Running off at the typewriter. …
As the Vegas Golden Knights skate in yet another Stanley Cup Final, Orlando should be asking itself an uncomfortable question:
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How is Las Vegas about to become a four-sport major league city before Orlando has even landed a second team in one of the four major sports leagues in this country?
Think about it.
Ten years ago, Las Vegas was considered an impossible sports market. League commissioners openly worried about gambling. Skeptics insisted tourists wouldn’t support teams. Conventional wisdom said Sin City was built for weekend visitors, not season-ticket holders.
Today?
Vegas has the NHL’s Golden Knights plus the NFL’s Raiders and will soon have Major League Baseball’s Athletics. And, yes, most industry insiders fully expect Las Vegas to soon land an NBA expansion franchise.
That’s all four major-league teams in the 40th-largest media market in the country. Plus, Vegas is home to the WNBA’s Aces.
Meanwhile, Orlando — the nation’s 15th-largest media market and the largest market in America without an NFL or MLB franchise — still has only one team (the Magic) in the country’s four most popular sports leagues, as well as Orlando City and the Orlando Pride.
That’s it.
And that’s the frustrating part.
For years, Orlando possessed many of the same advantages Vegas eventually leveraged into sports dominance. We have world-class tourism infrastructure. We host nearly 80 million visitors annually. We have convention business, corporate hospitality opportunities, hotel capacity and one of the fastest-growing populations in America.
In fact, Orlando’s metro population is roughly twice that of Las Vegas. Yet somehow Vegas became the sports capital of the desert while Orlando remains the city of potential.
Why?
Because Las Vegas had something Orlando lacked:
Urgency.
Vision.
And political leadership willing to aggressively pursue pro sports as an economic engine.
When Vegas leaders saw an opportunity, they didn’t hold another committee meeting. They secured public funding and built stadiums. They convinced leagues that sports tourism wasn’t a side benefit of their economy; it was a major part of their economy’s future.
The Golden Knights became the proof of concept. Their instant success shattered every outdated stereotype about Las Vegas being an unsuitable sports town. Suddenly, the Raiders wanted in. The Athletics followed. The NBA is almost certainly next.
Vegas didn’t stumble into becoming a sports destination. It made a conscious decision to become one. Orlando, by contrast, has spent years treating sports as something nice to have rather than something worth aggressively pursuing.
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Orlando hosts events. Vegas acquires franchises.
There’s a difference.
But the good news is Orlando may finally be waking up. Political leaders and business leaders are finally rallying around the effort to bring Major League Baseball to Central Florida.
For the first time, Orlando’s sports ambitions are starting to feel somewhat coordinated rather than aspirational.
And maybe that’s the lesson Vegas has taught us.
Sports isn’t just entertainment anymore.
It’s tourism.
It’s economic development.
It’s branding.
It’s convention business.
It’s national relevance.
Las Vegas figured that out a decade ago and raced past cities that should have had a head start, including Orlando.
The Golden Knights reaching another Stanley Cup Final should serve as both inspiration and irritation for Central Florida sports fans.
Inspiration because Vegas built something remarkable.
Irritation because Orlando has had every opportunity to do the same.
The encouraging part is that Orlando finally appears ready to stop watching the race and start running it. …
Short stuff: There are now many comparisons between 22-year-old Victor Wembanyama leading the Spurs to the NBA Finals in only his third year in the league and a 22-year-old Shaq leading the Magic to the title in only his third year in the league. The difference? One was compared to Wilt while the other gets compared to aliens. The other difference? Wemby gives the Spurs hope for the future; Shaq took the Magic’s hope to L.A. … I’m not saying new Orlando Magic coach Sean Sweeney is intense and detail-oriented, but I’m betting he diagrams out-of-bounds plays at red lights. … Did you see where a fan ran onto the court during the fourth quarter of Game 1 Wednesday night to take a selfie with Wemby? The photo came out great – except Wemby’s head was in a different zip code. …
The new bipartisan congressional bill aimed at fixing a broken college sports system is already facing political opposition. Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, an ally of President Trump’s, said he had “grave concerns” about the bill because his most important concern was “it does nothing about protecting biological women from competing with men and sports.” Meanwhile, the Congressional Black Caucus said the legislation should not move forward because it doesn’t address concerns about Black political representation. Sigh. The broken college sports system has finally found something even more broken: our nation’s political process. … It appears the PGA Tour could be headed toward a European soccer-style relegation system that would include two tracks of tournaments with players competing to remain on the top track and golfers in the lower track fighting to move up the next season. I love it for three reasons: It will force the top golfers to play more tournaments, it gives lower-tier golfers incentive to move up and it provides golf fans a seasonlong storyline they actually understand. It’s a good thing college football doesn’t follow this same model, or Florida and Florida State would both be playing in the Sun Belt Conference this year. …
This is the first time since college baseball went to the current 64-team Super Regional Format in 1999 that a team from Florida has not advanced to a Super Regional. Could it be because NIL and the transfer portal have removed the ability of Florida teams to corner the market on the massive amount of high school baseball talent produced in our state? … Golden State Warriors star Stephen Curry has signed a 10-year, $400 million endorsement contract with Li-Ning — a controversial Chinese sports apparel company that had its products banned in the U.S. in 2022 because it uses forced labor to make its products. Isn’t it strange how NBA players are such social justice warriors in our country but social justice mercenaries in China? … The UFL’s Orlando Storm, the No. 1 seed in the playoffs, are being forced to play Sunday’s playoff opener in Daytona Beach because Inter&Co Stadium has been rented out for an international soccer match between England and Costa Rica. Even though the soccer match is three days after the Storm’s playoff game, England, according to sources, did not want to give up its contracted access to the field. No surprise there. After all, England has a long history of claiming territory and refusing to leave. … A moment of silence, please, Raymond Berry has just joined Johnny U in That Big Fly Pattern in the Sky. …
Last word: With Friday being National Donut Day, why did the baker quit making donuts? He was fed up with the hole business.
Email me at [email protected]. Hit me up on social media @BianchiWrites and listen to my radio show “Game On” every weekday from 3 to 6 p.m. on FM 96.9, AM 740 and 969TheGame.com/listen.
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