One Small Step For The NHL And The NFL In Las Vegas...Two Giant Leaps For The Golden Knights And Raiders In Sin City

T-Mobile Arena-Home arena of the Vegas Golden Knights.

Photo Courtesy of:Wikimedia And Tomas Del Coro from Las Vegas, Nevada, USA

underCC BY-SA 2.0 License.

As the year 2017 continues to roll along, the professional sports landscape will also be undergoing some major changes that has never been seen before. Specifically, those major landscape changes will occur during the upcoming month of October and no it has nothing to do with a new playoff format being implemented by a certain sports league or anything like that.

The big piece of sports news to watch and keep our eyes this time around during the upcoming month of October is that is supposed to be the time when the latest and newest major league professional sports expansion franchise known as the Vegas Golden Knights of the National Hockey League (NHL) will have their arrival in the sports world and will subsequently become the first ever professional sports team in the history of any of the core four North American major league sports leagues to call the city of Las Vegas home.

What is even more surprising to me about this Las Vegas sports scene thing as a whole is that it is the NHL that will be taking the first brave and bold steps into Sin City where traditionally what happens there supposedly stays there. If you would have asked me my thoughts about which of the big core four North American major league sports leagues would have gotten a team to Las Vegas first, my answer most definitely would not have been the NHL! I would have actually thought that either the NFL or NBA would have been the first professional sports leagues to bring a team to Las Vegas either through relocation or expansion.

A case could also be made that Major League Baseball (MLB) could have and should have been among the first of the four professional major league sports entities to consider the possibility of having a team franchise there, but given how slowly the process goes with regards to other topics of discussion in MLB and how quickly or not those discussions seem to progress and come to fruition, such as the implementation of instant replay and the recent changes to the intentional walk procedures that have been put in place over the last few years as well as already having a minor league team in Las Vegas with the Las Vegas '51's, then it is easy to see why MLB has not done much up to this point as far as looking into the possibility of having their own major league team there is concerned. Facetiously as a huge fan of the sport myself, it's worth some time considering that at least it is good to know that MLB is still doing a very good job of keeping up the traditional view of itself as the slow evolving game that in general tends to move new things and trends along at a snail's pace.

Joe Maloof of the Maloof Family.

The credit for such a groundbreaking sports story in the history of Las Vegas goes to inaugural team owners Bill Foley and the Maloof Family. Foley will reportedly serve as the majority owner of the team with a 70% ownership stake in the team with the Maloof Family owning the remaining 30% of the team.  What is even more surprising to me about the whole thing is that it is the NHL that will be taking the first brave and bold steps into Sin City where traditionally what happens there supposedly stays there.

If you would have me my thoughts about which of the big core four North American major league sports leagues would have gotten a team to Las Vegas, my answer definitely would not have been the NHL! I would have actually thought that either the NFL or NBA would have been the first professional sports leagues to bring a team to Las Vegas either through relocation or expansion.

But upon further consideration a professional sports league like the NHL might just be the perfect guinea pig to test just how viable and popular a professional sports team in Las Vegas can be. probably due to the fact that the NHL is generally considered to be the least popular of the four major league professional sports leagues in North America behind the National Football League (NFL), Major League Baseball (MLB), and the National Basketball Association (NBA).

For the purposes of playing a little bit of a Devil's Advocate scenario in this particular situation, if having a professional sports franchise in Las Vegas from either one of the core four North American major league sports leagues doesn't work out for some reason or another, (which I think will not be the case most likely), then we can at least take some comfort in knowing that such an experiment has already been done over the course of the next few years starting in 2017 and onward and depending on how well or not so well it turns out in regards to the futures of both the NHL and the NFL, then we can more easily determine if the Las Vegas sports scene as a whole could be considered a success or not for the potential futures of the other big professional sports leagues such as Major League Baseball (MLB), the National Basketball Association and Major League Soccer (MLS) in Las Vegas.

Hypothetically speaking, if it turned out to not be a success with the the NHL, then the other leagues would probably most certainly reconsider any future plans that they may have in Las Vegas based on how successful or not the NHL and the NFL both are during their time there. As I've already mentioned above however, hopefully it won't turn out to be the most extreme worst case scenario of absolute failure over the next few years for the future of sports in Las Vegas and it is a prosperous future for the entirety of the sports franchise landscape over there for many years to come!

