If all goes according to the script laid out a week ago by the National Hockey League expansion committee, Bill Foley will be deliver a $500 million check to the NHL home office in New York sometime today and that will mean Foley and his backers will officially own a National Hockey League (NHL) franchise in Las Vegas. That brings questions too.
Now that a professional league has set up shop in a city where there is a sports book, Las Vegas, will Congress reconsider a 1992 piece of legislation that allows sports gambling of various degrees in just Nevada, Montana, Oregon and Delaware beyond those four states? Has the door been kicked open for Mark Davis to move his National Football League (NFL) franchise from Oakland to Las Vegas and if that happens, will the impact be felt in New Jersey? The NFL has been fighting the establishment of a sports book in New Jersey since voters said yes to opening sports gambling in the state in 2011. A judge has backed the NFL’s fight by blocking the will of the New Jersey voters hiding behind the 1992 federal legislation limiting sports gambling to just four states. Las Vegas is not exactly a stranger to sports, boxing has been a major staple in the Las Vegas sports diet. There has been a minor league presence in the city for a long time in baseball and in hockey. The Oakland Athletics played a couple series of Major League Baseball games in the city in 1996, the NBA’s Utah Jazz called Las Vegas a second home between 1983 and 1985. The NBA played the 2007 All Star Game in the city and Las Vegas has become a summer hub for the league with Olympic training camps and a summer rookie league. Las Vegas becomes a so-called big league city finally with an NHL team but that might just be only the beginning.
By Evan Weiner For The Politics of Sports Business.
This article was republished with permission from the original publisher, Evan Weiner.