Columnist Dean Juipe: Big-league baseball in Las Vegas? That bet is a long shot

Dean Juipe

Monday, Jan. 19, 2004 | 9:15 a.m.

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at juipe@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4084.

Not too many years ago, a report that Major League Baseball was in Las Vegas and examining the city's credentials in regard to landing and supporting a team would have elicited a great deal of response from the media.

But these days, I guess, it's no big deal. No one really thinks a 50,000-seat stadium will be built and no one really thinks the Montreal Expos, or any other team, will move here.

So when word got out last week that MLB reps had been in town, it was greeted with a largely ho-hum response. One local TV station gave the story a decent play and a belated story ran in the Sun on Friday, but that was about it.

There was virtually no excitement running rampant, let alone needing to be curbed.

This is almost assuredly the result of the commonly held belief that baseball is the one and only sport that Las Vegas almost certainly doesn't have the wherewithal or numbers to support. Cases of varying strength can be made that the city would back a NFL, NBA or NHL team, but hardly anyone is of the opinion that Las Vegas could produce the kind of robust patronage it takes to keep a MLB team solvent.

Yes, the Expos are available and MLB wants them resettled by 2005, and whatever community claims the vagabonds -- they'll be playing a fourth of their "home" schedule in Puerto Rico once again this season -- will undoubtedly enjoy having a ballclub and its accompanying attention. But Las Vegas will not be that community.

The latest "proposal" has Caesars Entertainment Inc. involved at least on the periphery and a new stadium to be built behind Paris Las Vegas. MLB reps reportedly have been here at least twice to discuss the possibilities.

But somewhere in those discussions an enlightened, if skeptical, person has to say "do the math" and gauge the reality of the raw numbers. Beyond the expense of the stadium and its many tangents, there are at least two restricting concerns: an insufficient population base and the effects of gambling.

A baseball team needs to average at least 30,000 spectators across 81 home games to make ends meet and I'm reasonably sure Las Vegas simply couldn't do it. Even allowing that the new stadium would be domed and comfortable, that's too many dates and too few people in the valley (in spite of our continual and seemingly never-ending growth).

Las Vegas and its intertwined relationship with gambling is also a stumbling block that may never be hurdled. First, it's the No. 1 diversion of city and state residents and it eats up a good deal of the populace's free time and disposable income. Second, as has been made clear in earlier instances of pro leagues scouting the area, the city's sports books apparently would have to agree to quit accepting wagers on an entire league if a team from that league were stationed here.

Maybe there's a way to negotiate around that latter obstacle, but there is no denying that Las Vegas is a gambling city with a horde of gambling fiends who enjoy sports and are sports experts but who have little interest in watching sports live and in person.

Major League Baseball in Las Vegas is an interesting thought and I'd love to see it myself, but we're looking like an also-ran when it comes to courting the Expos. We're a generation, maybe even two, away.

Now, about that NFL franchise ...