Jeremy Aguero Joins Inside The Vegas Huddle

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Episode Transcript

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This is Inside the Vegas Huddle,your podcast connection to the events and initiatives
led by the Las Vegas Super Bowlfifty eight Host Committee in advance of the
big game at Allegiance Stadium. Welcometo Inside the Vegas Huddle. All right,

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we'll go back inside the Huddle thistime. We welcome in from Applied
to Analysis, the principal analyst forApplied to Analysis and really the treasure and
this is the best guy for thisjob, the treasure of the Las Vegas
Super Bowl Host Committee, the guruwith all the numbers, Jeremy Aguero.
Thank you very much for being hereas we go inside the Las Vegas,
the Vegas Huddle. This is fabulousbecause when you think of Las Vegas and

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the economic impact with Super Bowl fiftyeight, above and beyond anything the NFL
will ever achieve up to this point. First of all, thanks for having
me. Second all, I thinkyou're right. I mean, look,
there's no doubt that Super Bowl isgoing to be incredible for Las Vegas.
We look at some of the numbers, but Las Vegas will be pretty great
for the Super Bowl. You know, other markets have done an incredible job.

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I don't want to be disparaging towardanyone. We're looking at all those
taking lessons learned from all of them. But this is what we do,
Chris, this is what we do. Right. This community was designed to
host people. We have one hundredand fifty thousand hotel rooms, We've got
the seventh busiest origination and destination airportanywhere in the United States, and three
hundred thousand leisure and hospitality workers thatare dedicated to the proposition that the party's

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not over until the last person goeshome. There's nowhere else in the United
States that has those things. Thisis what we do. We host major
events. You bring your big eventhere, not only is it going to
be amazing, but we're going todo it better than other places. And
Joanna, we could just wrap itup right. Yea, I think he
knows in stuff now. I knowthat fourth generation Las Vegas resident. Obviously

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you have deep roots in our community. What does it mean for the Las
Vegas people to host an event likethis, people like yourself who've been born
raised here, seen all the changes. What do you mean, First of
all, it's remarkable. Yeah,right, you know, my son reached
out to me and reached out askedme a couple of days ago. Hey,
you know, I really want togo to the preseason game that's going

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to be an Allegian this weekend whereSan Francisco's playing against the Raiders. You
know, I never had that opportunityto do that my dad. My dad
was an incredible football fan. There'ssomething special about being able to share those
kind of experiences with a family,with a community, those type of things.
We saw it with the Aces winningthe national championship. We saw it
with the Golden Knights carrying the StanleyCup. Right. This community comes together

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around that and we never had it. But beyond that, beyond that,
it is the evolution of Las Vegas. Right prior to twenty seventeen, when
these sports were coming into town,sports, entertainment, those type of things
was on the list, but relativelylow in terms of the primary motivation for
someone coming to Las Vegas. Todayit is the second largest motivation for someone

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deciding to get on a plane orget in a car and come to Las
Vegas. That is markable. Thatis the evolution of an economy when you
start to think about how we growand how we develop next, and how
we keep all these people working inall these hotels occupied. It is things
like the next event that are incredible. Then you add onto it events that

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are of global significance, things likethe super Bowl. Right it is,
it's defining for us, and frankly, it brings a whole additional layer of
attention people that maybe came to LasVegas for something else, but coming for
the super Bowl means coming for anepic party and this is the place they're
gonna happen. You know, faultwhen you think about that, what you

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were saying, Jeremy, when youhave f one coming in November, then
you got the super Bowl coming Februaryeleven, fifty eight here in Vegas.
These events kind of shape the futureof what Las Vegas is going to be
all about. Yeah, look becausethese are going to be the two largest
events in our lifetimes, right atleast up to now. I mean,
who knows what happens next. Butwhat you the way you phrase that,
I think is absolutely right. Wehave got to perform on these This is

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why Allegian Stadium was built in frankformula one's ability to put a global set
of eyes on Las Vegas. Imean, the one element of our community
that is yet to really truly recoverpost pandemic is international travel. Right at
its peak, it was about nineteenpercent of visitation came from outside of the

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United States. That number is lowernow than it was then. And look,
I believe that you and I arethe three of us, are going
to get together and have a conversationa year from now, and we're going
to talk about that increase in internationalvisitation, the folks that want to come
out, And some of it's goingto be because Formula one's going to happen
hopefully every year for the next decade. But the combination, the combination,

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the exponential effect of this being theplace where these two events happen is spectacular
on an order of a market likeours, bringing that relevance, bringing that
attention, and reminding people Las Vegasis a place you want. Well,
can you elaborate that on a littlebit more in terms of how the super
Bowl's presence is really expected to shapeand influence our city's sports scene. Yeah?

