Question of the Day - 08 July 2019

We answered this exactly six months ago, but this is the third or fourth question we've received since then, plus a little more interesting information has come out about the Rio recently, so we thought we'd update it a bit.

Nothing's changed as far as the rumor is concerned. It's still, obviously, floating around out there, but it's still just a rumor with little basis in fact.

About the baseball-stadium idea, in January we wrote in part, "Las Vegas would have to be far ahead in the queue for an expansion team. 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 the 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.)"

But it's likely that something will change in terms of the Rio's status in the foreseeable future. The Rio has been rumored to be on the auction block for the better part of a decade. It will be celebrating its 30th anniversary early next year; a lot of people probably don't remember that it opened three months after the Mirage, another property that's lost its luster over the decades.  

And a story a few weeks ago in the Las Vegas Review-Journal emphasized its down-market appeal: The Rio "now competes with 50-year-old Circus Circus for cost-conscious visitors, enticing them with suite deals before fees as low as $32 a night."

The article had a chart depicting the $600 million Caesars Entertainment has spent in upgrading its Las Vegas properties since 2014 and at the very bottom, at zero dollars and zero rooms renovated, was the Rio. The reason? "Property owners generally halt new major reinvestments when they put a property up for sale." Indeed, Caesars Entertainment itself has been acquired by Eldorado Resorts, which plans to sell off some of Caesars' Las Vegas assets, of which we have to assume that the Rio is first in line. One of the potential buyers, TI-owner Phil Ruffin, came right out and said that he was interested in all Caesars' Vegas properties except the Rio.  

Complicating matters is the fact that the World Series of Poker and Caesars Total Rewards players club, with 55 million members, help to keep the Rio afloat; both would disappear after being offloaded by the new largest casino corporation in the country. 

Anthony Curtis was quoted in the R-J story. He said, "A new operator can upgrade it and bring it back to its glory. The same thing they're doing at the Palms, they can do at the Rio.” Of course, the Palms spent $700 million and estimates put a Rio renovation in that ballpark (forgive the pun). 

But as for a baseball stadium replacing the Rio, at this point, that's still a long shot at best.