Possible Wynn Lawsuit, Casino Royale Demolition, F1 Shakedown & More!

Hello and welcome to the MTM Vegas podcast. I'm Sean Coomer, your host joined as always by Mark Osterman. As a reminder, you can watch this show along with all the visuals at youtube.com forward slash miles to memories. We record two shows a week on YouTube and combine them into this podcast for your listening enjoyment. On this week's show, we had a lot to discuss, including the potential demolition or redevelopment of casino royale. They want to build a 699 foot tower there. Main street station hotel is also going under refurbishment. And this week, the Nevada legislature is taking up bills, talking about the A's and Hollywood 2.0 with movie studios looking to move in. It's been a lot of drama up at the state level. We also talk about a new hotel approved for the Elegant Stadium area. Why you might now want to swim in Lake Mead this week. And Formula One coming to the county, asking for money for construction after the fact, all those road improvements. So much to talk about this week. Stick around. As a reminder, you can find all of our Vegas content that's posts, podcasts, and videos at MTMVagus.com. Thanks so much for listening. Let's hit it. So Mark, the golden nights are in the Stanley Cup finals. In fact, they're up one zero. And by the time this comes out, the second game will have been played. So hopefully they're up two zero. We got called out for not giving them enough love. Sorry about that. I meant to cover this. Vegas is about to get its second major sports championship after the WNBA aces trigger everybody out there. It looks like they put on a good show for the games. The game time atmosphere looks really great. And definitely gets a lot of support in the city. So it's cool to see. I did see, I think it was Las Vegas locally said, hockey city, USA, that is actually Detroit. And don't you dare try to steal that name. Hey Detroit hasn't won anything for a while, right? I don't know. They may be stepping down. It's one anything period. Come on. Second finals and six seasons, been to the playoffs all but one season. And then they're going to finally take it home this year. So if you get, if you get the Stanley Cup, look at all the things and how many times the choice on there, then then we can discuss it. When did you become a Red Wigs fan? I hate hockey. This week news broke that the casino Royale, one of the last remaining smaller properties on the strip with its like best Western hotel is possibly going to expand. In fact, the FAA is reviewing a document saying that potentially they want to build a tower that 699 feet tall. Now, of course, this sits next to Palazzo, which is 650-ish. So I would expect the FAA probably will approve anything. But this is sort of the first that we heard. I think Vital Vegas broke the information. The review journal also covered it. So this is legitimate that they're looking to possibly build something 699 feet. I think this makes sense. You got to utilize what little land there is left on the strip. And that's a great location. Yeah, I'm kind of ashamed that we talked about a couple episodes ago. Like, what's the next Vegas hotel to get knocked down and nobody we didn't come up with this idea. And this one makes the most sense. I don't think anybody's going to pick it outside trying to say don't dismantle, please. You know, unless they really love deep fried twinkies or something along those lines, but I'm sure they'll keep something like that in there. But yeah, it makes a lot of sense, you know, especially that end of the strip becoming more and more popular. You know, why wouldn't you take advantage of it? Yeah, I agree. And there's more land than you would think there because of the way the motel building kind of, you know, cuddles into the Venetian. I wonder, you know, there's no sale that's happened, but this would be a perfect, you know, fit with the Venetian's owners, but also could be just the casino or Al's owners wanting to do it. But I think getting approval so that you can start to figure out what's next there makes a lot of sense, but it is sad to see, you know, I remember back in the day, a casino royale, O'Shea's, those types of casinos were kind of cool to stumble into as you walk down the strip and they're slowly going away. There's, you know, those cheap food cords, like you say, fried twinkies, what dollar hot dogs, all that good stuff, beer palm, everything along the way. So hey, yeah, we still got stage door and that I don't think we'll ever go away. Yeah, I wonder what happens to the white castle of casino royale goes away. The first white castle in Las Vegas. So hey, less toilets will get punished, so that's okay. Yeah, it'll, so true, so true. So I talked briefly about the Wednesday that I had in how I got free nights through a casino status match in Atlantic City. We did talk on the show before about it, but thought it was worth mentioning again for people who have status. A lot of the casinos in Atlantic City will match each other. So that can kind of play into your advantage if you have status with MGM or Caesars. I think that you can