When you hear Sin City, you think of casinos, gambling, Las Vegas. But these days, it's become Sports City. Checking all the boxes with football, basketball, baseball, hockey and wrestling.
That's why Gov. Josh Green was in Nevada and is now breaking the cardinal rule: What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas.
The Conversation had the chance to talk with Green about the city's rise as a sports destination and how Hawaiʻi can apply strategies to boost our image in the sports world.
Interview Highlights
On what he learned about economic development during his three-stop journey to Japan, Los Angeles and Las Vegas
JOSH GREEN: Japan was more traditional economic development, though we do see opportunities in advance of the 2028 Olympic Games to have some events here, perhaps some training together and some friendly competitions. So we're going to work on that. Then Los Angeles, we have a deal in place, in principle, with the Los Angeles Rams to come in and do some of their OTAs (organized team activities), that's the training camps — and then stay and do lots of positive things in our community. Then finally over to Las Vegas, I met with the Raiders, who gave us $50,000 for flag football for girls and $25,000 for kauhale with HomeAid, that in partnership with Boyd (Gaming Corporation).
On a possible homecoming weekend between Hawaiʻi and the Ninth Island
GREEN: I'm working on a really, hopefully an exciting thing. We're going to propose a homecoming weekend between Las Vegas and Hawaiʻi, where we would have a relationship over at Allegiant Stadium and we go visit some of our loved ones who are living on the Ninth Island and vice versa in alternate years. It would be something special for Hawaiian Airlines and Alaska. It would be probably a partnership with Boyd, who has a long-standing relationship and a lot of kind of concierge and excellent travel between the islands. Then finally, a big game that we could all kind of come back together for. So a lot of ideas were spawned in that trip.
On gambling and betting in the state
GREEN: Well, the larger questions remain about gambling and sportsbook, so I want to be at least at the cutting edge of that. We're not proposing anything new just now at all, but we want to be thoughtful about that. Also, they are a destination, and they've been successful in branding themselves as a destination for events. We could take a page out of that book in some ways. For example, we're successful with the marathon — brings a lot of travel from Japan. I think we can do a lot more, which is why I'm going to keep making sure that we stay on track with the stadium. I'll do all that I can for that.
On building a multi-purpose stadium for Hawaiʻi
GREEN: We want a stadium that can accommodate not just football, but other events. They do about 39 events right now over at Allegiant Stadium, for example, that's far more than the football games that they host, and that's important. I love soccer and rugby. These are sports I played growing up, and the field is conducive to that. We also may very well make a baseball play, because this, this fascination with Shohei Ohtani, who has a property here in Hawaiʻi — he had a monster home run last night, sorry, Mets fans — and it is interesting, I think you're going to see some resurgence in baseball interest and the Dodgers. So the reason I'm triangulating Los Angeles, Las Vegas, and that whole region is because of that additional fanaticism over a Japanese player that has, you know, roots now in Hawaiʻi. And people don't realize this, but these are billion-dollar industries that could really, you know, they could be that kind of somewhat missing link that we've been for.
On making Hawaiʻi more affordable
GREEN: The big pieces of making Hawaiʻi more affordable, part one went into place where we're going to really slash taxes on working families. They're going to deeply be cut — 71% is going to be the decrease in state tax. So that's a big deal that starts on Jan. 1, and then the other part is going to take time, and that's getting enough housing built so that we have an inventory so people aren't paying these crazy rental rates. So over time, this is going to be a transformative period for our state. But in the meanwhile, we'd like to do some nice things, like sports, like free movies, like making sure that the beaches don't get overrun by too many travelers. All those things I think mean something to people.
On Halloween festivities
GREEN: I think that we're going to even host a Halloween party and movie night on the lawn of Washington Place in the coming weeks. You know, I haven't seen the final decision from Jaime, but I'm pretty sure that that's going to happen. And we're going to take, you know, we're gonna put out some kind of sign-up for it and it'll be free, of course, and let people just do good things together.
This interview aired on The Conversation on Oct. 17, 2024. The Conversation airs weekdays at 11 a.m. on HPR-1. Tori DeJournett adapted this story for the web.