While I see no reason about why having a professional sports team or franchise in Las Vegas won't be successful in the near future or in the long run as well, I can certainly understand why the other professional leagues aside from the NHL and the NFL would be a little gun shy at first about breaking new ground in one of the most famous and well known gambling capitals of the world due to the potential conflict of interest ramifications that would potentially arise from such a partnership between the city and the leagues or teams which I will detail a little further later on in this post.    

At this time I would also like to offer my sincerest apologies to any soccer fans out there who might feel bummed or slighted in any way about being left out of the discussion when it comes to talking about which sports leagues are generally considered to be the most popular in North America but it's just a simple fact that professional soccer leagues like Major League Soccer (MLS) and other soccer leagues from around the world  still have quite a ways to go to catch up in terms of overall fan popularity.    

Speaking of other teams and professional sports leagues who also have big plans to move to Las Vegas in search of a new home, the Oakland Raiders of the National Football League (NFL) will soon follow suit along with the Golden Knights when they themselves will be relocated to Sin City as well by the year 2020. Hopefully there will be a day in the future when the city of Las Vegas will have a professional sports franchise from every major league sport in North America to call its own, MLS included (even though more than likely, I probably would not be very interested myself in following along with any potential games or seasons that a prospective MLS franchise in Las Vegas would play.)

If I had to offer up my own prediction on which team will have the most success in Las Vegas between the Golden Knights and the Raiders to start out, I would put my money on the Raiders to have more success initially. Since the Golden Knights are going to be an expansion team from the start of their history, they will more than likely be facing an uphill battle during the first few years of the teams existence. On the other hand, given how the timeline of events should work out for both teams, it is entirely possible that the Golden Knights could already be quite a successful franchise in Las Vegas by the time the Raiders arrive as new residents of Las Vegas in 2020. You would figure that having a three year head start on the proceedings over the Raiders can only help  and hopefully not hurt the Golden Knights cause during that period of time.  

The upcoming arrival of two of the four big name professional sports leagues is big news in itself because for many years and decades previously until now, the only professional sports teams of any kind in Las Vegas were of the minor league variety. Until the Golden Knights arrive later this year in Las Vegas and begin their inaugural 2017 season, the only professional sports team that currently calls Las Vegas home is the Las Vegas 51's of the Pacific Coast League (PCL) at the Triple-A (AAA) level of Minor League Baseball (MiLB).

As I alluded to above earlier in this post, the biggest and most obvious reason why Las Vegas has not had a major league franchise team yet up to this point is most likely because of the city's well known reputation as a gaming and gambling mecca throughout the world.

As a sports fan like me, it should be easy to understand why Las Vegas's reputation as a gambling mecca has made each of the four major North American professional sports leagues a little apprehensive over the course of the last several years, decades and centuries about having any major league professional sports team in Las Vegas up to this point in time. That is most likely due in large part to the possible (perceived and or otherwise) conflict of interest aspect of the relationship there could be between any of the four major league professional sports  and Las Vegas's casino gaming industry on the whole.

On the other hand, now that the world and society in general has evolved and continues to evolve in the year 2017 and beyond in the 21st century, as a fan it's nice to see that as of right now, at least 2 of the 4 professional major league sports leagues such as the NHL and the NFL are getting smart, brave and possibly bold enough to venture into the new, exciting and yet uncharted territory that is the Las Vegas major league professional sports landscape over the next few years to come. Add to that the fact that the gaming and gambling industry as a whole has already made a ton of money over the years for itself on live sporting events' betting, that should provide even more incentive and be all the more enticing for each of the remaining major league sports (MLB, NBA and MLS) to have their own potential expansion franchise or team relocation move there sometime in the near future hopefully.

With that in mind, I would just like to say that for Major League Baseball (MLB), the National Basketball Association (NBA) and Major League Soccer (MLS), it is now up to you and it's your move next to determine what kind of future, if any, your respective leagues will have in the city of Las Vegas. Your time on the Sin City Major League Sports Clock starts now!

Tim Musick
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All Rights Reserved.