Question of the Day - 06 January 2019

“I hope you understand that we don’t comment on market rumors,” says Caesars Entertainment spokesman Richard Broome.

The Rio has been rumored to be on the auction block for the better part of a decade. There's substantial reason to believe that then-CEO Gary Loveman dangled it before the real-estate market for $500 million. If so, he found no takers — certainly not at that price. The Rio is more of a fixer-upper than a trophy property.

The latest round of rumors surfaced on VitalVegas.com, with the baseball-stadium angle appended. To make the latter viable, Las Vegas would have to be far ahead in the queue for an expansion team and has had a poor track record of supporting the minor-league Las Vegas Aviators (formerly the 51s). According to our sources, Montreal is the likeliest venue, having lost the Expos to Washington, D.C., but already with a major-league stadium in place. For Las Vegas to build an MLB-quality stadium without a franchise in place would be a clear case of putting the cart first and horse second. (Imagine how well the push for a football stadium would have gone if the Oakland Raiders hadn’t been a moving force in the negotiations.)

“We’ve spoken to a real-estate guru who said a collection of parcels adjoining the Rio has seen a spike in buyer interest in recent months, supporting our belief a sale is in the works,” wrote VitalVegas’ Scott Roeben.

To make the stadium scenario more plausible, it should be noted that the Rio comes with a large amount of underutilized land, mostly devoted to free-of-charge surface parking, so the critical mass of land for a stadium is definitely present. (We might add that the LVA office is right across and just up the street from the Rio's back parking lots, so we have an obvious vested interest and pay pretty close attention to any developments on this front.)

Yahoo Sports’ Chris Maddox wrote that MLB was “still iffy” on Las Vegas — two teams being needed for expansion — but that Mexico City was “gaining momentum,” which would certainly dovetail with the league’s history of holding regular-season games in major Mexican cities. On the other hand, Las Vegas does play host to “Big League Weekend” every spring training, which usually features the Chicago Cubs.

With a sale or demolition of the Rio, not only would the annual Star Trek Convention be homeless (again), but the World Series of Poker would have to find a new home. Interestingly, Caesars Palace unveiled a large new TV-ready poker room several years ago, then did nothing with it. That would make an ideal venue for at least the more important WSOP events. It would also be a way for Caesars Palace to monetize its convention-center space.

Another somewhat out-of-the-box idea that's been floated, as you mention, is to put the WSOP into Raiders Stadium. Caesars has a 15-year "founding partner" deal that gives it a lot of interest in the facility. Also, the need to monetize the stadium beyond 10 Raiders games a year could give rise to some unconventional thinking, even though we think Caesars will keep its cards close to the vest and move the WSOP, if it moves at all, to its eponymous Palace. 

Finally, as far as the Rio staff being given notice, local news media, including VitalVegas and ourselves, would've been all over it, so let’s just chalk that up to loose talk.