match MGM to Caesars, but in that case, I had Caesars diamond status. I went to hard rock and I got their hard rock rock royalty. Now, they're switching over to their new unity program. So I don't know if what's the equivalent into that now, but I do believe the match is still going on. And then I took that status from hard rock and walked over to Ocean, who matched me to their prime status, which came with the free MSC cruise and win night. So that's sort of how it worked. Both my wife and I did that and it worked out well. They wouldn't match the Caesars diamond to Ocean's prime. So I had to go to hard rock first and then they matched it. But you can play games like that in Atlantic City. I wish you could in Vegas, not quite the same. Yeah, and that hard rock is currently like in its own program, right? And you're thinking that they're going to roll into the nation. They are. I just don't know what the timeline is. They did announce that, but it is happening. But as far as I understand, they're still matching status like they did before, even if it is a new program. Yeah, so right now you might have like a unique experience where you can go match that and then still go to Mirage and do that match. I think it's still going on. I haven't heard of it dying yet where you get the $100 dinner and stuff. So if you live on the East Coast and you're coming to Vegas, you could try to hit both, you know, while it's still an opportunity. Yeah, and I think with Ocean, you get a free night there. You can't book it like the same day. You have to has to at least be the next day. When we were there, it was packed and we didn't have the ability to use that. And I think you get some free play in there. And, you know, I think Trop out there has a match and it's worth kind of looking into that. If you're going to go to Atlantic City, bring your cards. Make sure you could play a status roulette if you can. But if you can get that ocean prime, that does come with the MSC crews and the free win nights. And that's so generous that they do it on matches because a lot of casinos don't do that. But I've already taken the MSC crews. I've already used the win nights. And I know other people who have done it. So that's the quick and dirty on how that was done. And if you do it, make sure to let me know how it works out for you. And did you see that Main Street station might finally be getting a refurbishment to their rooms. Vito Vegas saying that he heard rumors. So this isn't confirmed or announced yet that they're going to take it down to the studs, the hotel park. And, you know, over the last few years, we've seen them give a lot of love to California, certainly sprucing it up before Circa opened. Fremont's gotten a ton of stuff in the new food court, a full renovation there. The rooms have been redone. So it's time for Main Street station to get some love, I think. The casino is so charming and cool. But those hotel rooms definitely look like they're out of the 1990s. Yeah, I was going to say I'm never stayed there, but the pictures look like extended stay anywhere you'd find on a roadside motel. You know, that type of setup, 90s holiday in, express type of thing. So definitely needs a refurbishment. And I'll say like Main Street station is probably the one to least recover from. It feels like from COVID. Like they, they were very popular casino for what they were pre-COVID. And it just never really got back. And I don't think they've really done anything to help it. So they definitely, this is some step in the right direction. But, you know, they've made games less valuable to players. I think they've messed with their rewards program, which isn't quite as good. And they've increased the beer prices, which is, you know, why? Why would you do that? That's where they lost mark. You can't increase beer prices. They used to have the best beer deal in downtown Las Vegas. And I don't know what the current price is, but I think it was about five or six bucks last time I was there. But it used to be like 250 for their beer. And that's the craft beer that they make in house, which is really good. Their red ale is really good. And bringing it down to the, to the studs, if they do this, it'll be a completely different thing. And, you know, it's an old building with some interesting history. So I, I hope this happens. And like you said, 1990's holiday in is exactly what I thought. Yeah. When I saw those, you know, bed frames and everything else. Do you think they'll theme them at all? Like Hawaiian theme? Or do you think they're kind of trying to get away from that a bit? I don't know. I mean, this has always been their Hawaii overflow property. So it's always had a lot of Hawaiians, but it's, you know, California and Fremont, I think, draw more on that, especially California. So, you know, I, I would like to see them go in a different direction. Maybe kind of buy into that whole old-timey theme that they have going with the casino and all the antiques and all the other stuff. But, you know, my guess would just be modern gray, because this is, and that what everybody's doing these days. Yes. All right. So Las Vegas is