What's on the radar of local reporters for 2025?

That's this week on Nevada Week.

♪♪♪ Support for Nevada Week is provided by Senator William H. Hernstadt.

-Welcome to Nevada Week.

I'm Amber Renee Dixon.

And a happy new year to you.

We are looking ahead to what's in store for the state in 2025 as well as what might make huge headlines.

And joining us for this discussion are Howard Stutz, Gaming Reporter for The Nevada Independent; Alan Snell, Journalist and Publisher for LVSportsBiz.com; and Jessica Hill, Politics Reporter for the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

Thank you all for joining me.

And let's start with what we believe is scheduled to happen.

I'm talking about the A's stadium.

There is some debate, though, or, well, perhaps there is, because I read an article from ESPN a few weeks back talking about the A's clearing the final major hurdles for the $1.75 billion Las Vegas stadium.

But an excerpt from that article reads, in part, quote, Other details remain to be worked out, but groundbreaking probably will take place in the spring.

Alan, any chances that it will not happen?

(Alan Snel) Well, for the record, the A's are saying April, May, or June, 2nd quarter, and that's pretty much what we have to go on.

Some things to show that it might happen is that the A's did meet with vendors, and they actually did have a construction meeting a couple months ago to explain to the potential vendors and builders and subs that these are all the different jobs that we need.

So that seemed to be in line with what is that timeline.

And you know, right now we just have to-- we have to stick with what the A's schedule is, which is 2nd quarter, 2025.

-That's what they're trying to meet.

Any doubt that this will happen, and the financing in place?

(Howard Stutz) Seems to be in place, so that was-- -Seems to be?

-Mr. Fisher said-- issued the letter through Sandy, through his representative Sandy Dean-- -Mr. Fisher being the owner of the A's.

-Fisher says the family is going to put up $1.1 billion.

Now, he's also-- the family is going to be responsible for any other costs, overruns.

Right now, originally, the stadium is 1.5 billion.

Now it's 1.75 billion.

Let's remember, Allegiant Stadium started out much, much smaller and ended up at 1.9.

-It's not really very uncommon for construction costs, especially with inflation stuff.

-Let's also remember the Sphere was 1.6 billion, I think, when they started.

It's now-- it ended at 2.3 billion.

-Do you think this will happen again, the A's stadium pricetag?

-Some stuff will go up.

I don't know how much.

He did get 300 million, I guess, from Goldman Sachs, and so we'll see how that, you know, that's all goes into it.

But yeah, they're going to be responsible for the remaining money.

Also, remember, the A's are spending a lot of money right now building out the stadium in Sacramento, the minor league park.

They added the additions.

So they could-- so a 14,000-seat stadium can be a major league ballpark for the next three years.

-In the interim of the team being in Oakland versus coming to Las Vegas.

So it was 2023 when the state approved providing the Athletics $380 million in public funding for that stadium.

Being that in this state the legislature only meets twice a year, it is time for state lawmakers to get back together again.

And Jessica, what will be on your radar for this legislative session?

(Jessica Hill) I think one of the biggest things is education.

We saw Senator Cannizzaro basically pitch this whole education reform bill this week.

It includes maintaining tax-- or maintaining raises for teachers and includes pre-K universal for four-year-olds.

And it also includes these whole plans to really help maintain teacher retention and bring more teachers to the state.

-The universal pre-K, what is it currently?

-Currently, it allows-- there's some grants and stuff that people can get for, you know, helping with the education and care, but it's not universal right now.

-Okay.

It's not available to everyone.

And then when you talk about maintaining raises, this would be from what was approved last legislative session?

-Correct.

I think this will be a bipartisan issue.

I've talked with some Republicans who also have expressed wanting to maintain those raises and the salaries for teachers.

So it will be interesting to see how they'll be able to work across the aisle to get this done.

-What's interesting is that if we get a raise, we expect it to stay in place; but for teachers, they are going to go into that next couple of years not knowing whether they'll return to what they were making before or whether they get to stay at what they've been making.

Or if they get another raise, is that a possibility?

-Yeah, definitely.

And I think another big thing that could come out is, you know, this comes on the heels of some CCSD budget issues where they were really close to having a deficit.

It managed to not be that case.

I think one of the big issues from that is you'll see accountability, what kind of role the state wants to play in oversight on the district.

I think those are other big issues that we'll see too.

-Okay.

So Howard, let's talk about the film studios.

