Super Bowl cements NFL’s relationship with Vegas
LAS VEGAS (AP) — A meeting scheduled in the 1980s between the NFL and sportsbook directors sparked hope in Las Vegas that their relationship would soon take a much more positive turn after decades during which the league kept the city at arm’s length.
When all it turned out to be was a league official telling the casinos they would each be charged $25,000 a year to televise NFL games, longtime sportsbook director Jimmy Vaccaro knew the relationship would remain frosty for the foreseeable future.
“In the long run, we thought there’s no sense fighting these people because they can turn off the switch and there are no football games on,” Vaccaro said. “So you just have to eat it and go from there.”
Now the NFL can’t get enough of Las Vegas. The Raiders have been playing near the Strip at Allegiant Stadium since 2020, and on Sunday the stadium will host the Kansas City Chiefs and the San Francisco 49ers in the Super Bowl, the most visible sign that the league has come to embrace both the city and the growing gambling industry. The city has also hosted the NFL draft and two Pro Bowls.
“The relationship developed very quickly,” said Jay Kornegay, vice president of race and sports operations at Westgate Las Vegas. “To us, it felt like it was a 180-degree turn. For decades, it was a precarious type of relationship. We talked to each other a number of times over the decades, but it was very clear their stance on sports gambling, and we certainly respected that.”
Las Vegas bookmakers, business executives and government officials largely took a pragmatic view when it came to how they worked with the NFL, a key reason the transition to a much warmer relationship has been smooth.
They could’ve taken the NFL’s snubs much more personally, and in fact, the league made two decisions that especially didn’t sit well.
One was in the 2003 when the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority asked to run a TV commercial during the Super Bowl touting the city. The NFL refused to air the ad, even though it didn’t mention gambling.
Authority CEO and President Steve Hill wasn’t in charge of the agency at the time, but in speaking with several people about the ad being nixed, he learned some were genuinely surprised and insulted.
But Hill added, chuckling: “I also think there was a fair amount of feigned surprise. It just plays wrong. Hey, this is going to draw free attention to us, which it did. And we played it up. It’s not the end-of-theworld kind of thing, so let’s play hurt and get some free media.”
NFL owners in 2017 approved the Raiders’ plans to relocate from Oakland, California, to Las Vegas. A year later, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act, opening the door to legalized sports betting beyond Nevada.
Suddenly, the NFL had a much different relationship with Las Vegas.
“It’s a totally new world,” UNLV history professor Michael Green said. “It’s a complete flip-flop.”
At a Super Bowl event in December, league Commissioner Roger Goodell said he wouldn’t have imagined being in Las Vegas to promote the league’s premier event 10 years ago.
“You’ve become Sports Town USA, you really have,” Goodell told the crowd. “That vision was set out. That vision was clear. We wanted to be a part of it, and I think when that happened, everything seemed to change.”