going to get two movie studios. It looks like, well, the legislature, today as we're recording this, this is the last day of the session. They still have not voted on this. And along with the aid stadium and a lot of stuff, they could go into an emergency session, which sort of seems likely. There's a lot of stuff that they're supposed to get passed. The governor has been vetoing stuff a lot of back and forth. But SB 496 is going to provide tax incentives for movie studios to move here. Howard Hughes Company has come out and said they're going to build a big movie studio in Summerland at, I think, Flamingo and Town Center. Another movie studio coming to Durango in the 215. It does provide $190 million in tax breaks a year, which is a lot of money, especially for the state of Nevada. Although it does require certain spending, I think $633 million in content creation each year. How will you come to that number? I don't know. But you looked into it and it hasn't gotten so well doing similar packages in places like Michigan, right? Yeah. We had one, you know, about a decade ago, went for many years and movies came in just for that, like, Transformers. I think Superman versus Batman was filmed in Detroit and Red Dawn, the newer one. So they had some big time movies, big time studios and actors come in and they ended up getting rid of it. It's on the talk again to bring it back. And, you know, the theory with all this stuff is always, hey, let's give them incentives, get them here. And then when we cut them off, you know, there'll be an industry already built. So they'll just stick around. Well, they don't. They just hop from state to state to get incentives. And I did a little digging and what we saw was 60% like 60 cents on the dollars, what you got back. So if you gave out 190 million, you got 60% of that back. And that doesn't look at like bringing in young talent and getting people to move, which is an issue with Michigan, but I don't think that's an issue with specifically Vegas, but Nevada, you know, as a whole maybe. So I don't know. Anytime you give billion dollar industries money, it just seems kind of ridiculous to me. It was like we're doing a lot of that lately, but I mean, these are going to be full movie studios. So sound stages, a lot of stuff that's actually needed. There is apparently a shortage of sound stages in the West coast. And this is very close to Los Angeles, which I think geographically makes a lot of sense just because, you know, not only will be people probably more willing to relocate, but studios can also use this for overflow and stuff like that. So I think it's a little different than some other markets. There's another concern for locals, though, if they build this huge movie industry here, it's only going to help drive up housing prices for more people from California. So there's another reason not to like it. But I think both of these spots are pretty good for where they're going to build them. And having Howard Hughes company, having some big names including Mark Wahlberg coming out and speaking for this, there's definitely a huge push in the industry to get this done. So we'll see how they vote. And we'll report back. Yeah, I mean, Mark Wahlberg was here a lot when we had the credits and ever since they went away, he hasn't been back. Just hope that they have put in the proper stipulations. People fought 500 million for the A's, but now, you know, a couple hundred million for a decade is okay for movies. I'll get it. Yeah. And the governor, Lamarro, he is a little bit against us. He said this is a huge amount of money. And that's sort of why I think it hasn't been voted on yet. So it's hard to kind of tell where it's going to go, but we should know here in the next few days. So on the resource world and their dirt lot, which they put a lot of things on, they did that big Christmas thing that by all accounts was successful last year. And then just in April, they brought in Transfix, which is this sort of modern art installation with this giant statue and weird lights and everything. And then it just abruptly closed. And we don't really know why I even looked at the press release from April on resource world site. They deleted it and tickets just stop going on sale. So it seems like, not even that far into the run, what a month and a half or so Transfix is gone. So now maybe we can get that fictional water park that we were hoping for. They got to figure out they got to build something permanent on this dirt lot. Yeah. I mean, you watched videos and said it looked pretty cool. I just saw pictures on Twitter that people shared and it looked a little bit sparse. So I don't know if it was maybe it wasn't as popular as expected, but it stinks when you don't give any notice. And I know a couple people on Twitter were like, oh, I was planning on going there next week or I bought a ticket. You should get refunded at least, but it's kind of a crap way to do it to just abruptly close it. No notice, no reasoning. You know, it's kind of crazy. And this is always something that can happen when you're using outside vendors. Transfix was not run by resource world. They