I know you made a call.

-I love movies!

[laughter] -There are two film studios, two different bills competing for public funding.

-Two different studios.

What, Sony and-- -Warner Brothers.

-Warner Brothers.

Two different sites: Summerlin, Howard Hughes; and UNLV, the Harry Reid Technology Park.

Yeah, that's going to be-- it was it came up.

You know, the first bill came out last year, 2023 session, and then it didn't go anywhere.

So now they've had two years to build up.

Now we're going to have this fight.

It's two different-- and Jessica knows the two different, two different houses, two leaders in different houses are each carrying one of the bills.

So yeah, this may be something that we're going to see just debated about throughout the session.

The big question is they all want film tax credits for, to help as an-- they talk about as an economic boon, but a lot of economists who Tabitha Mueller from The Independent has talked to-- have said they've largely downplayed those economic benefits.

So we'll see how that all plays out in the session.

-There is an argument to be made for Warner Brothers, because they already have that campus, the UNLV Harry Reid Research and Technology Park.

They can use that studio that's already there instead of having to build something brand new.

And that is an argument that one local NHL owner is-- NHL team owner is making in favor of owning an NBA team and using T-Mobile Arena to house it.

Alan, you have been covering that.

Let's talk about where does this all stand with an NBA arena?

-Well, Bill Foley, in fact, it was really your interview with Foley that mentioned the $300 million facelift to the arena.

Bill Foley has been interested in having an NBA team play at the arena, which makes sense.

I mean, if you have an arena, you need programming.

So that's 41-44 dates a year.

There are two other projects that we're kind of curious if they're really how-- really legitimate.

You know, we've, we had the Tim Leiweke project at Las Vegas Boulevard and Blue Diamond Road.

That's been talked now for a couple of years.

Interestingly about the Leiweke arena, he does have experience at building arenas.

He rehabbed and rebuilt the Seattle Kraken arena, and he was the CEO of AEG before AEG partnered with MGM to build T-Mobile Arena.

So he's legit.

We just haven't seen any plans.

We haven't seen any, you know, any funding, any project info at all.

The other one is more, you know, there's a LVXP arena on the other end of the Strip, on the north side, where Jackie Robinson, the former UNLV basketball player, he talked about an arena that really didn't seem to have legs to it.

There was never any funding.

And eventually the county, Clark County commissioners said they pulled the plug on that.

I did attend the NBA Cup games.

-That were at T-Mobile Arena.

-Right, at T-Mobile Arena.

We saw NBA, you know, games.

We saw, you know, two games and a final.

And, you know, the arena can handle it.

And Adam Silver was in town.

He did not indicate any direction on the NBA coming to Las Vegas.

He loves to call the NBA Summer League, which is a kind of a 10- or 12-day, almost it's really the Woodstock of worldwide professional basketball right here at UNLV.

And he calls that the 31st franchise.

And the fact that they have the Summer League, along with the, this Semifinal/Final NBA Cup tournament deal at T-Mobile Arena, you know, there's a pretty good NBA presence.

We still have no expansion, real expansion infrastructure set up in the NBA to talk about Las Vegas.

-And from how I understood it, the delay was in the NBA reaching a new media rights deal.

Has that-- that has been-- -That's been done.

Silver talked about that during the past July NBA Summer League when they were here.

So he's talked about that.

We're six months removed from that now.

We've had the, kind of laugh about the Lebron James annual talk about he wants to have-- -A team here.

-He wants a team here.

So yeah, there's all this talk.

But when you get down to the nitty-gritty, we still don't have the infrastructure for an NBA team here.

I think most people believe eventually it will happen and it will happen on Adam Silver's watch.

-Being the commissioner of the NBA.

What do you think, Howard?

-Well, it's like-- it's like Alan said, Where's the arena?

They've talked.

When MGM built T-Mobile, what is now T-Mobile, then they announced with AEG, they announced that.

And, you know, MGM, even-- we didn't have a hockey team then.

There had been talk about it, but there wasn't expansion franchise yet.

They had-- they would have had the programming to fill that arena with either, we've seen it, with concerts, UFC is in there, boxing.

You have all these other events that go on inside T-Mobile.

So an NBA team would just fit right into that.

I mean, see that in LA.

The LA Kings and the LA Lakers share what's now Crypto.com Arena.

So that's-- that takes place.

This north end of the Strip-- and Alan and I talking about this before the show.

We covered it when, when Jackie Robinson announced his deal.

