{"id":9739,"date":"2012-10-03T15:14:12","date_gmt":"2012-10-03T23:14:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=9739"},"modified":"2012-10-03T15:22:24","modified_gmt":"2012-10-03T23:22:24","slug":"freudian-slip-and-fall-lovemans-shabby-show","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/freudian-slip-and-fall-lovemans-shabby-show\/","title":{"rendered":"Freudian slip and fall; Loveman’s shabby show"},"content":{"rendered":"

One week after he became S&G<\/em>‘s Casino Owner of the Year for his “george” treatment of Green Bay Packer<\/strong> fans, Derek Stevens<\/strong> stepped on a PR banana peel. His Golden Gate<\/strong> and The D<\/strong> casinos are holding monthly drawings whose \"\"winner will receive a General Motors<\/strong> vehicle — make and model to be determined later. Unfortunately, the event is billed as a “Joint ‘Keep America Rolling'” promotion. That phraseology should bring the cannabis users out in force, although I don’t think we want them behind the wheel while rolling their own, let alone filling their lungs with loco weed.<\/p>\n

Then there was Caesars Entertainment,<\/strong> which stepped on its own foot this week with a bungled announcement of its first 11 tenants<\/a> at The Linq<\/strong>. A big media event was set for Pure Nightclub<\/strong>, last Monday evening. Ink-stained wretches (or would that be ‘Linq-stained’?) would be able to mingle with and even query the likes of Gary Loveman<\/strong> and Jan Jones-Blackhurst<\/strong>. But — whoops! — Caesars spilled the beans with a 9:19 a.m. press release, rendering the media event moot. I wonder how many journos showed up anyway. The second-most dangerous place in Las Vegas is between a media person and free food. (The most<\/em> dangerous spot is getting caught between Robin Leach<\/strong> and free food.) I’m not up on trends in food and retail, so I don’t know whether I should be impressed by the Linq tenantry or not.<\/p>\n

Never failing to screw up<\/strong> a good thing, Loveman has turned his gorgon-like gaze upon the former Barbary Coast<\/strong>. First off, it will be renamed from Bill’s \"\"Gamblin’ Hall<\/strong> (a worthless brand that will now be completely expunged from the Caesars portfolio) but probably not as a Horseshoe<\/strong> or anything with actual brand equity. My guess is they’ll call it “The Qorner<\/strong>” or something comparably ghastly. Anyway, Boyd Gaming<\/strong> had given Barbary Bill’s a makeover shortly before selling it to Loveman for a king’s ransom and change but Caesars plans to lavish another $180 million on the pocket-sized property<\/a>. In case you were wondering what Loveman’s much-bruited, long-concealed master plan — seven years in the making — for the east Strip was … you’re looking at it.<\/p>\n

\"\"Worse still<\/strong> for the forty- and fifty-somethings who favor Barbary Bill’s, Loveman’s new scheme for the place includes “a rooftop pool deck and nightclub attraction.” In other words, Baby Boomers out, douchebags in<\/a>. After a half-decade of neglect, Loveman promised visiting Wall Street<\/strong> analysts that he’d renovate Caesars’ other Strip properties, whose worsening decrepitude has become a sore point along The Street, leading to unpleasantries like downgraded bond ratings.<\/p>\n

In the understatement of several centuries<\/strong>, Loveman called his LBO of the company “ill-timed.” Which is a little like saying nuclear weapons are “slightly disruptive” when detonated. Never mind the timing: It was monumentally stupid from Moment One and Loveman’s lucky he still has a job. Mangling the English language, he said the deal “was architected in a boom period that [now] has to be managed in a much more difficult period<\/em>.” See, that’s the problem with predicating deals on unprecedentedly high volumes of business: You’re stranded the moment the tide goes out. Professor Loveman would have been better off taking a page from Southwest Airlines<\/strong> and using lean economic periods as his baseline. Pathetically, he is now reduced to hyping the “meaningful” earnings potential of Facebook<\/strong> application Playtika<\/strong>. As for Loveman gloating over the fate<\/a> of Fontainebleau<\/strong>, all I can say is: Pot meet kettle. He predicts — wait for it — that Carl Icahn<\/strong> will recoup his F’bleau money by selling the structural steel. Ya think<\/em>? Really?<\/em> Wow! Most of us only figured that out a year or two ago, Gary. Then again, unlike Loveman, Icahn is a smart<\/em> investor.<\/p>\n

And, after rashly assuming<\/strong> that additional gambling concessions in Macao<\/strong> just had<\/em> to be coming, five years ago, Loveman has belatedly realized what anyone \"\"else could have told him: No new U.S. operators will be allowed into the market. Given the sub-glacial pace of building approval in Macao, Caesars will have long since passed into Chapter 11 by the time it could<\/em> open the doors to so much as a quonset hut with baccarat tables. Instead, Loveman bragged on the slivers of revenue that he’s going to be taking out of Cleveland<\/strong>, Cincinnati<\/strong> (above<\/em>), Baltimore<\/strong> and just maybe Boston<\/strong>. Oh, and Toronto<\/strong>. Like that’s gonna happen. Never mind that he forfeited the St. Louis<\/strong> market to be a junior partner in East Coast markets. Caesars has become the industry’s equivalent of a compulsive spender maxing out its credit cards.<\/p>\n

It’s pathetic.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One week after he became S&G‘s Casino Owner of the Year for his “george” treatment of Green Bay Packer fans, Derek Stevens stepped on a PR banana peel. His Golden Gate and The D casinos are holding monthly drawings whose … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[60,28,155,51,7,22,37,62,53,72,112,39,71,74,9,38],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9739"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9739"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9739\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9746,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9739\/revisions\/9746"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9739"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9739"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9739"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}