were just using the lot and partnering with them. So maybe financial troubles, maybe ticket sales were that bad. I almost went there when I was staying at win. Just didn't get over there, but tickets weren't cheap. I forget the exact cost, but they were pretty hefty in price. So I was, you know, a little hesitant on that, but it looked cool from the outside. I did see it from, you know, I saw the big statue and all the stuff that you could see kind of from across the street. It looked neat, but and I had heard, you know, decent things about it. But yeah, let's get something else permanent on it. They're loud. I'm still advocating for the water park. Somebody said that was an April Fool's joke, but we have her mentioning of a water park before it was in the original plans for resource world. So April Fool's joke or not, let's build it. Just put a whole bunch of machinery out there and let people rent it and dig holes. That's what, you know, make it fun. Like a big sand pit. Yeah, perfect view from that infinity pool of the, of the sand pit of construction doom. Look at that guy digging that hole. He's doing a great job. So another thing that's possibly happening this week is win resorts suing fountain blue. And this comes from Vital Vegas. Again, although he says it's imminent that it's going to happen. It's a rumor. He makes it clear. But he says they're going to sue them for poaching talent. We know that I think over 40 executives from win have gone to fountain blue. They've been heavily recruiting all types of top talent from other resorts. But when maybe saying enough is enough here, of course, win is famous for suing resorts world for saying that they stole their design. So they're not a good neighbor, right? Anytime somebody wants to move in the neighborhood, lawsuits are filed. Yeah, I mean, the funny thing is the first time I read that on the show notes, I plugged in Wyndham. And I was like, why would anybody be stealing executives from Wyndham? And that makes me not want to go to fountain blue. But if you're stealing from win, you know, what everybody says is the best resort in Vegas, best high end resort. I think it's kind of genius. And that's where you definitely would want to grab talent from if you had your choice. A pick of the litter. So I could see them getting upset. 40 seems a bit much. Like I was thinking it'd be like five to 10. But we're talking 40 people. That's a lot of holes to plug, you know, an upper management in one resort. So I don't blame them for suing them. And I don't blame fountain blue for going after them. So I think I'm on both sides of this. Yeah, I agree. I mean, win is the cream of the crop of hotels in Las Vegas. Really in the world for large hotels, the way that they run it, we talked when I talked about my stay there, about how good the service level is considering the number of rooms. They, you know, they really do do better than anybody else. So of course, you want those that talent. I'm sure there's non-compete clauses. I'm sure there's a lot of legal stuff. And again, this hasn't been filed. So this is just speculation. But I'm sure that we'll work it out just like win and resorts world did. Resorts world tweaked the design a little bit because when was worried that it was, you know, a copy of their casino. Oh, we have a curve building. Nobody else can make a curve building is whatever. Yeah, I think it was the brown glass. I don't know what it was exactly, but they did settle it out of court. But this is, you know, a compliment, I think, to win. And just this week, their CEO Craig Billings who took over in 2022 got his contract extended four years. So he's going to be there through June 1st, 2027. Got a pretty big pay raise. I think up to about two million dollars a year plus more bonuses and incentives. Their properties have done really well, including in Macau, which is having its resurgence right now. And the Las Vegas properties continue to do well. So win resorts on a great trajectory, even if, you know, even if they have a new neighbor coming in in Vegas. Yeah, and initially like you're like, you went from like 1.8 to 2 million. And you're like, oh, that doesn't seem like much for, you know, one of the bigger resorts and gambling. And then you see five times stock options and all this stuff. So it's end up going to make it like, you know, 15, 20 million probably at the end of the year. So definitely well paid, compensated, what you would expect. So and then he runs a good ship. So you can't, maybe he should hold on to those 40 people. But other than that, it seems like he runs a good ship. So you can't fault them really. Yeah. And this sort of shows win going in a new direction. You know, the previous CEO Maddox, I believe, was the right-hand man of Steve Wynn. And Billings has been with the company since 2017. So he isn't one of the original people. He's been with them for a while. But it just shows new blood, new leadership there, continuing on the legacy of good service. We know that the company, their hotels are still performing really well. The service is still there. And they still have world-class resorts, plus who