And that's been was a pipe dream all along, because where was the money?

This group coming in, MGM, remember, when they built, T-Mobile has, you know, 50-- you know, how many properties and all the entertainment?

I don't know what-- this group that wants to build this, they don't have any-- -Which group are we talking about, Oak View?

-LVXP.

-LV.

-Oh, okay.

-They don't have any backing.

You know, they don't have any other hotels or any other programming.

You put an arena there, it may just sit.

The NBA may not-- what if the NBA doesn't decide to expand, or what if they go somewhere else for whatever reason?

So that's still, that is a ways off.

And to be, to be following that, that north end of the Strip property.

-We'll get back to-- there's more to talk about with the north end of the Strip, but let's go back to politics now.

And what a year it was for you in 2024, Jessica.

How many political rallies do you think you covered?

-I could not keep track.

At least a dozen, probably.

There are some points where Trump and Kamala Harris were here on the same day.

I think I've covered each at least six times.

At one point it got so difficult, because they say the same things over and over again.

How do you cover differently for people to, like, understand and be interested in?

So it was a busy, busy year.

I feel a lot better now that the election is over.

-I give you credit for surviving the Sunset Park.

-I felt like I was going to die there.

-And that was when you got a one-on-one interview with now President-Elect Donald Trump.

-I did, yes.

We spoke for five minutes.

I was out in the sun for about six hours total.

So I was just really trying to appear coherent.

But it was interesting.

We talked a little bit about how he lost twice in Nevada and how he plans on doing that differently.

And he did.

He did that differently.

-But he conceded that?

-He did not, no.

He said he thought that he won both times.

And this time he was correct; he has won in Nevada.

It was the first Republican President to win in about 20 years, Nevada, the Silver State.

-That's huge.

Of all the campaign promises that he made and those that were directed to Nevada, what are you going to be watching out for in 2025 to see if that actually happens?

-I think the biggest thing that we will be looking at is his plans and calls for a mass deportation program.

He wants to have the biggest deportation program in US history.

And it's very unclear how he plans on fulfilling that.

And a lot of governors, for instance, are waiting to see what happens.

However, Governor Lombardo recently said that he's waiting to see.

He wants more details.

And then just a couple days later, he agreed with over 25 other Republican governors that they are fully committed to Trump's mass deportation plans, including using the National Guard in any means possible, basically, to help fulfill that.

-Wow!

It surprises me that you answered that.

I thought you were going to talk about no taxes on tips.

-That's another big one too.

And we're seeing bipartisan support.

All of Nevada's congressional delegation has come out in support of that.

It's a hard thing to not be in support of in a state like Nevada.

And Congressman Horsford has also introduced his own version of the bill to implement no tax on tips and then also increase the minimum wage.

It'll be interesting to see how that goes.

But I think we will see in 2025 no tax on tips be implemented.

-Federally?

-Yes.

-Okay.

-Here in Nevada it doesn't apply as much, because our federal-- or we don't have any federal income tax.

But our minimum wage is a lot higher already.

I think it's $12 an hour, I believe.

-Yeah.

And as you reported, though, how are people paying into the system then if they're not being taxed on tips?

-That's a good question.

I mean, they are taxed through their, you know, salary.

And I think that's about it, from what I understand.

-One-- I did a-- I talked to somebody from the Culinary recently.

It was about the-- I can't remember-- either Virgin Hotel or Stations Casino, one of the two.

But he was a guest room server, you know, at one of the Stations properties, where he'd bring, you know, service, in-room service.

He doesn't-- unless-- his tip goes right on his-- is paid on the credit card.

When somebody, when somebody orders room service, there's a service charge.

That's the tip, and that's what he gets on it.

He gets paid that way through a-- so he never sees, you know, handed dollars or any kind of money.

It's a question of how they're going to implement that.

I think that's what the union's been really kind of trying to figure this out.

-And also, many people don't currently make enough to even be paying taxes currently.

So that would kind of maintain that, basically.

-So what will the real result-- how big of an impact will that actually end up making?

-And some, like economic experts, have said that it won't make a big difference as far as not taxing your tips.

What would make a big difference is seeing an increase in minimum wage for a lot of workers in Nevada.

-Okay.

Let's go back to the north end of the Strip.

What do you think about the possibilities of its expansion?

-Well, this was announced by Jim Murren.

