Formula 1 broke Las Vegas record Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor couldn’t
It appears that the Las Vegas Grand Prix was a huge financial success if MGM Resorts officials are to be believed. During the Leveraged Finance Conference on Nov. 28, MGM Resorts’ Chief Financial Officer Jonathan Halkyard explained just how big of a success the Las Vegas Grand Prix was.
“It was the highest-grossing weekend for us, in hotel revenue, in the company’s history,” Halkyard said during the conference. “The second-highest was CES in 2019. So when you think about other events that happened in Las Vegas over the years and the scale of our company, that’s quite something to have a record weekend on what was otherwise the slowest weekend of the year.”
That said, Halkyard didn’t specify exactly how much money the event garnered. However, the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority along with F1 and Las Vegas Grand Prix officials believe the race could have an economic impact of over $1 billion (£792,250,000), per KTNV.
With the estimated numbers trickling in, the potential return is why Halkyard and MGM poured so many resources into making the race as big of a success as it can.
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“We had very high expectations for what this event would be in Las Vegas. We invested heavily into it,” Halkyard said. “In particular, creating an experience for our casino customers and some retail customers in front of the Bellagio.”
Despite reports that those in attendance didn’t enjoy the race or that the surrounding businesses didn’t see the expected amount of traffic, Halkyard reiterates that those working in the casinos as well as guests have shared that they had a good experience overall.
“This was an event that certainly had a lot of friction in the months leading up to it, a lot of construction in Las Vegas,” he said. “Some of that will certainly be recurring but a lot of it will not be as dramatic in coming years.
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“F1 and the city got the city ready for this event. F1 invested hundreds of millions of dollars in capital in their paddock facility. That, along with money that we invested to build this hospitality experience, we’ll reuse that year after year. I’m optimistic this is going to be a fantastic vent in the years to come.”
On the other hand, Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor’s bout in 2017 generated more the $600million (£475.35million), which was beaten only by Mayweather’s fight with Manny Pacquiao. Additionally, 4.3million people tuned in through US pay-per-view, also beaten by Mayweather and Pacquiao’s fight (4.6 million).
Mayweather and McGregor’s fight brought in $55m (£43.57m) at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, again behind Mayweather and Pacquiao’s bout ($72M, £57.04m).
Still, despite the gaudy numbers Mayweather’s fight with McGregor garnered, it appears that the Las Vegas Grand Prix blew any estimations out of the water. Considering how much of a financial success the issue-riddled race was, organisers will make sure the race becomes a staple in F1 for years to come.
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