knows where they're going to expand to in the future. Wind west is still, we're still waiting for that. Mark still wants his big lagoon, which is where the golf course was going to be. So that's not going to happen. But we still want that wind west expansion. I wonder, I could see why they wouldn't want to do that just because do they really need a third casino hotel? There's no water. Yeah, there's no water. But it's right in the same spot on the strip, right? I mean, they already have so many hotel rooms there. So I could see why they'd hold off on that. But that's a huge piece of land. So maybe we'll eventually hear something about that. I'm, you know, the nerd in me is excited. I still want a jet ski on the Vegas strip. That's my whole, like, life dream right there. There you go. A jet ski on the Vegas strip. Never going to happen. Steve Wind needed to hold on like another year or two, but his, his escapades finally caught up to him. Either way, Steve Wind long gone. I'm okay with that. The company continues to thrive. The service legacy, the beautiful hotels. I was just in wind, palace, and Macau. Still the best casino hotel in the entire world, in my opinion, the property is spectacular. So good to see the company living on well beyond Steve Wind's reign. So Mark, UFOs have arrived in Las Vegas. Some body cam footage from a police officer was released showing this unidentified object landing in somebody's yard. They called 911 said an eight foot person kind of like looking with alien big eyes, all that landed and scared the police officers. What the heck is happening? There's no news. I mean, there's no follow up to this like pictures of the yard or anything else. It's just like all kinds of crazy like Independence Day. The movie is coming to real life, but it's probably just like a weather balloon from China or something that popped and fell down. Who knows? You know, like area, what is it? Area 51 and all that. So is this even new to Vegas? I feel like there's always UFOs somewhere there. Yeah, there has been a lot more discussion from the government saying that they haven't found objects, but some people think it's a conspiracy. It's just funny, because on the body cam, the officer says, I'm so nervous right now because another officer had seen this object, but I just find it curious that there's no like pictures of the yard or anything else released about this and they closed the case already. So we'll never know. Good news downtown, Mark. Vineans has brought back their million dollar display in a new area. It looks like they gussied up the walls. Made it look nice. Put the million dollars on display. This is such a historical display. Everybody going there to do it. I know you had a chance to do it before they closed it a few years ago. And I was always curious as to why they took it out. So glad to see it back. Yeah, man, they just needed new bills and they were like wearing down or something. I don't know, but I guess they haven't heard of inflation. It should be $1.6 million if you want. The water that was worth back when they took it away. Yeah, maybe they can't afford it. I was wondered like, is that why they took it out? Because it was like, oh, we can't really float this million dollars here. Because it was, you know, especially minions as it's changed so much over the years, you know, it used to be the happening place downtown. Even when I was a kid, you know, in the late 90s, early 2000s, it was just a busy kind of happening place with all the history and the family history there and everything. And I feel like the last 10 years, it's turned into something else, just a lower tier property. But that always drew people off of Fremont Street. So I think somebody finally came to their senses by putting this thing back. Yeah, I think it's definitely something that people on Fremont Street, if you know about it, you go check it out and then get you in the door and maybe you throw some money in a slot machine, maybe buy a drink. So I think it's good, you know, a million dollars. Yeah, but when you're running a casino, a million dollars shouldn't be a huge thing. You would hope, but you never know these days. Things are weird. Yeah, yeah, you would certainly hope that they could afford to put it there and have it insured and all that. So yeah, check it out downtown next time you guys are there. And then plaza opened all their stuff already, the pink box donuts, all that stuff. So some new stuff to check out downtown, if you go there, you know, after dark, don't go after dark. Yeah, there might be fights. Yeah, lots of fights. Now what you might not want to do and go is swim in Lake Mead. A story came out this week that a water pumping station leaked 850,000 gallons of sewage of which 57,500 made it into a duck creek wash, which goes into Lake Mead. It took them two days to figure out that this leak existed. A lot of people probably don't know that pretty much all of our drinking water is recycled many times. And then we filter it all out. That's part of the water saving measures before it goes back into Lake Mead. So only 57,500 gallons mark made it into lake. That's, you