Question of the Day - 24 March 2022

[Editor's Note: This question is answered by our business blogger, David McKee.]

The pet project of former NBA and UNLV basketball player Jackie Robinson has more lives than a cat.

Before we get to its latest incarnation, we’ll answer the easy question. “All Net” is a play on the basketball catchphrase “nothing but net.” By which Robinson means to imply that the return on the ever-more-expensive resort is an easy layup. So far it’s been an air ball.

The latest twist in the long All Net saga came on Feb. 23 when a gathering of boosters and media at the Stirling Club, located in the Turnberry condo complex that overlooks the All Net site, were told that All Net (once again) had financing, to the tune of $4.7 billion, which would make it the most expensive resort in Las Vegas history, shoehorned into the former Wet ’n Wild acreage on the north Strip.

Arthur Lewis of Active Capital Holdings has apparently pledged all-equity no-debt funding for All Net, telling Robinson, “Jackie, you have the money, buddy.”

Formed three years ago, Active Capital is a Florida-based fund about which little can be discerned from an Internet search. You’d think a firm with almost $5 billion in loose change lying about would be a hot item, but in this case, apparently not. The deal with Robinson was to have closed as of this writing, but nothing further has been announced.

The metaresort, if realized, would feature a basketball first: an arena with a retractable roof. A movie theater, convention center, and pair of hotels (not yet franchised) would also be components of All Net, which would sit directly south of the Sahara and north of Fontainebleau. 

Robinson claims to have invested $40 million to date, although all he has to show for it is a hole in the ground and a set of renderings. “After receiving complaints of accumulated rainwater at the property, the Southern Nevada Health District set traps in 2019 and captured more than 150 mosquitoes,” reported the Las Vegas Review-Journal of Robinson’s excavation.

In the eight years that he has been pitching All Net, Robinson has had many promises of financing. Initial backer SL Hare Capital fell out with the ex-baller and the two ended up fighting in court. Later, he promised the Clark County Commission that Credit Suisse would back him. It didn’t. Come 2018 and Robinson — whose initial $1 billion-plus budget had already ballooned to $3 billion — tipped the International Bank of Qatar as his new financier. A deafening silence followed.

The following year, Robinson said he had a complex consortium of financiers, ranging from Qatar to Zurich, along with “central banks in Europe and the U.S., lines of credit, funds moving from one bank to another, and state of Nevada revenue bonds.” This cat’s cradle of subsidy evaporated over time.

His newest financing package also includes bitcoin firm Quest Crypto, whose CEO, J. Christian Barlow, told spectators, “They have something bigger than themselves that they want to accomplish. They have something, they have a vision.” (Can you buy construction steel with non fungible tokens?)

As to the absence of a casino from Robinson’s plans, it does seem a glaring omission when you’re planning to outdo everyone in spending on the Las Vegas Strip. The NBA surely wouldn’t object to one. The WNBA’s Connecticut Sun and Las Vegas Aces play their home games in casino resorts, after all (Mohegan Sun and Mandalay Bay, respectively). Nor is there any reason to believe Robinson couldn’t get a gaming license.

VitalVegas blogger Scott Roeben thinks he has the answer. “Robinson has no experience in this [casino] realm at all. The thinking was a pro team would sort of take the place of a casino as a revenue driver.”

But Robinson lacks that sine qua non, an NBA franchise. Las Vegas is near the top of the league’s wish list of cities, but there’s no guarantee that All Net — if it gets built — would be a shoo-in over more centrally located T-Mobile Arena.

Then again, Robinson’s been at this for only eight years. By the time Fontainebleau opens, it will have been 16 years in the making. So maybe by 2030 …