Inside the decade-long push to make Las Vegas a sports town

It’s hard to believe, but the Raiders moved to Las Vegas in 2020, just months before the COVID-19 pandemic began. The Vegas Golden Knights will celebrate their 10th anniversary in Sin City in 2027. The Las Vegas Aces have won three WNBA championships since relocating from San Antonio in 2018. And F1 recently extended its Las Vegas Grand Prix through 2037.

The city is no longer the plucky newcomer to professional sports. It’s become one of North America’s fastest-rising sports markets. And there’s more to come: the MLB’s Athletics are building a new stadium, while an NBA franchise is likely to land on the strip in 2028.

One of the people behind that transformation is Michon Martin, CEO of R&R partners. As the agency of record for the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, the agency has deep ties to Nevada’s public and private sectors.

Las Vegas has changed pretty rapidly. What was the hardest part about making the shift feel real for audiences and residents?

The expectation with Vegas is that it’s always new, always evolving. You’re finding something different every time you come. That’s the expectation.

What’s difficult is in the sports phase, no one thought we could be a sports town. We had to prove we were a sports town. Then everybody thought, whoa, what have we been missing out on? And all the sports came. NFL, hockey, F1, all of it just flowing in, and it continues.

It looks really exciting from the outside. What was going on inside? I’m sure it was not as easy to pull off.

You’re so right. So it looked like, ‘Oh, Vegas got the NFL, Vegas got the Raiders. Easy-peasy.’ No, it was not.

The amount of coalition building you have to do to get any of these things done is difficult. It’s time-consuming and takes real relationships built over a long period of time.

With that, we do something very, very different. R&R is just a different breed. We were built out of politics, and so it’s very different with government affairs and community. But that’s the glue: getting all of those stakeholders, elected officials, all of those people believing in the vision that Vegas can be sports took so much effort and has taken us 10 years to get all these things. We’re still missing maybe a little something, but we’re working on that, by the way.

Sports bring all the attention. What actually turns that attention or fandom into something that really can last for decades?

I love your question, because that is the difference. Sure, the first year of whatever sport it is — F1 or the Raiders for the first inaugural year in Las Vegas — everybody’s interested. What’s that? I’m going to go check it out.

But your question is then how do you get that to last? That is community. That is digging in. That is these folks — these big franchises, Raiders, the Golden Knights, all of them — really becoming the fabric of Las Vegas and leaning into community, leaning into making the community better, because you get fans in the community.

Las Vegas is a big city, so you get all of those locals, let alone the global folks that come see the spectacle of Las Vegas. It’s a lot of work, and you’ve really got to commit to being a partner.

You’ve worked as both a prosecutor and spent time on the campaign trail. Those are two environments where momentum and messaging really do matter. What lessons from that world should advertisers bear mind to?

It makes no sense and all the sense in the world that I was a prosecutor and involved in politics. What it taught me was advocacy.

What it taught me was you have to look at the full picture, and you’re choosing your audience. When I was prosecuting cases, I had to pick jurors. Just like in advertising, we’re figuring out who our audience is, how to speak to them and convince them to do exactly what I’m asking them to do. It translates perfectly. Who knew, but it absolutely does.

That type of advocacy, for me, the way that I lead, what I bring to R&R partners is something very, very different. It was built to be very, very different. That part has been pretty incredible and just feels so familiar.

Destination brands, they tend to think in decades, not just quarters or moments. How should advertisers rethink their investment mindset if they really want to keep up and take this into account?

It has changed so much. The way that you’re thinking about it is so smart because what it used to be is you could just do a little something in Las Vegas and leave as a brand.

Come do a little something, we’re good and leave. Now what folks have figured out, and the Sphere is an amazing example, is building infrastructure. That is a lifetime commitment.

That’s a very, very different thing. Building that type of infrastructure — F1 did it with the Grand Prix Plaza — so that people can come year-round and experience F1. Those are generational commitments that change the look of the destination, and then you become a cornerstone of the destination.

That’s very, very different than the way they used to perceive it, and it pays off. It has really paid off because you can see the fandom growing and, therefore, the revenue growing for these folks.