know, that's got to be. It's only like 40,000 poops. The health district did say or the water to authority did say how they did environmentally. You'll just notice greenery and new trees growing along the banks as this comes out. But no, I mean, you just made me realize that I need to buy bottled water every time I look at Vegas for now. Since it's all recycled, it's kind of crazy when you think about it. I know it's safe, they say. It's funny that they say this has no environmental impact. I'm not going to swim in Lake Mead with the bodies and now floating peepie and poo poo. No thanks. To be fair, there's a lot of water in Lake Mead. So, you know, I think it would take a lot of, don't go by the entry area. Don't swim there. It's never been particularly clean. I used to swim in there when I was a kid. I haven't been swimming there in a long time, but I had a family member who would not go in there. Should we talk about your third nipple now? Everybody who grew up in Las Vegas swimming in Lake Mead as a third nipple. It's just part of life here. Yeah, this is crazy. I mean, and this is something that they've said has happened before and the fact that nobody caught it for several days. I don't understand how that's a thing. Like, this is wastewater. It's disgusting and you don't have better controls on it. I feel like that's a big problem and something they definitely need to look into. Yeah, I think they are replacing this pumping station. Construction is supposed to start next year, so hopefully they'll have new tech to figure out leaks. This did happen in 2020 also. I think so. We all survived, though. We all survived, Mark, so we'll just keep doing that. So a new hotel is getting built just off the strip. In fact, it's like a block from a legion stadium inside the stadium district. It's going to be called Nuance Hotel. The developers at about 275 million dollars will be spent. The hotel will be 19 stories tall, 340 rooms. It's going to have like a base level than several levels of parking and then the rooms, I think, will start on the 10th floor. So, yeah, this is a more development kind of being brought by the stadium. I don't think this would exist if the stadium wasn't there. Yeah, I definitely think it's for the stadium. I just wonder how viable is this. It would make a lot of sense in a different city where they don't have a lot of hotels, somewhat near a stadium to have this. And for ease of use, if you're going for a game, you want to stay by the stadium so you can quickly go home or go back to your room or whatever. But in Vegas, that's different. If you're going to a game, you're also going there to go to Vegas. I feel like so you're going to want to go to the stripper or whatever. So I don't know what's going to be the big driver here, especially when there's not games or concerts or events there. People want to stay there. Maybe they want to get off the strip a bit and it's an option there before they go to the airport or something ease of access in and out. But I don't know. Do you think it'll be full? I mean, it's only at 340 rooms, so it's not huge. There's a lot of events that are legiant too on top of the football games and the bridge is right there to walk over to Mandalay Bay. So it's about a 10 minute walk, I guess, to get to a casino. So it's not too bad there. I mean, it doesn't really, it's a very industrial area. So this is going to stand very much over everything else in the area. And I wonder over time if we'll start to see full redevelopment with more of these types of projects in that area because it will stand out. But just they had some very minor zone variances like the number of parking spots and stuff like that. But for the most part, the county approved this and it's good to go. Yeah, I wonder if they're just kind of taking a gamble thinking that this area will be redeveloped over time and they're getting in early when it's cheaper and they can get it done. So if that ends up happening, it's going to look genius and they're going to make a lot of money. And if it doesn't, they're going to be, you know, hoping that they have a concert every day. So other construction updates, when I heard about this hotel, I looked up the dream hotel, which stall construction, I think about two, two and a half months ago now, and they said it was only going to be for a couple of weeks. There's absolutely no news about anything related to the dream hotel since then. So I believe construction still halted. They haven't announced anything else. So that property probably in some sort of legal standstill right now with contractors suing and that's just speculation. But that's why they were shut down is because they stopped paying their bills. So no, no new update on that. MSG sphere was in the news for a couple lawsuits from contractors. One was like 3.3 million. Another one was just over 3 million. Basically saying that these are from 2020 and 2021. So I don't think this really affects today's stuff. These are kind of disputes between the sphere and those contractors because they've already spent two billion dollars and paid that out for construction. But what was