing the same sport? It would not go over well, to say the least. That is why the books are willing to give up betting on games for the local team, but not the board completely. And books already have a hard enough time justifying themselves with a 2 month summer hiatus where only minimal baseball action is booked. If they got cut off from a good business driver after football, many books would close up or just be football season propositions. No book employee would even think of allowing that, they couldn't justify a job.

And once again you still have plenty of people like Steve Wynn in town who have said they feel that a pro sports team would become a competitor to their business and I don't think you will see a scenario that you mention. The casinos won't be that supportive, the book managers would be up in arms, and despite what you think there are still tons of people around that if you framed the argument as "do you want so and so to take away your RIGHT to bet on an NBA game", then there would be a lot of local opposition beyond the dozen people you think that care.

 

[CharlieMaxwell]

Wild Bill - The argument that the casino operators aren't in favor of a pro basketball team coming to Vegas because it would be competition for their business doesn't make much sense to me because there would be JUST 41 home games that last a little over 2 hours.

If the casinos think that a two-hour event that takes place 41 times out of 365 days is going to hurt their business they ARE IN DEEP DOO DOO!

Charlie