Jim Murren was just a former CEO, Chairman of MGM Resorts, has put on this chairman of this board for Resorts World that, you know, with everything that just happened with, you know, the Scott Sibella issue.

Scott's gone.

They're implementing a board of directors with a new CEO to kind of right the ship at Resorts World.

And Jim, in talking with Johnny Katz, our friend John Katz from the RJ said he wants to redevelop the north end of the Strip like he did on the south end of the Strip.

The difference is the south end of the Strip, when he did this with MGM when they built City Center, MGM owned all the properties on the south end of the Strip.

So if they wanted to remodel MGM or Excalibur or New York-New York and build City Center, they were able to do that.

The north end of the Strip, I don't think-- you know, Resorts World's got to right its ship.

They've also got about, about 30, 25, 30 acres, maybe more, that they can develop along with that site.

Now, let's start at the north end of the Strip.

The old Frontier site is owned by Wynn Resorts.

Jim Murren's not going to be able to tell Wynn Resorts what to do.

He's not going to be able to tell the owner of the Fontainebleau what to do.

He's not going to tell Alex Meruelo what to do with the Sahara.

He's certainly not going to be able to tell Phil Ruffin what to do with Circus Circus.

So organizing to try to rebuild the north end of the Strip, that's been discussed since I was at the RJ back, back years ago, and Mitch Fox was hosting this show.

So, I mean, this-- that's how long they've talked about redeveloping the north end of the Strip.

I mean, it's great to say.

It would be great that the north end-- it needs some type of redevelopment.

That's why all the north end Strip owners got together and wanted to get bring the A's stadium onto the Festival Grounds site that's owned by Ruffin, but just couldn't get a deal with Ruffin.

So that's-- it's going to be talked about.

But I think right now, I think it's great of Jim to bring it up, but Jim's got to right the ship at Resorts World first before you start talking about the rest of the Strip.

-Alan, any thoughts on any kind of sports venue on the north end of the Strip?

-Well, Howard referred to the Festival Grounds.

I thought that would have been a potential A's stadium site.

It would be kind of centrally located, you know, to having, you know, people coming from the downtown side of the Strip, if you will.

That's an interesting location, interesting site.

I think there was a music, some kind of music event there about a couple months ago I remember.

-It's packed for music festivals.

I mean, that site that was so interested, downtown was willing to kick in money on it.

That was one thing I report, we reported on it.

They were going to kick in money.

-In order for the A's stadium-- -A's stadium, because they would benefit.

The Stratosphere, which is actually in downtown.

It's not on, it's not a Strip property, even though it's on Las Vegas Boulevard.

It's in downtown.

The owner of The Stratosphere, Golden Entertainment wanted to kick in money.

They wanted to help and were involved in talks with the A's and in trying to convince Ruffin to bring the stadium to that site.

-What's interesting, it's a pretty nice outdoor potential venue site.

I mean, it seems to be this kick to have Strip properties have more options and even outdoor alternatives in the entertainment mode.

And if you remember, you know, the site where the shooting was, was actually a site that, believe it or not, used to host rodeos there and beer festivals, and they used to be kind of like legitimate outdoor entertainment items going on there.

So that particular site, I think, would be a great outdoor venue that would lend itself to-- -Soccer.

[laughter] -We're not going to see all that in 2025.

I can tell you that right now.

-Bill Foley did look at soccer, though.

And to me, I look at what Foley decides, because I think he's a bellwether for development.

And he had his people look at Major League Soccer.

And if you remember, Major League Soccer did like, kind of hint at Las Vegas.

And to me, Foley took a look at it.

And the fact that Foley bought soccer interests in Wales, in France, and New Zealand and around the world tells me that if Foley looked at it and said it's not going to happen, I don't think it's going to happen.

-He was-- remember, Foley was angry when the legislature approved the money for Allegiant Stadium, because he said, We, you know, we didn't ask for public money.

You know, I put in, you know, what I did for the, to bring the Knights here, the MGM, and he was mad.

-He did learn his lesson with his arena in Henderson, because he did get the City of Henderson to cough up $42 million as part of that $84 million arena project.

-Exactly.

-It was, it's, you know, 42 million is chump change, compared to 750 million for a Raiders stadium.

But still, I mean, he kind of learned, and he got, he got some public contribution on that.

-It makes me wonder if anybody will be asking for public funding for an NBA arena.

-I can't imagine that coming up in this, in the session in 2025.

-No.

-I cannot see any anybody going back.