interesting in the one of the lawsuits saying that the sphere is supposed to have the longest bar in the world. And then they changed the design. And that's one of the reasons that they decide not to pay this contractor. It would have been kind of cool to see the longest bar in the world. I wonder what that measurement is. You know, it sounds like they built it too. And then he's like, nah, you know what? Rip it out or whatever. So that that stolen for you, like making crazy decisions. If you already built it, just like leave it. Why would you spend money ripping it out? But yeah, it would have been awesome. They could have sold lots of popcorn and ICs for the biggest movie theater in the world. There you go. The biggest movie theater in the world with the longest bar. Such a missed opportunity to think that they just put in screens and thought that that was going to be enough. If they had the longest bar, they could have just opened up the bar to people and I think people would have come in even when they didn't have something going on. And then think that would have been an opportunity to get people in the door, check it out. Even if you charged like a cover fee or something, I would have gone for the longest bar in the world. That would be a reason to draw me in. So I do think it's a missed opportunity a bit. I just wonder how long it had to be and how much space it had to take up just to get that. That's probably why they longer than circa for sure. And that's long. So the A's are in the news. We hadn't talked about them for a couple of shows, but the legislative session ended and then the governor called a special session for some budget stuff and then he called a special session to hear about the A's stuff. So they're still debating this, but there is a lot of pushback from state lawmakers on both sides actually Democrats and Republicans. Basically, some are upset because the governor vetoed a lot of like social initiatives and saying, well, we're not funding these things. Why should we pay for the stadium? But of course, MGM resorts came out for it, the culinary union is for it. A lot of other organizations. I think the Chamber of Commerce as well. So there's a big battle happening up there in Carson City as time runs out. We'll see if they vote on it or if they send the A's packing. In the meantime, Oakland is saying we want the A's back. We're ready to go back to the table. So I wouldn't that be crazy if this all ends with the A's being in Oakland? Like, come on people. Just make up your mind. Let's get this thing done. This is this is nuts. Like I feel like it's not going to quite full. Well, I'm hoping that it doesn't quite work out and they have to play in a minor league stadium for a year to shame them because I think it would be hilarious. And then they end up going back to Oakland, which I think would also be pretty funny. But yeah, you know, seeing some of this, it's it kind of blew my mind that they put the stadium into authority. They build it and then they put it into like an authority owned by the city or owned by the public. And then you're like, what that doesn't make sense? You just spent hundreds of millions dollars, a billion dollars building the stadium. And this is what a lot of pro teams do. And then they lease it back for a dollar. And then when they're like, Hey, you know what? We're out of here. We're going to move there. We're going to build a new stadium over here. They leave the city holding the bag and cities are not equipped. You know, we've seen and destroyed with the tigers and with the lions. They're not equipped to make good decisions when they're stuck with the stadium, you know, around here they turned down a decent offer thinking it was worth more. They ended up spending millions of dollars upkeeping it for years and then selling like the silver dome sold for like 400,000 dollars. Somebody came in and just stripped it, sold it for parts, and then knocked it down. So this is, you know, all in the favor of the owners once again. Yeah, of course. And they're the ones who kind of shove this down. People's throats. I think it's a great idea for the A's to come. I've already said on the show that I don't really support the public financing. A lot of this is through tax rebates. So people will argue and say that it's money generated from the stadium that's part of that's coming back in that way. So it's not just the state handing out money and that's true. But as you said, the way this is going to work is that gaming and leisure properties who owns the land will transfer nine acres to the athletics as soon as it's completed. And then the athletics will turn around and give the stadium and the land to the government. And then from there, you know, they'll own it and it'll be at least back and all of that. So there's still a lot to be hashed out. I would still say my gut is they're going to pass this thing in some form because they're, you know, all the big players now in the state are behind it. MGM, of course, they're behind it. Man, their casinos are right there on every side of that. Wouldn't you just love to have a stadium there? Caesar. Yeah, they