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Sure, Look, I think ona number of levels, just this
fact that the super Bowl is hereis remarkable, right, but look we're
already seeing it, right, theraiders coming in and frankly, the courage
of folks like Mark Davis and electedofficials that brought that together and constructing it
during a pandemic. Right, wewere talking right before we came in here

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about the fact that that venue wherewe're going to host the Super Bowl also
brought the Draft right here. Wewouldn't have had that without that. We
had the All Star Game, wewouldn't have had that, the Pro Bowl,
Excuse me, we wouldn't have hadthat without that. What about the
fact that we packed Allegiance Stadium twicefor international friendly soccer matches without that,
right, we wouldn't have that.And I think you also have to give

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a lot of credit to the folksthat constructed Timobal Arena, right that opened
April sixth of nineth of twenty sixteen. Yeah, right, and look at
what we've seen there. Look atthe basketball games, we look at the
epic fights that we've had there,look at the UFC matches that we've had
there. Right, we were talkingin twenty sixteen about whether or not we

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could evolve into a sports town,Right, that's not even a conversation.
People are sports now, we are, right, and that's what everybody's talking
about. Transformational for us and thenwhen you think about the economic benefits,
not only the f one that's inthe billions, I understand the super Bowl
fifty eight coming up that's in thehigh one hundred millions, like six hundred
million whatever. What are those numbersthat you kind of put together, Now,

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what can we expect? Sure?Look, I mean from an economic
impact statement, you said it exactlyright, Right, You've got gross economic
impact and you've got net economic impact. And I'm not trying to get all
wonky, but we have to rememberthat we even won the Super Bowl,
isn't here. There are more peoplein Las Vegas than there are wherever the
super Bowl is, right, andso you know we have a lot of

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activity anyway, but this elevates thecity, right, This changes it.
Yes, Allegiance Stay can hold aboutsixty five thousand people, but it's a
different sixty five thousand people that aregoing to be there during the super Bowl,
right, A lot of people thatare VIPs and all of those type
of things, which tremendous for ourcommunity. So if we look at it
on a gross standpoint, it isit's approaching a billion dollars. If we
look at on a net standpoint,where we net out. People that may

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not come to Las Vegas. Maybethey'll come sometime later, but they're not
going to come during Super Bowl weekendbecause we're gonna be sold out on Super
Bowl weekend. Right. If we'relooking at that, it's probably closer to
six to seven hundred million dollars that'sthere. But I think the other part
that sometimes missing from all that isthat a lot of that money stays in
our community. A lot of thatghost jobs that get created in our community,

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and a lot of that goes towages and salaries to pay those jobs
in our communities. I mean,we, more than anywhere else in the
United States, are depending on thingslike cratuities, tips, of course,
and those are greater during this period. What about all the convention related activity.
I'm talking about not traditional conventions likecs, but I'm talking about all
the special events and meetings and conventionsand ballrooms. What about every entertainment venue

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being packed and booked during Super Bowl? What about every restaurant being packed and
booked because every team will have itsown party and all the sponsors, all
their sponsors. Right, So youstart to think about that, what does
that mean in terms of jobs?It means probably close to ten thousand jobs.
Now we can look at that interms of full time equivalence, we're
gonna have nine thousand volunteers alone,right, And then you start to think

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about something beyond that, and Ithink it's important that we point out about
the opportunities that are created as aresult of that. Right when you talk
about everything that the super Bowl isdoing and the NFL is doing to engage
small businesses, minority owned businesses,women own businesses, that are in own
businesses, those type of job connectionprograms that are being here are identifying these

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folks early on. We're six monthsout from now the super Bowl is going
to be here in southern Nevada,and we're already reaching out and engaging these
businesses to be a part of that. Over three hundred businesses identified and qualified
to be a part of the superBowl, and that is that's tremendous for
us in terms of having a legacybeyond just game day, right, And
I think to that point that trickleddown effect that outside of even the sports