They'd get laughed out.

They would get laughed out of Carson City.

-I agree.

I don't think there's money for an NBA arena.

-And Governor Lombardo, I don't think that-- -I don't think that's something that he would prioritize.

-Yeah.

No, especially when you've got the other form of public funding for the possible film studios.

Jessica, you had told me before this, election integrity is also something that you think the legislature might address this session.

-I think so.

I spoke with Assemblyman Hafen recently, and he was talking about how election reform will be a big issue.

They want to see-- during this last election, we saw complaints from people thinking that mail ballots should not be accepted four days after the election.

And that is what really delays Nevada's results from coming out.

We even saw Secretary of State Aguilar express frustration with that as well.

So I think it is very possible that we'll see some legislation come out wanting to refine that deadline to just election day, perhaps.

It still remains up in the air.

And then Assemblyman Hafen has also talked about wanting to see a voter ID bill.

Of course, we passed a voter ID ballot question in this last election.

However, it does need to pass again, so I think he would like to see that come out sooner.

-All right.

What do you think the odds are of that passing?

-I don't think it'll pass.

You know, as you know, Democrats have a majority.

I don't think that's something that they'll be interested in hearing.

-But not a super majority.

I mean, you have written also about Governor Lombardo's ability to maintain his veto power this upcoming session.

How did he do that?

-Well, we saw him get very involved in the primary process from the beginning.

He hand selected candidates, endorsed them, gave them his name, and helped fundraise for them.

We normally don't see that much level of participation from the Governor in a primary process.

Usually after the primary, he'll throw his support to the Republican or whoever is part of his party.

And so with his large efforts in really hand selecting those candidates, we saw them make it through the primary, and then we saw some success from the Republicans.

I think they changed their ground game quite a bit in how they strategized campaigning.

We saw them embrace mail ballots and early voting.

For the first time in a long time, we've seen Republicans actually turn out earlier to vote than Democrats.

So I think with that increased urgency, you saw a lot of Republicans win.

And because of that, Governor Lombardo was able to keep his veto power, which would have looked pretty bad in the next session when he wouldn't have any power to really do anything about what Democrats are doing.

-We only have a couple more minutes, but I want to go back to Resorts World and Strip gaming revenue and then what F1 has to do with all of that.

When you said Resorts World needs to right its own ship, will you expand on that?

-Well their revenue, they had Genting Berhad, the Malaysian company that owns them, puts out numbers for like, Resorts World.

And they said the revenues were down in the third quarter because it was so hot here.

Okay, I've never heard that.

It's been hot here for a long time.

So, yeah, the summer heat.

So they've got to figure it out.

That's one of the things that they're bringing in, brought in a new CEO, Alex Dixon, who ran casinos in Iowa.

He's actually from Vegas.

-Yeah.

-So he's, he knows the market.

So that's what they need to do is get that set up forward.

-Strip gaming revenue has been down this year.

-It's been down.

It sounds like down about a percent from a year ago.

And this is through October.

We haven't, you know, we're sitting here, this show's running on January 2.

We still haven't seen November numbers.

And so we won't, we won't see them probably until next week, I think.

But we-- it's down.

There was a record last year.

It was like 8.1 billion on the Strip.

So, yeah, down 1%, that's, that's because of baccarat.

High-end baccarat, big money wagered.

Last year, Strip casinos won more money, won a lot of money from customers.

This year the customers are doing a lot better.

-And then those numbers will be part of what F1 did because so many of those guests are high rollers.

-The high rollers came in with F1, so we'll know if the baccarat does well, you know, if the casinos do well in November with baccarat, then it might be a good year again.

We'll see.

But if it's down 1 or 2% once December is all done, you know, it's not that-- it's not the end of the world.

-Alan, last thing.

In 20 seconds, can you summarize how well F1 did this past year compared to the year before?

-Well, I think things were a little better this year in terms of the impact on the community.

-And when we say this year, we mean 2024?

-Correct.

[laughter] Just to keep the numbers straight.

For 2025 I'm curious about-- there are four businesses that filed lawsuits against F1 in Clark County.

I'm curious how those are going to, are going to break.

So, I mean, I'm looking-- I really am very curious about those lawsuits.

-Thank you all for joining us, and we'll have you on at the end of 2025, right?

Okay.

And thank you for watching.

For any of the resources discussed, go to vegaspbs.org/nevadaweek, and I'll see you next week on Nevada Week.

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