should pay the 300 million. Yeah, I mean, this is like delivering people right to your door. Yeah, well, I wouldn't the government go to them and say, you know what, you want this? You pony up half the money. You know, it would still make sense for MGM. I think I think they'd get that money back from people going to the game and being in that area because that's kind of like a forgotten corner a bit, you know, MGM's still pretty busy, but like New York, New York, Luxor, they don't get the type of foot traffic they use to back in the day. What's interesting too, and I just thought of this is if we do get the stadium there, do we see X caliber or Luxor, probably X caliber go away just for a brand new casino developed right across from the stadium? This might be the thing that causes MGM to finally, you know, take up a lot of rumors of redeveloping X caliber. Don't take away our dirty castle. Yeah, no dirty castle shout out to C-note on Twitter. So last thing, and this is like crazy, all this government money, right? Formula 1, they've been doing all that crazy construction tearing up all the streets. It's about $80 million worth of work that's being done on the roads, and it wasn't ever clear who was going to pay for that, but Liberty Media, their parent company has been paying for it. And just this week or in recent weeks, they came to the county and said, hey, we want you to pay $40 million of this $80 million. The Clark County Commission voted four to three to go to the negotiating table, which I think they should have just said no, because this has just been, I mean, I know the race is going to bring a lot of stuff. I'm excited for the race, but it's been really hard for people who have to deal with the strip. It's been really hard for tourists because this is months and months and months of big closures on the strip. And then for them to come, this lady in the game and say, hey, pay per half of it. It seems like a bad look. Yeah, $40 million. What's that? 10 tickets for them to sell? I mean, it's crazy. And this is something that should have been negotiated upfront. And I understand they're improving certain things. They're putting down new pavement and all that, but they're going to make tons of money off of this. And it's not like they're repaving a whole street and they could say, you know what? This is helping your city. I want you to throw in half the money. It's still a deal for you. They're repaving sections of it going in and out, and it's not going to be really helpful. It's causing way more problems than it's helping the city. So I would have said no, I'm surprised they're even going to the table. Yeah, I mean, why didn't they deal with this before construction started? But yeah, it's caused a lot of hassle. And this is going to stretch on through basically September. I mean, they're doing the heavy repaving, I think, through next month. And then they're going to go back and do a full repaving of the entire route in September ahead of the race. So this is months and months of disruptions for the strip casinos for everything else. They keep saying and they reiterated it with this story in the media that it's going to bring a billion dollars of economic impact to Southern Nevada. So that's their talking point saying it's all worth it, saying that the people of Southern Nevada will get to enjoy all this repaving after it's done, which I suppose is true, right? I mean, at some point, they're not going to have to pay. The taxpayers are not going to have to pay for the repaving that they did. But yeah, it's just weird. Did they just see that everybody else? Hollywood, the A's were coming for money and they're like, oh, let's let's give it a shot. Isn't that all business? Like any big business just is looking for handouts all the time and in the government usually does it. So why wouldn't you ask, I guess? Yeah. So let us know what you guys talk. It's so much of these government bills. Thankfully, the legislature is now dismissed. They are in special session for the A's. But all of these crazy issues that we've been talking about will be settled one way or the other either they'll be voted down or not voted on at all. Or you know, the Hollywood bill I think is actually dead. I haven't heard anything about that coming back in a special session. So it didn't pass. So it's been really crazy because Nevada has in the Constitution, they don't have full-time state representatives. So the whole idea was to bring normal citizens when they created the state. And so they have a very limited session that they meet every couple years. And that allows the people to be just normal people who have normal jobs, who represent, you know, government up in the capital. So it works a little different than other states, which, you know, you always get these crunches and these special sessions and all of that. But it's an interesting thing to watch. Thank you for listening to this episode of the MTM Vegas podcast. Don't forget to check us out on youtube youtube.com forward slash miles to memories and MTM Vegas.com for all of our Vegas content. Thanks again for listening. Talk to you next time.