As the Las Vegas Golden Knights lifted the National Hockey League’s Stanley Cup last night, the inner sports fan in us was thrilled for the market (and thrilled for some winning in our DraftKings (DKNG) accounts).
In just 6 short years, Las Vegas has morphed into an ice hockey town sporting some of the nation’s most rowdy fan bases and also generating a lot of incremental room nights and buzz around town. We’re hearing last night was a busy one along the Strip and Strip adjacent properties.
We’ve seen a few articles this morning suggesting that the winning of the Stanley Cup symbolizes the LV’s big “moment” as a hub for leisure and entertainment. We’d counter with the notion that this Stanley Cup win is merely a part of what’s to come. It’s not just a singular “moment” for the market; rather, we see a long tail of pretty solid catalysts for the market to continue to grow visitation and simultaneously up-mix its customer base.
Take a look at the next twelve months:
- Las Vegas will layer on more home games (with a higher quality visitor) for the NFL this year
- then F1’s inaugural event in November
- then the Super Bowl in early ’24
- then a record-breaking convention slate for the full year ’24
- and then the prospect of MORE sports with the A’s (MLB Baseball)
- and a future NBA team on the come
There’s not a market in our coverage that has more demand drivers than the Las Vegas Strip for the coming years. Yes, we’re bullish on MGM and WYNN. Doubtful that we’ll be bullish through the entirety of this cycle but for now, we are and see material upside in MGM and WYNN.
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NOTE: This is an excerpt from a research note from our Gaming, Lodging & Leisure research team. If you're an institutional investor interested in our Gaming, Lodging & Leisure (GLL) research click here to email our Sales team. If you're an individual investor interested in our GLL Pro product click here.
