Las Vegas has a new sports team, the Desert Dogs, an expansion team and the 15th team in the National Lacrosse League. It lists some well-known sports figures among its owners, including the Great One himself, Wayne Gretzky.

The valley is now home to professional basketball, football, hockey, soccer, and lacrosse teams and a Minor League Baseball team. It is possible that the Oakland Athletics will move to Sin City; that would be another significant notch in its belt.

Las Vegas is not just a sports town, it is a great sports town. The Las Vegas Raiders of the National Football League and the Vegas Golden Knights of the National Hockey League draw large and enthusiastic crowds. Fans love to come to Vegas to see their home teams play. And of course, local Las Vegans like to see their teams in action.

The popularity of sports in Las Vegas was really apparent during the last three days of April. The city was jammed with sports fans, players, team managers, and media, all of whom came to watch and participate in the annual NFL Draft. The Draft weekend may prove to be the busiest of the year for Las Vegas, equal to Memorial Day, Labor Day, and New Year’s Eve. And there is more to come. February 11, 2024, is Super Bowl Sunday. The game will be played in the home stadium of the Raiders. The Super Bowl in Las Vegas? Yep, the biggest game of the year will be played in Sin City. The journey has been long and painful.

In 2003, the Super Bowl was played in San Diego. The contest featured the then-Oakland Raiders and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The Bucs won the game 48-21. It was disappointing for Oakland and Las Vegas, but for different reasons. Oakland simply mourned a humiliating loss. Vegas was plagued by a humiliation of another kind. The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority had special advertising for the game, “Vegas Stories.” The $58 million campaign was intended to show the city’s exciting, sexy, and edgy personality. However, none of the estimated 88 million people who watched the game were afforded the privilege of seeing any Vegas Stories.

On January 14th, the Associated Press announced it with a headline: “NFL Won’t Air Las Vegas Commercial During Super Bowl.” The story explained, “The National Football League has refused to accept a Super Bowl commercial from the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. … The NFL has a long-standing policy that prohibits the acceptance of any message that makes reference to or mentions sports betting.” The league also took exception to the use of the term Super Bowl Party, resenting the “corruption” of its trademarked name.

Super Bowl parties have always been a big deal for casinos. Typically, a casino invites its best players to spend the weekend, which includes free rooms, drinks, food, and entertainment, including special seating for the Big Game itself. In addition, other specials are intended to attract lesser players to come in, watch the game, and of course make a bet here and there. In Nevada, the only place where sports betting was legal in 2003, $71.6 million was bet on the game between the Raiders and the Bucs.

NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue was probably not pleased. Tagliabue was never a fan of gambling or gamblers. He drew a distinct line between the sin of gambling and the purity of professional football. During his 17-year stewardship, he never wavered. Tagliabue was replaced as the league’s commissioner by Roger Goodell in 2006. Goodell and the commissioners of the other professional leagues held Tagliabue’s indelible line until May 2018, when the Supreme Court ruled against the federal sports betting law. By Super Bowl LIII in 2019, seven states had legalized sports betting. The estimates at the time predicted 22 million people wagering several billion dollars. In 2022, 26 states offered legal sports betting and 32 million people were estimated to have wagered $5 billion.

In the past four years, the NFL has embraced gambling, casinos, and Super Bowl parties. The league has found more than one way to profit by its relationship to legalized gambling. In fact, it now celebrates its relationship with sports betting and casinos. That is what happened in Las Vegas last week: The NFL threw a huge party. It was also a dress rehearsal for the real thing. Super Bowl LVIII in 2024 will be the biggest Super Bowl party ever in Las Vegas and the biggest Super Bowl Party ever held. It would be perfect if the Raiders were to play that day. Even without the Raiders, Super Bowl 2024 will be a victory for Las Vegas.

The Tagliabue edict in 2003 was an insult felt not just in Las Vegas, but by everyone in the gaming industry. The NFL wrote into its media contracts its right to reject any and all gambling-related advertisements. The NFL commissioner and the league were saying clearly that we were unclean and unfit to sit at the NFL’s table. In 2003, I wrote, “The NFL seems to believe that if people associate football with betting, the integrity of the game itself will be called into question. Now, it is well known that no red-blooded American would ever bet on a football game if Las Vegas did not exist.”

Well, Paul Tagliabue, Las Vegas does exist and that Dog in the Desert is still barking. The lacrosse team’s name is perfect for the team and indeed the city. For much of its history, Las Vegas was a pariah, an outlier on the margins of society. It is no longer marginal. Las Vegas is now the capital of an industry that is legal in most states. It is an entertainment capital, a casino capital, and a sports capital. The Desert Dogs begin play in December. Hey, Paul, want free tickets?