Thursday, Jan. 2, 2025 | 2 a.m.
Every year is a big year in sports for Las Vegas, as the city continues its decade-long boom on the courts, fields, rinks and tracks.
Big events from across the sports world keep rolling into town, but that’s no longer all Vegas relies upon for its biggest sporting moments. Nowadays, we make our own defining memories with locally based teams and venues to rally behind.
So for this year’s annual predictions piece, let’s go through a handful of our biggest teams and staples and guess what the next 12 months will bring.
Las Vegas Raiders
The Raiders will not employ a fifth coach since moving to Las Vegas five years ago before the 2025-2026 NFL season begins. They will by the end of it.
Team owner Mark Davis will decide to stick with current coach Antonio Pierce for another year after some promising signs at the end of the 2024-2025 season, but the Raiders’ results won’t improve much in the next campaign.
Having lost their chance to select their preferred rookie franchise quarterback by decreasing their draft position with late-season wins, the Raiders use their ample salary-cap space to instead heap a mammoth contract on free agent Sam Darnold. The move will be promising after Darnold leads the Minnesota Vikings to Super Bowl 59 where they lose to the Baltimore Ravens in the first-ever all-purple version of the game at Caesars Superdome in New Orleans.
But the Raiders don’t have the infrastructure of the Vikings to help Darnold succeed as much, and Pierce’s in-game decision-making continues to cost them in close games. Davis decides to move on from Pierce with the Raiders sitting at 4-8 heading into December.
General manager Tom Telesco is retained, especially after hitting on another first-round draft pick of Texas offensive tackle Kelvin Banks to go with this season’s rookie sensation, tight end Brock Bowers.
Vegas Golden Knights
During their Stanley Cup-winning run in 2023, the Golden Knights held off the Edmonton Oilers on the final day of the regular season to win the Pacific Division and then beat them in a second-round playoff series.
This year will be a repeat, only in reverse.
The Oilers have clearly demonstrated that they’re the team to beat in the Western Conference, but the Golden Knights are no easy out. Vegas will stay in contention for another divisional crown until the bitter end when Edmonton finally clears them.
The Oilers will then exorcise some postseason demons against the Golden Knights in the second round with a seven-game series win.
Vegas will come in as a trendy upset choice after dispatching a hot Vancouver side in the first round and lead in the Edmonton series after three games. But not even a prime Jack Eichel and a few modest reinforcements acquired at the trade deadline for the Golden Knights can overcome the Oilers’ lethal duo of Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl.
Las Vegas Aces
The 2022 and 2023 WNBA champion Las Vegas Aces are currently the third choice in the betting odds to win the 2025 WNBA title at 4-to-1.
That price plummets quickly once the regular season begins in May. The Aces will be back with a vengeance to show that their dynasty isn’t over yet.
Reigning MVP A’ja Wilson can’t match the historical dominance of her 2024 season, but she’ll remain the best player in the world and the pieces around her will recover from a relative down year.
Veteran point guard Chelsea Gray will show she has at least one All-Star season left in her while forward Jackie Young will put together the most consistent campaign of her career to merit MVP consideration of her own.
The Aces and defending champion New York Liberty renew their rivalry in the 2025 WNBA Finals. New York will narrowly earn homecourt advantage in the regular season, but Las Vegas ultimately claims another championship on its rival’s home floor at Barclays Center in Brooklyn.
Athletics
The A’s, with their most competitive roster in years, will be a smash hit in their first year playing at their temporary home of Sutter Health Park in Sacramento. City officials from the California capital will push to keep the franchise, but it will quickly become clear that’s not happening.
Groundbreaking for New Las Vegas Stadium (the venue’s working title) at the site of the former Tropicana occurs before the end of the summer after much-maligned A’s owner John Fisher and his team navigate the final financing hurdles.
The project will be on track for its planned 2028 opening as a location on the Strip with an on-site resort and $380 million in public funding is too appealing and tantalizing to Major League Baseball to let fall through.
UNLV Sports
The Lady Rebels fall short in the Mountain West Conference regular season but make it three straight conference tournament championships to again reach the NCAA Tournament. But a more negative streak also persists there, as they lose in the first round for the third straight year, this time to No. 5 seed Iowa.
The men’s basketball team fails to reach the “Big Dance” for the 12th consecutive year after finishing sixth in the Mountain West regular season, and moves on from coach Kevin Kruger in the offseason.
Football still has the most momentum of all UNLV’s major sports and, though it’s not entirely halted in the 2025 season, new coach Dan Mullen can’t pick up exactly where the outbound Barry Odom left off. The Scarlet and Gray reach bowl eligibility for the third straight season, but don’t advance to the Mountain West championship game where Boise State knocks off Air Force before leaving for the Pac-12.
Auto Racing
No one would have expected the Las Vegas Grand Prix to produce three different winners in its first three years considering it launched during the height of Max Verstappen’s dominance with Red Bull Racing.
But that’s exactly what happens when legendary driver Lewis Hamilton, who showed perhaps the purest speed in the 2024 local race before Mercedes teammate George Russell ultimately won, prevails in his new Ferrari ride on November 22, 2025.
NASCAR is typically the more parity-fueled of the two major racing leagues, but ironically, not in Las Vegas. Chevrolet wheelman Kyle Larson wins his third Cup race in his last four tries at Las Vegas Motor Speedway in the Pennzoil 400 on March 16, 2025.
But Larson is beaten out by Hendrick Motorsports teammate William Byron when NASCAR comes back around for a playoff race, the South Point 400, on October 12, 2025.
This story originally appeared in Las Vegas Weekly.