T-Mobile Arena turns 10 years old

LAS VEGAS — It started, appropriately enough, with two musical acts that are rooted in Las Vegas — Wayne Newton and The Killers.

Since then, it has hosted everyone from Strait to Springsteen, a Stanley Cup celebration, a couple of WNBA victory parades culminating in Toshiba Plaza, great fights, both in the boxing ring and the MMA Octagon and an NCAA Men’s Basketball Regional.

T-Mobile Arena turns 10 years old today. And for those of us who’ve seen it from Day One, the night Wayne and The Killers rocked the house, you’d find it hard to believe it’s this old.

The place still looks great thanks to Dan Quinn and his staff’s attention to detail and pride those who work there take in their individual areas.

“We’ve been committed to maintain the building,” said Quinn, the vice president of entertainment and arena venue operations for MGM Resorts International. “Every year, we’re investing in the building.”

That’s thanks to a fund that was created 10 years ago with $1 from every ticket sold to every event going into a capital improvement and arena investment fund which has created a pool of money, how much exactly Quinn wouldn’t say, but more likely several hundred million dollars.

And as T-Mobile Arena prepares to launch its next decade of doing business in Las Vegas, it does so with a huge event this week and an eye on an even bigger opportunity in 2028.

Frozen Four arrives

The NCAA Men’s Frozen Four Hockey Championship comes to town Thursday and it’s creating quite a buzz and high demand for tickets. Michigan, Denver, North Dakota and Wisconsin are the participants and the event has been sold out for weeks. Quinn’s biggest challenge? Don’t run out of beer.

“We’ll be well-stocked,” he said.

It’s the first NCAA Division I championship to be contested in Las Vegas and without T-Mobile Arena’s existence, that doesn’t happen. But the arena teamed up with Las Vegas Events to make a successful bid that also includes the Women’s Basketball Regional next year and the Men’s Final Four that will be held at Allegiant Stadium in 2028. The fact the NCAA elected to have a Regional for men’s basketball in 2023 without first making the venue host first-and second-round games speaks to the arena and its management’s ability to host big events.

“That was a huge compliment to us that our first NCAA event was a men’s (basketball) regional,” Quinn said. “We’re excited to be partnering with the NCAA and we’re hoping we’ll have a longstanding working relationship with them in the future.”

A busy place

It was a busy weekend for Quinn and his staff. Thursday’s Golden Knights-Calgary game was delayed nearly a half hour between the second and third periods after a rut was created in the corner of the Flames end. It took some emergency patchwork to fill the hole and the game eventually continued.

Saturday and Sunday, T-Mobile was hosting the College Basketball Crown tournament. And then work began on putting a special layer of ice over the existing sheet to accommodate the Frozen Four.

There are different markings for the ice in college hockey — for instance, no trapezoid behind the goals for the goaltender to play the puck — plus you’ve got a different logo at center ice and the boards have to have the many ads used by the Knights to be replaced with the NCAA’s and ESPN’s logos and names. So Quinn’s ice crew will be plenty busy to get the building ready for Thursday and the 17,000-plus fans that will be attending along with NCAA officials and the college hockey media.

“This place is going to be rocking,” Quinn said of the Frozen Four. ”We’re super excited to be hosting.”

Those that are first-time visitors will be surprised at how they are welcomed. From the outset, customer service has been a priority in the arena and Quinn said that stems from MGM Resorts and AEG, the two entities that build T-Mobile Arena.

“Our mentality is that of the entire city,” Quinn said. “We’re part of the hospitality experience and we want everyone to feel welcome and have a great time.

“It comes down to the individual person taking pride of their individual area in the building.”

Home to the NBA?

Down the road, T-Mobile Arena is likely adding another anchor tenant to go along with the Golden Knights and the Ultimate Fighting Championship. That would be the NBA, which is contemplating expanding to Las Vegas in 2028. Currently, T-Mobile is the most NBA-ready building in the city. It has hosted the NBA Cup, the Lakers in the preseason, USA Basketball and select Aces WNBA games.

Quinn said T-Mobile was built with basketball in mind and he’s confident that it would meet whatever standards the NBA sets for a team playing full-time in Las Vegas.

“He’s been in the building. He knows the venue,” Quinn said of NBA commissioner Adam Silver. “If they have any concerns, they haven’t expressed them to us.”

Golden Knights owner Bill Foley has said he is prepared to spend $300 million in upgrades to what his fans lovingly refer to their home as “The Fortress.” That will likely happen whether the NBA comes to Las Vegas or not. But the funding is in place for anything needed to keep T-Mobile looking as fresh as it did when it opened 10 years ago on time and under budget at $375 million.

And when you think about what is being spent to build the Athletics’ ballpark on the old Tropicana Hotel and Casino site across the street — $2 billion for a 30,000-seat stadium — and what proposed arena projects would cost — also in the neighborhood of $2 billion — what T-Mobile cost to build is amazing.

“We definitely got our money’s worth,” Quinn said. “We got lucky building it when we did and where we did. We already had garages in place (at New York-New York and Aria) so we didn’t have to spend money to build those structures. And when you have MGM and AEG with their experience of building things, it definitely looks like a heck of a bargain what we spent on it.”