MOVING: Vegas adds new sports teams to its roster.
By Jack Weggeland, Staff Writer
For the past seventy years, Las Vegas has been the home of gamblers, shoppers, entertainment and nightlife. Despite such an embraced reputation, Sin City hopes to pursue and attract the booming sports market and its faithful fans.
On June 22, 2016, the National Hockey League (NHL) announced its decision to add an expansion team in Las Vegas. “The town’s starving, absolutely starving, for a professional sports franchise. I’ve found the support to be overwhelming. People that live here, they’re dying for this,” Canadian poker star Daniel Negreanu said. With the addition to the already 31-team league, the newly named Las Vegas Golden Knights will be the eighth team in the Pacific Division and the 15th in the Western Conference. Not only will this have a massive economic impact on the city’s community, but it will also create an important balance within the NFL conferences in the league —the Eastern Conference has 16 teams and the Western Conference will have 15.
The team will play its home games at the T-Mobile Arena which has the capacity to hold 17,368 fans. In addition, the venue is located only one mile away from the infamous Las Vegas Strip. “The NHL wins because it becomes the first major professional sports organization to place a team in Las Vegas. The city wins because not only does it get a professional franchise, but it could also open the door for more leagues to jump on the bandwagon,” Bleacher Report Featured Columnist Adam Wells declared.
Wells’ reported trend proves to be accurate as the Oakland Raiders organization recently discussed their relocation under the Las Vegas lights with the National Football League (NFL). Nevada governor, Bria Sandoval, recently signed a bill that put 750 million dollars from hotel taxes towards the construction of a domed stadium. This field will not only be used by the professional football team, but will also be used for the University of Nevada, Las Vegas football games. The city of Las Vegas and the state of Nevada have shown vast support for the Raiders’ move to Vegas along with the NFL and sports’ fans. In the final step of the process, “We just have to present it to the NFL and get approval to move to Las Vegas,” Oakland Raider owner Mark Davis said.
This proves that what happens in Vegas will finally be on sports news.