Can Vegas Save Professional Sports? MGM Thinks They Can
States and cities around the country are already reopening or looking at options to do so safely. Jobs and the economy are the main concern, but many people out there are also anxious to see their favorite sports teams back in action.
Restarting sports leagues is tricky. You have to take into consideration player safety and then fans as well if stadiums open to the public. Then there’s referees, team personnel, media and their families that you have to worry about.
But MGM has an ambitious plan. They have invited the National Basketball Association, the Women’s National Basketball Association, the National Hockey League and Major League Soccer to go to Las Vegas and finish their respective seasons, the New York Times reports. MGM envisions a fully quarantined campus, essentially one full block of the Las Vegas Strip, where players would live and play out whatever schedule the leagues want. Everyone would stay at Mandalay Bay Hotel, the Four Seasons and the Delano.
MGM definitely has the capacity. Those three properties have a total of 4,700 rooms. Additionally there is a convention center that hosts Las Vegas Aces (WNBA) and 24 more basketball courts can be put together for games and practices.
Similar ideas, to finish seasons at one specific location with all staff and players under quarantine, have been floated around in the past. But now MGM is offering to make this a reality.
Can it be done and will it even happen? Let us know what you think.
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i’d negotiate free parking and no resort fees before committing. 😀
Sigh, realize idea is doa , but it did strike me as an exercise in creative solution finding, based somewhat in “reality.” (unlike the utterly clueless nonsense emanating from the Mayor of Las Vegas — which makes the POTUS look semi-intelligent for once.)
It’s the only reasonable plan I’ve seen, specifically for the NBA. With 4700 hotel rooms, families could be accommodated, as could all of the support and broadcast staff, and the hotel/restaurant workers needed to make everything work. Plus, Vegas has the caché, the perceived luxury and action that many players prefer. I can think of no other location that can do all this. As an Orlando resident, I had hoped that ESPN’s Wide World of Sports at Walt Disney World could fit the bill, but it’s clear that Vegas has the better package. Perhaps Orlando could get the WNBA. Fewer courts/facilities would be needed for that league.
Interesting. I think the isolation from family would probably nix this idea though.
Not probably. Definitely. NBA and baseball unions have already said no to isolation away from families.
MLB floated the idea of doing a quarantined season in Arizona, and the players association didn’t even bring it to a full vote, if I remember right. “Isolation from family” was the first thing they mentioned.
Sounds like a good idea but everyone has to quarantine themselves in those hotels for 2 weeks first before playing.