Tuesday, Aug. 7, 2007 | 7:05 a.m.
Slick, new arenas housing a professional basketball, hockey or soccer team have been hot topics among locals for months.
However, it wasn't that long ago when a private group made a valiant effort to bring the Montreal Expos to a retractable-roof ballpark just off the Strip.
Think it was all fantasy?
Two weeks ago, in a meeting in the Major League Baseball commissioner's office in New York, league executives pondered that possibility:
What if Les Expos had not been relocated to the nation's capital in 2005?
"God," said one of baseball's brass, "we could be sitting here talking about Las Vegas instead of Washington."
Mike Shapiro was the point man for a private Las Vegas ownership group in negotiations with MLB about the Expos throughout 2004. Now he's a vice president of business affairs for the Washington Nationals.
In those Park Avenue offices, Shapiro pressed MLB President Bob DuPuy and Executive Vice President John McHale Jr., who were on the nine-person relocation committee, about the Las Vegas proposal.
How interesting was the Las Vegas option for you guys? Shapiro said after conversation had veered that way.
"The answer, uniformly, was that it was very seriously considered," Shapiro says. "It was a real intriguing alternative for baseball, had Washington not worked out."
The centerpiece of the Las Vegas proposal was an ultramodern, steel-and-glass stadium that would have been built on 12 acres behind Paris Las Vegas and Bally's.
Shapiro sometimes sits back in a chair in his RFK Stadium office and fantasizes about the Las Vegas project. He closes his eyes, sees flocks of fans, from the monorail and Strip, flooding into the state-of-the-art facility, and he chuckles.
"Right there in perhaps the most exciting place in the entire world," Shapiro says. "We nearly put a ball park right in the middle of it. It's kinda crazy now. At the time, it made a lot of sense.
"You sit back and think, 'What if? The 'what if?' wasn't that far off."
Had MLB awarded the Expos franchise to Shapiro's group and not Washington, the Las Vegas Kings - the nickname Shapiro favored, playing off Elvis and cards - would have landed in Las Vegas this season.
They likely would have spent two interim seasons in Monterrey, Mexico, under caretaker manager Frank Robinson. Manny Acta now manages the team.
The Lerner family bought the Expos for $450 million, then lured the District of Columbia to gamble $611 million on a new stadium by the Anacostia River.
Nationals Park opens next season.
What if they were the Kings, in Las Vegas, instead of the Nationals?
At the latest, with any construction delays, the Las Vegas stadium would have opened right after the All-Star break. Roughly, right about now.
Maybe the San Francisco Giants would be visiting? Maybe Barry Bonds would have broken Hank Aaron's home run mark with a prodigious shot out of the stadium? Maybe scores of fans, at the corner of Koval Lane and Tropicana Avenue, would have climbed over one another to snag the valuable ball?
"You can keep playing that one out," Shapiro says. "I just marvel at the audacity of the concept, and I marvel at how close we came to doing it. We were given very, very serious consideration.
"From a baseball perspective, it wasn't farfetched. It was reasonable."
Neither DuPuy nor Chicago White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf, the relocation committee chairman, answered interview requests to take part in this fantasy.
The architectural firm HOK, a leader in stadium design, had developed plans for a steel-and-glass stadium whose grass could have been grown on pallets and moved outside on rails, to accommodate various events.
Perini Building Co. would have built the state-of-the-art facility.
And it would have been constructed, according to Shapiro's proposal, entirely with private money.
His recurring daydream is highlighted by the excitement and electricity of opening that "beautiful, incredibly unique stadium" right off the Strip.
"Yeah, I do think about it," he says. "It would have been a wonderful fantasy."
The hurdles
Mike Shapiro, who tried to persuade Major League Baseball to move the Expos to Las Vegas for a private ownership group, acknowledges that MLB in Southern Nevada would have been challenging.
Among those hurdles:
Bowden would have been available, Shapiro says. So the Kings likely could have gotten him.
The Nationals lost Alfonso Soriano after last season and signed a cast of discount vagabonds, in the words of Washington Post columnist Thomas Boswell, to unearth some unknown diamonds. They have a $37 million budget, but plan to pursue a big offensive weapon, or two, next season.
"Someone who knows how to produce the best results with the least amount of budget," Shapiro says of that perfect GM. "That would have been a critical issue."
The Nationals earn close to $30 million in broadcast rights. Las Vegas couldn't have come close to that figure, according to Shapiro.
He thinks that premium seats regularly would have been scooped up by visitors and that local corporations would have bought plenty of luxury suites and sponsorship packages.
Caesars Entertainment, the landlord of the property, would have benefited from the increased foot traffic through Paris and Bally's, Shapiro says.
"Were visitors from Chicago and Minnesota and other cities coming to Las Vegas to be entertained, also coming to ballgames?" Shapiro says. "Other teams have not experienced a lot of penetration by visitors.
"But Las Vegas isn't like any other city. People go there to be entertained. We thought Major League Baseball would have been a very, very intriguing and available entertainment option."
That would have been the backbone of the Kings' success, unique in that Shapiro thinks more fans would be cheering for the visiting team than the home squad at Las Vegas games.
"At least for a few years," he says. "With such a small local population, we hoped to build a fan base along with a competitive and winning franchise.
"As the city grew, so would their loyalty and affection for the team. We were not fooling ourselves."
At 51-60, they're no longer challenging to be one of the worst teams in the game's history. They might not even finish this season with baseball's worst record. They will, though, probably finish at the bottom of their division.
"Not to paint a gloomy picture of what would have happened Opening Day in Las Vegas," Shapiro says, "but it would be a last-place team with good prospects for moving upward."
Advertising and marketing
You're drifting off to some jazz on KUNV, maybe a Miles Davis tune or sultry-voiced announcer Ginger Bruner, when the next commercial informs you that the Yankees are coming to town.
Those fans, the ad proceeds, are lined up, in buses and planes, to invade Las Vegas and root against your Kings!
"So come on down to the park," the nervous voice says, "and show them that Las Vegas cares!"
Shapiro has concocted plenty of ideas to draw Kings fans to the dome.
"I thought we would have fun with that," Shapiro says.
Marketing campaigns in other cities, to get those fans to visit Las Vegas and watch their team, also would have been extensive.
Bobblehead night
A George Washington bobblehead? Made out of cherry trees, no doubt. Abe Lincoln? Or Thomas Jefferson? The Washington Nationals have some unique ways to attract crowds.
But none come close to what the Las Vegas Kings could have offered.
The first season alone could have consisted of various Elvis models. "Blue Hawaii" Elvis. "Hound Dog" Elvis. Soldier Elvis with the action grip. "Jailhouse Rock" Elvis. One in comeback black leather, another in white leather and sequins. Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman as Elvis.
The next season, bring on the Rat Pack. Then, the second tier of entertainers, such as Wayne Newton, Siegfried & Roy, Liberace, Shecky Greene, Steve and Eydie, and Don Rickles.
Then, the originals. Howard Hughes, Kirk Kerkorian, Steve Wynn and maybe even Bugsy Siegel (on Warren Beatty night).
The possibilities are almost endless.
The team
"And HERE'S your Las Vegas KINGS!" radio announcer Russ Langer, the longtime 51s broadcaster who is our favorite to make his Major League splash with a team in his own town, would say nightly.
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