Allegiant Stadium, home of the Super Bowl LVIII game between the Kansas City Chiefs and the San Francisco 49ers, is just one of several new sports venues that Las Vegas has built in recent years.
Photographer: Ethan Miller/Getty ImagesOnce a Sports Desert, Las Vegas Bets Big on Luring Pro Leagues
Fueled by legal sports betting, the Nevada city has poured billions into new stadiums and arenas. As it hosts Super Bowl LVIII, Vegas is ready to show off its latest reinvention.
When Las Vegas hosts its first-ever Super Bowl on Feb. 11, it will mark a kickoff party that few saw coming. For decades, the major US sports leagues shunned Nevada’s most populous city, despite its status as a tourism epicenter. Gambling was taboo, especially after a referee betting scandal in the mid-2000s. And no place on earth embodied that unsavoriness more than Sin City.
“You go back 10 years and we couldn’t say the words ‘Super Bowl,’” says Sean McBurney, regional president at Caesars Entertainment Inc., which owns eight resorts on the Las Vegas Strip. “How sports has embraced Las Vegas has changed dramatically.”