Opened 2016 | Acreage 16 acres Phone +1 702-692-1600 | |
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Former names Las Vegas Arena (planning/construction) Capacity Overall: 20,000Basketball: 18,000Boxing/MMA: 20,000Ice hockey: 17,500Concerts: 12,000–20,000 Broke ground May 1, 2014 (2014-05-01) Similar MGM Grand Las Vegas, Monte Carlo Resort an, Cosmopolitan of Las Vegas, Caesars Palace, Mandalay Bay Profiles | ||
T-Mobile Arena is a multi-use indoor arena on the Las Vegas Strip in Paradise, Nevada. Opened on April 6, 2016, the arena is a joint venture between MGM Resorts International and the Anschutz Entertainment Group.
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The arena will be the home of the Vegas Golden Knights of the National Hockey League that will begin play in 2017. Since its opening, T-Mobile Arena has primarily been used for entertainment events such as concerts, and has been booked for one-off combat sports events, and other annual sporting events.
The arena is accessed by a new development project known as The Park, with retail and dining space between New York-New York and the Monte Carlo casino hotels.
T mobile arena offering sneak peek for hockey fans
History
The Anschutz Entertainment Group first tried to build an arena in Las Vegas in association with Harrah's Entertainment. In 2007, the joint venture announced they would build a 20,000 seat stadium behind the Bally's and Paris casino-hotels. Caesars Entertainment, Inc. had previously envisioned using the location to build a baseball park, but the company's buyout by Harrah's cancelled the plans. Through the following year, Harrah's became uncertain on continuing with the project, not knowing if AEG would split the costs, and whether building a major league-ready stadium without a guaranteed franchise to play on it would be feasible given the enduring financial crisis. The original plans were to break ground in June 2008 and finish the arena in 2010, but by 2009, it was revealed the stalled project had not even done a traffic study despite being located near a busy intersection. In 2010, the plans were changed to use an area behind the Imperial Palace. However, given the financing would require a special taxation district, opposition from Clark County regarding using public money in the project stalled it even further. AEG eventually backed out completely by 2012, once MGM Resorts International came up with their own project using a terrain behind the New York-New York and Monte Carlo resorts. This attracted AEG primarily for not relying on public funding.
MGM and AEG announced their joint arena plan on March 1, 2013. Plans were further fleshed out over the following months with the announcement of a $100-million pedestrian shopping area, The Park, to serve as a gateway to the arena, and the retention of prominent sports architecture firm Populous to design the project. Other firms on the project include: the ICON Venue Group, Thornton Tomasetti, ME Engineers, Penta Building Group and Hunt Construction Group.
The project broke ground on May 1, 2014, followed by the demolition of existing buildings, and excavation of an oval area for the arena. The final steel beam of the structure was placed on May 27, 2015.
In January 2016, T-Mobile US announced it had acquired the naming rights to the new arena in a multi-year contract. The arena held its grand opening on April 6, 2016 with a concert by Las Vegas natives The Killers, Shamir and Wayne Newton. Country music artists Martina McBride and Cam performed at a soft opening on March 31, 2016.
Tenants
During its construction, T-Mobile Arena was prospected as the home arena for a possible National Hockey League expansion team in Las Vegas. The expansion bid was approved and announced by the NHL on June 22, 2016; the new team, the Vegas Golden Knights, will begin play in the 2017–18 season.
After spending 5 years (1994–1998) at the MGM Grand Garden Arena and 17 years (1999–2015) at the Thomas & Mack Center, the PBR World Finals moved to the T-Mobile Arena in 2016. On March 11, 2016, the Pac-12 Conference announced that it would move its men's basketball tournament from the Grand Garden Arena to T-Mobile Arena beginning in 2017.
Notable events
On May 7, 2016, T-Mobile Arena hosted its first major sports event, a boxing match between Canelo Álvarez and Amir Khan for the lineal, The Ring, and WBC middleweight championships.
UFC president Dana White stated in October 2015 that he had been "promised" the privilege of hosting the first sports event at the arena, and that the mixed martial arts promotion would consider holding more events at the new arena based on the new relationship. It was also speculated that the UFC had also made an offer to acquire the naming rights to the venue. T-Mobile Arena hosted UFC 200 on July 9, 2016. A July 7 UFC 202 press conference was partially ruined by the arena's acoustics and sound system, which left many questions unheard and unanswered. White and headliners Conor McGregor and Nate Diaz criticized the sound quality as it deteriorated around them; journalist Ariel Helwani tweeted it was "incredibly hard to hear anything".