Super Bowl economic impact touches down
Prior to the 2024 Super Bowl, the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA) estimated the big game would have a total economic impact of $799 million. And that was the number we used in our story about the economic impact of colossal sporting events.
But according to a study done by local research firm Applied Analysis for the LVCVA, the actual total was closer to $1 billion. And the LVCVA reported net visitor spending of more than $600 million.
“In addition to selling out the 62,000 seats at Allegiant Stadium, more than 260,000 football fans who didn’t have a Super Bowl ticket traveled to Las Vegas simply because the game was held here,” CEO and president of the LVCVA Steve Hill said in a statement to the Weekly.
The game turned out to be the most-watched telecast in history, with more than 123 million viewers.
“The Super Bowl and Las Vegas turned out to be a match made in sports heaven … and Taylor Swift is welcome back anytime,” Hill said.
Brightline West breaks ground
After lawmakers had been trying to make it a reality for 25 years, a high-speed rail project has finally broken ground in Southern Nevada. The all-electric 218-mile Brightline West rail to connect Las Vegas with Rancho Cucamonga (and with greater Los Angeles via Metrolink connections) put its first shovels into the ground on April 22 this year. According to the company, the project is expected to be completed by 2028, in time for the Olympics in Los Angeles.
Las Vegas Weekly produced a feature story about Brightline West after the Nevada Department of Transportation received $3 billion for the project from the federal government back in December 2023. After it broke ground in spring, the project received yet another $3 billion federal grant in September 2024, providing a significant boost to the $12 billion project’s funding—the rest of which is expected to be raised through private investors.
Other details to be worked out include the cost of tickets. Brightline founder Wes Edens told the Los Angeles Times that tickets to ride Brightline West could cost around $400. Brightline’s website says tickets will be priced “on par with the cost of gas and parking” you would otherwise spend driving your own car.
Vegas breaks its heat record
We lived through the hottest day on record in Vegas. On July 7, the temperature reached 120 degrees Fahrenheit.
Shortly after in the Weekly, we talked about how this wasn’t a coincidence—how climate change is the cause for climbing temperatures each year, as well as increased workplace safety complaints and even deaths.
During 2010-2016, the Clark County Coroner’s Office recorded an annual average of 50 heat-related deaths. During 2017-2023, that average nearly quadrupled to 187. As of December 2, the Clark County Coroner’s Office had recorded 491 heat-related deaths in 2024 alone.
As for workplace safety complaints to Nevada’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the agency has seen a 177% increase in average annual heat-related complaints during 2020-2024 compared to the five years prior.
Fortunately, Nevada’s Division of Industrial Relations in November filed a heat illness regulation that is now in effect. The regulation requires businesses with more than 10 employees to perform a one-time job hazard analysis to assess work conditions that could lead to heat illness.
Area15 gets a theme park-sized expansion
In May, the Weekly ran a cover story about Area15, calling it a “new kind of Vegas theme park,” although it’s not exactly a theme park. But after some developments this year, it very well could become one.
Developer Fisher Brothers got approval from the City of Las Vegas in October for a 35.5-acre tourism improvement district, allowing them to utilize a portion of newly generated sales tax in the development to pay for infrastructure improvements like new water and sewer lines and parking garages.
Fisher Brothers is planning a 200-room hotel, 585 multi-family housing units, 518,000 square feet of retail space, 320,000 square feet of office space and 100,000 square feet of Universal Horror Unleashed—Universal’s first-ever year-round horror experience slated to open in 2025.
Nevada swings red
For the first time in two decades, Nevada swung red in a presidential election. President-elect Donald Trump won the state by just over three percentage points in the 2024 general election. (In 2016 and 2020, he lost to the Democratic presidential nominees Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden by just under three percentage points.)
Trump didn’t prevail statewide—Clark and Washoe counties chose Kamala Harris—and Nevada’s three Democratic U.S. House Representatives retained their seats, as did Sen. Jacky Rosen.
In an interview the morning that presidential election results were released, UNLV associate professor of political science Dan Lee attributed the results to perceptions of the economy being top of mind for voters.
“The main, fundamental thing when you’re trying to predict presidential elections is the economy,” Lee said. “At the end of the day, we had a sitting Democratic president [and] people perceived the economy to not be doing well, so they were going to vote for a Republican.”
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