Las Vegas presidential debate considered a resounding success

Wednesday’s presidential debate between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump at UNLV lived up to its billing by drawing 71.6 million television viewers.

Those numbers make the Thomas & Mack Center debate the third most-watched in the history of presidential debates, behind only the first between Trump and Clinton (84 million) and the only debate between Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter in 1980 (80.6 million).

Thousands of journalists from around the world descended onto the town, known internationally for its entertainment and gambling, for one of the nation’s biggest political events. Cable news stations CNN and MSNBC each had full setups and hosted live broadcasts from the campus Tuesday and Wednesday.

The Fox News Channel opted to use the Strip as its main backdrop for several newscasts and specials. During its live broadcast leading to the debate, the words “Univ. of Nevada, Las Vegas” sat at the bottom of its broadcast screen throughout the entirety of the debate.

“This was a special event on steroids,” said Vince Alberta, senior associate vice president of brand marketing for UNLV. “It is something we will never be able to match.”

And with the general feeling being that the debate was a resounding success, some are wondering if other big-time political events such as the Democratic or Republican national conventions could be on the horizon for Las Vegas.

UNLV allocated as much as $4 million to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority in September to help pay for the debate. The convention authority had already dedicated its own $4 million.

Alberta said he’s not sure what the final price tag will be, but “any investment that was made, the rate of return will more than justify it.”

And Alberta isn’t alone in that line of thinking.

Somer Hollingsworth, who retired from the Las Vegas Global Economic Alliance in 2015 after nearly 20 years of working to boost Southern Nevada’s economy, said the publicity the valley received from the presidential debate was priceless.

“I don’t think you could ever buy that kind of publicity,” he said.

The publicity for both UNLV, which will begin recruiting and accepting medical students for its first class in 2017, as well as the Las Vegas Valley, which Gov. Brian Sandoval and his team are working to economically diversify, will help the area court new businesses, he said.

“It was a great boom. … What a great light that we were shown in, and we handled it really well.”

The road closures were well-executed and minimally interfered with people’s lives, he said. “Everybody got to where where they wanted to go … I did.”

And with no reports of riots or violence, which would be “the last thing we need,” the valley successfully hosted a major political event, Hollingsworth said.

“I think people saw another sign that we can handle it, and I think that we could at some point — when the next presidential race (gets underway) — have the convention here. I just think it’s where it should be. I think we need to be one of those cities (that host party conventions).”

Las Vegas was in fact in the running to host the 2016 Republican National Convention. But it withdrew because the proposed site, the Las Vegas Convention Center, didn’t meet certain requirements such as having VIP sky boxes and said it lacked enough time to prepare for an event such as the GOP convention. It can take several weeks to convert the site for a Republican or Democratic convention.

But others, including former Democratic U.S. Sen. Mark Begich and UNLV history professor Michael Green, think hosting such a convention should be on the horizon for the valley.

Begich, who represented Alaska from 2009 to 2015 and works as a strategic adviser at Washington, D.C.-based firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, called the Las Vegas debate “a really well-done event.”

He especially applauded how well both Las Vegas and UNLV handled the massive amount of Secret Service and security that comes with the debate.

“I think, in a lot of ways, Vegas showed that it could handle a national convention,” Begich said.

Green, noting the previous issues that halted the Republican National Convention and Las Vegas marriage, said that there will be two new venues that could be in play: the T-Mobile Arena and the yet-to-be-named domed stadium that Nevada Legislature recently approved to fund through an increase in hotel room taxes and that could be the future home to the NFL’s Oakland Raiders franchise.

Contact Colton Lochhead at clochhead@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4638. Follow @ColtonLochhead on Twitter. Contact Nicole Raz at nraz@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-4512. Follow @JournalistNikki on Twitter.