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Christopher DeVargas
South Point owner and National Finals Rodeo sponsor Michael Gaughan welcomes competitors onstage during the NFR welcome reception at South Point on Tuesday, Nov. 30, 2010.
Friday, Feb. 10, 2012 | 6 p.m.
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Beyond the Sun
The red carpet and premiere of Travel Channel's "Vegas Stripped" at South Point on Wednesday, Feb. 8, 2012.
"Vegas Stripped," a new reality TV series on the Travel Channel, takes a behind-the-scenes look at South Point, focusing on this handful of featured staff members.
Often, life is a numbers game for Michael Gaughan. And his review of the first two episodes of “Vegas Stripped” is numerical in nature:
“I give it an eight,” said the owner of South Point hotel-casino. “It came out well, all things considered.”
Gaughan’s rating could be called a hard eight, as he is not the most lenient audience for the Travel Channel series focused on his hotel. Up to Wednesday’s premiere episodes, Gaughan has been either indifferent or skeptical about the project.
“I didn’t have anything to do with it,” he said during a phone interview Thursday. “Tom (Mikovits) and our marketing team said they had a show they wanted to put on TV. The way I run my place, I let my department heads make the decisions. I approved this in general because it was going to be on TV, and it wasn’t going to be anything negative against Las Vegas.”
For Gaughan, the son of resort pioneer Jackie Gaughan and one of the Las Vegas’ leading authorities on just about any subject, protecting the city’s image is priority No. 1.
“I’ve been approached by people wanting to do TV shows about Las Vegas in the past, and have turned down the ones that are negative about the city,” Gaughan said. “This thing came along, and it’s like my daddy says, it’s good to keep your name in the public eye.”
Produced by Leftfield Productions, the company that brought the wildly successful “Pawn Stars” to History Channel, “Vegas Stripped” is scheduled to run in a half-dozen, 30-minute installments on the Travel Channel, with new episodes set for 7 p.m. Wednesdays. The show taped from October to December. Up next week is the hotel’s staging of the World Series of Team Roping.
“I’m looking forward to that,” Gaughan said. “I”ll watch that one.”
The premiere episode centered on the hotel’s Fetish & Fantasy Ball. The second offered an inside-out account of the hotel’s gourmet food truck festival and celebrity poker tournament. Gaughan had no trepidation about the food trucks and poker tournament, but the Fetish & Fantasy ball caused concern. Under his ownership, the South Point has engendered a primarily cowboy-old west image, particularly during the run of the annual National Finals Rodeo. It is not known as a salacious resort, not at all in the order the Palms as it was depicted when it hosted MTV’s “Real World Las Vegas” reality show.
“When they wanted to shoot at the Fetish & Fantasy, I wasn’t sure what to expect,” said Gaughan, who watched the first two installments at a party at South Point Showroom. “But they did it fun and funny. I was pretty nervous, though.”
The Fetish & Fantasy looks like a one-off event for the hotel, by the way. Gaughan said the Hard Rock Hotel has made a deal to return the bawdy Halloween costume party to the Joint for 2012.
“The Hard Rock came in and made them an offer they couldn’t refuse,” he said, countering the account in the show, which indicated the party would return to the South Point.
“Vegas Stripped” showcases all variety of South Point staffers, from Mikovits and hotel president Ryan Growney to cocktail servers and bellmen (watching Mikovits’ attempt to explain to Growney miscalculating the food truck event by at least $15,000 is pretty amusing, if you know these two). Mikovits, who is a consulting producer of the series, has been on cable TV before. While a student at Georgetown, he hosted the interview-highlights show "College Football Magazine." Among his subjects were then-Tennessee quarterback Peyton Manning and then-Penn State coach Joe Paterno. Thus, Mitkovits is more comfortable with a camera crew in tow than your typical resort executive.
Who you will not see on "Vegas Stripped," however, is Gaughan himself.
“When I see the camera, I usually go the other way,” Gaughan said. He has appeared on the South Point-based reality show “The Linemakers,” a depiction of the inner workings of sports book betting, which aired on Velocity, which is owned by the Discovery Channel. The show has aired 24 episodes and begins filming again in the fall, in time for the college and NFL season, again at the South Point.
“I did appear a couple of times on ‘Linemakers’ because I am comfortable with sports betting,” Gaughan said. As for a possible on-camera appearance if the show does sign for another set of episodes, Gaughan chuckles and says, “I can’t comment on that.”
Follow John Katsilometes on Twitter at Twitter.com/JohnnyKats. Also, follow “Kats With the Dish” at Twitter.com/KatsWithTheDish.
This man knows how to run a casino!
I just watched both episodes. I think it'll bring in more business for them.
Both of my negative comments about the south point were deleted so quickly so much for an unbiased newspaper guess all that ad revenue gets u something
The fact remains that the south point has the most unfriendly casino in town the staff is blatantly rude and they sweat the money like typical low class joint. The front line staff rudeness is only surpassed by the managers who are the biggest jerks in town. All in positions because they are friends of the Gaughan family and can never be fired no matter how stupid or rude they are because they are friends of the family. They picked the right location and they have three good restaurants and a good sports book everything else stinks ---in particular the casino staff.
The publicity can only help them get more business. What is wrong with that. They then can hire more people and it is a win win for the casino and Las Vegas.
Michael Gaughan is a class act. He runs his casino the same way. His employees seem happy and always say he is a "good guy". He supports the locals with great specials and comps.
Now if only he would help establish a Dallas Cowboys-Mega Stadium so we can keep the National Final Rodeo from going to Dallas.