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scene, everything else that will justbe boosted on a national level. I
know U and l VLM, rightlike spotlight on our university and everything else
that's so great about our community.Obviously, the Super Bowl shines a light
on that. You could not havesaid that any better, right, I
mean, they take every opportunity toshine a light on the portions of the

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areas within a community that we wantto draw attention to, and we get
to be part of that conversation.Let's not forget that. One of the
assets that we have in this communitythat other places don't is the Las Vegas
Convention and Visitors Authority that went throughthe process of applying for this negotiating with
the NFL and are so important tomarketing our city. As part of that,

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the ability for them to essentially engage, right because we know how to
have citywide events right, know howto get everybody's marquis on the same level.
Right now, we've got the sphereopened up, which everybody's keeping an
eye on. These are incredible assets, and those assets are sometimes physical.
We talked about un l Eagle Rebels, right, we talk about that,
But we also have incredible stories totell in this community. We're doing some

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pretty tremendous things, and oftentimes thatis overlooked when it's a smaller event.
Hey, we had a killer soccermatch. It's all about that. That's
not what the super Bowl is about, or even Formula One, because like
we're talking about a moment ago,it's about shining a light on the venue
as the host of this incredible events. And from that standpoint, we get
to be more than just what happenson the field or on the track.

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Right there, we really are thearena to the world. That LVCVA promo
that talks about how we are wearena to the world and so forth.
But I think about this when youthink of all the events, like you
were just mentioning, you could haveUFC on a Saturday. You see our
Golden Nights playing on a Friday.You got the Writers playing on a Sunday.
All these different events going on.Now, my question is could it
ever become over sat rated? Yeah? Yeah, Look, I think we're

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worried about that a little bit.Right today in this market, we have
three hundred and fifteen thousand seats inmajor entertainment venues. That's a lot for
us, right for a market ofour size. It's way too many for
what we have right now. Oursecret sauce is visitors and they're looking for
something to do and it's bringing themback. But the question that you ask,
I think is a very good one, because yes, there is a

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saturation point. I think we're therenow. No, I don't, But
I think we have to be verymindful because the saturation point is not only
going to come because we can't drawenough people in to come and see their
team or whoever's playing our team oneway or the other. We have to
think about transportation, getting people inand out of McCarron International Airport, getting
from along the Las Vegas Strip.We can see that some of the transportation.
Look in this town, there's afair amount of construction going on,

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which we all kind of see.We have to we have to think about
that in the right way. Wehave to make sure that safety is always
paramount. Right. Do we haveenough police officers to work? And are
we asking to work so much overtime because we have so many special events
because they're back to back to back, right, our biggest risk is that
we don't get the next event,although that is a big risk. Our
biggest risk is that we don't performon these events. That is what this

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community needs to do. And oftentimesI feel like we've gotten to this point
where we're trying to take, take, take, What is the Super Bowl
going to do for us? Whatis this going to do for us?
What this community needs to be thinkingabout is the ways that we facilitate making
this work. Hey, how canI volunteer? Hey do I need to
take a different route to work?Hey do I need to be a little
bit patient relative to that? Theanswer to those questions are yes. Whether

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you're an elected official or somebody workingin our hospitality industry, we're all part
of making this a great experience forthe people that come here to do it,
and they're them making the choice todo it is what makes our economy
move forward. So us finding thatway to make sure that we're all involved
in making sure that these events aretremendous. I think it's critical to the
performance. Vegas makes everybody feel likea VIP. That's their goal. Everybody

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who comes to town has to beright absolutely. And I know the podcast
is called Inside the Vegas Huddle,but I think we need Jeremy and every
Raiders huddle because I don't feel moremotivated than when talking to this man right
here, because of just the bigpicture outlook that you see now. I
don't know Chris. Maybe I'm jumpingthe gun a little bit, but is
it too early to potentially talk aboutcan we get the Super Bowl back again

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after twenty twenty four? Look,that's the goal, yeah, right.
I mean, let's be clear.We did not build a Leegiance Stadium and
put seven hundred and fifty million dollarsof public money into that to have one
event one time. Right. No, No, that's not what it's about.
It is about us being able tosay we'll put a premiere venue in
a premiere community of a premier city, all right, and this is where

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your event needs to be. BecauseI think Chris said this earlier as we
were sort of talking, right,the super Bowl coming here tremendous for us.
We also wanted to be tremendous forthe NFL. So when they get
done with it, they're like,that was the best super Bowl. We
had the best responses, Our fanshad the best time, our sponsors had
the most uh you know, theythey were seeing more than anywhere else.

