Editorial: Big-time sports in our future

The cynics will say talk of a major-league sports team and a new arena in Las Vegas are pipe dreams. After all, Las Vegas has been littered with failed minor-league sports franchises. The triple-A baseball Stars draw reasonable crowds here, but there have always been legitimate doubts whether Las Vegas would support any major-league sport.

Despite a lack of enthusiasm for some minor-league teams, there is reason to be optimistic a big-league team will one day be a reality in Las Vegas. On Wednesday Mirage Resorts Chairman Steve Wynn announced the results of a poll conducted for him by nationally respected pollster Frank Luntz. The survey of 580 Las Vegas-area residents found that 93 percent would support a new sports arena and the professional team it might draw. Support for a sports arena, though, fell to 66 percent when respondents were asked if tax dollars should be used to build such a facility.

It shouldn't be too surprising that support would not be as strong for a publicly financed sports arena. First of all, most people believe if privately run sports teams are the beneficiaries, the owners should foot the bill for the arenas. Plus, there has been a backlash to public financing after sports franchises elsewhere in the nation have held cities hostage, threatening to move their teams unless a new stadium -- paid for by tax dollars -- was built. Still, it can't be discounted that the poll's results show 66 percent of Las Vegas-area residents support public financing for an arena.

Another mark against Las Vegas that seems to have withered is a concern by the major leagues about having a team in a city with gambling, including wagering on athletic events. But some form of gambling exists virtually everywhere in the nation today, and there have been some teams in professional sports whose owners also are involved in gaming companies, so that barrier shouldn't be as difficult to overcome.

Even if everything falls perfectly into place, a major-league team in Las Vegas realistically is years away. The National Basketball Association, which would most likely be the first entrant into Las Vegas, has no immediate expansion plans -- but that doesn't preclude a team being lured here from another city. The serious thinking and planning have to start now, including consideration of a stadium large enough for football.

The question no longer is whether Las Vegas will get a professional sports franchise, the question is when and how this will happen in a fast-growing metropolitan area of 1.3 million people that is expected to grow to 2 million within 10 years. Don't forget that the primary movers behind this effort -- Steve Wynn and Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman -- are men who were once told that their visions were unrealistic. At one time the conventional wisdom was that tourists weren't ready for Wynn's elegantly styled resorts and that there was no way voters would elect Goodman, who once represented mobsters. But they both proved their critics wrong -- many times over. These are two men you definitely can't count out if they set their minds to a task, which bodes well for Las Vegas getting a big-league team.

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