The NBA’s lifetime banishment on Tuesday of Donald Sterling as owner of the Los Angeles Clippers was not enough for Mandalay Bay to maintain its business relationship with the team.
Basketball
Up and down the Strip Thursday, college hoops fans from every corner of the U.S. were checking in to hotels, placing bets at bustling sports books and mixing testosterone with Bud Light and small hills of nachos. It’s big business for Las Vegas’ resort industry.
A Spalding sports equipment technician armed with lasers showed up recently at the Thomas & Mack Center — and he was on a mission. He was there to make sure the basketball rim and backboard support equipment were properly aligned and connected into a special Mountain West court floor. But he was also there to change Thomas & Mack’s look and convert the venue into a neutral site.
Most businesses would be too timid to mention the word “madness” in any March ad campaign. But not longtime car salesman Jim Marsh. In fact, the 80-year-old Kia dealership owner practically pokes the NCAA bear by rolling out an annual “Marsh Madness” ad campaign every spring.
Adidas is using the NBA summer games to showcase its new V-neck T-shirt jerseys, which made their debut with the Golden State Warriors last season, and the opinions, er, reviews are mixed.
Nearly a decade ago, the National Basketball League Summer League looked like a bunch of pick-up hoops games where green NBA rookies and roster-spot-craving veterans didn’t even wear matching team uniforms.
Shortly after hyperactive Albert Hall arrived at the Thomas & Mack Center and began checking poster placements, vendor spots and the new wood basketball floor, he gave arena director Mike Newcomb a bear hug.
National Basketball Association stars Tim Duncan and Tony Parker have guided their San Antonio Spurs into the Finals, while Miami Heat superstar LeBron James is getting prime time attention on TV as he tries to help his team into the sport’s championship series.
Good news for NBA player Jason Collins, the first male athlete in a major U.S. sports league to declare his homosexuality: If a company signs him to a sponsorship deal, consumers will likely view him just as effective a product endorser as a straight athlete.
Inside the March Madness Man Cave known as Lagasse’s Stadium sports bar on the Strip sits Jen Wilfong, a 48-year-old Indiana Hoosier hoops woman who honed her laser-perfect outside shot on five basketball rims mounted by her daddy on the family farm in Indiana.
Tim Husted has spent his entire adult life making a yearly March Madness pilgrimage from the Midwest to Las Vegas to park himself in front of a wall of TV screens for 14 hours on the first full day of NCAA basketball tournament games.
The death of Los Angeles Lakers owner Jerry Buss was felt not only in the sports world, but within the poker community.
Las Vegas officially has become the center of the universe, at least for basketball.