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They had a great time. Wewant everyone to believe that's what it is,
because that's what's going to bring peopleback. Before we let Jeremy go,
I gotta ask him because we askedour other guests, the half time,
the Super Bowl halftime will be phenomenal. I want to ask you,
if you could bring any group together, groups together, what kind of half
time would you like to see inSuper Bowl fifty eight. Oh, but

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that that's really tough, that's all. And especially for how long and how
deep his roots go in the Vegascommittee, I think it's gotta be.
We were saying, that's what wewere Joan and I were saying, how
about if you had the killers,imagine dragons panic at the disco, Wayne
Newton, you throw in Look,you know some of the residents. Look,

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look all right, so you knowwe can go through all of this.
Right. You have to understand thatI am the father of a young
daughter. Right, so look,if I don't entertain, I'm done.
I'm done, honestly. Maybe rightthere, maybe right there. Obviously we
know that's one of the biggest tourismall time. Obviously super Bowl fifty eight

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being one of the biggest events ofall time coming to our city. Count
down to the big game. It'son inside the Vegas Huddle is where you
can find all the details, prepall the preparation, all the hard work,
the people behind the scenes and allthose numbers that Jeremy throw away too.
It's a lot of numbers here.Jeremy's he's heading back to his calculator
because he gets off the air here. Good job. I'll tell you what

(15:31):
j went out. That was alot of fun. When you talk about
going inside the Vegas Huddle, wewent right behind the huddle. These guys
were phenomenal. You got the chairmanin here, you got the president,
so you have the host committee andthat of course Jeremy. I'm still catching
my breath with Jeremy Aguero because somany numbers. That one really was incredible.
Obviously, we're so excited. We'vebeen talking about it for so long

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and to be able to get thatpreview of everything that it took to be
able to get Super Bowl fifty eighthere and everything that's to come, which
I'm so cited about inside the VegasHuddle because we're gonna be, you know,
obviously, peeling back that curtain alittle more each episode to allow people
to see more and more leading upto Super Bowl fifty eight, and it's
less than six months away. Theanniversary was on Friday to the day,

(16:14):
so that's gonna be a lot offun. Yeah, you know, the
planning, the preparation and pulling offan event like this that the NFL says,
and all these guys you know you'reSam and Marion and Jeremy talked about
how this will be the NFL's biggestand best party. This will set the
bar from here on old, likewho has it next year? In the
follow when you're they gonna say,we gotta do better than Vegas. Is
be really tough. It's gonna bevery tough. And I love when you

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kind of ask Sam a little bitabout some of those events then you know,
just everyday people can attend and hesaid, not quite yet. Can't
share those details yet, but that'swhat's to come on inside the Vegas Huddle.
I know coming up next podcast thatwe do will be able to talk
more about some of these awesome eventsthat people can plan for all around Super

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Bowl fifty eight. Yeah, becauseon August twenty third, the NFL phils
come into town with all these gentlemenand they're gonna preview and let us know
as a community as Las Vegas,Hey, this is gonna happen here,
that's gonna happen there, get involvedhere. You can buy tickets at that.
Like Sam was saying, Hey,if you want to go to the
big preview party where all the playersare there and they introduce them, you
can go to that. You're right, I know a lot of exciting events

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to come. So make sure youwere following the Las Vegas super Bowl Host
Committee on social media at lv's superBowl HC for all the details. And
yeah, Chris, I'm excited forthe countdown journey with you inside the Vegas
Huddle. Oh, it's gonna bea blast, HAWD to blast with you.
The Las Vegas super Bowl Host Committeeand inside the Vegas Huddle would not
be possible without our incredible sponsors.We would like to thank the following sponsors,

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Caesar's Entertainment, Howard Hughes Corporation,and Intermountain Health. Las Vegas super
Bowl Host Committee would also like tothank the following partners Allegian Air, BOYD
Gaming, FIVO, MGM Rewards,PNC Bank, UFC, Bank of Nevada,
and The Las Vegas super Bowl HostCommittee would like to thank the following

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Community Affairs Program supporters, Bank ofAmerica, BOYD Gaming, msg Sphere,
PNC Bank, UFC, and Vichyproperties,