Formula 1 Grand Prix construction on the Las Vegas Strip. (Photo Credit: Kelvin Cheng/iStock Editorial/Getty Images Plus)
The all-important bottom-line money numbers are starting to come in on the returns for the Las Vegas Grand Prix that was held last month.
And at least one person is smiling.
"It was the highest-grossing weekend for us, in hotel revenue, in the company's history," MGM Resorts Chief Financial Officer Jonathan Halkyard said. "The second-highest was CES in 2019. So when you think about other events that have happened in Las Vegas over the years and the scale of our company, that's quite something to have a record weekend on what was otherwise the slowest weekend of the year."
The hotel giant was a big investor in the race and in helping to bring a 10-year contract with Formula 1 to Sin City.
"We had very high expectations for what this event would be in Las Vegas. We invested heavily into it. In particular, creating an experience for our casino customers and some retail customers in front of the Bellagio," Halkyard said.
Indeed, nearly every Las Vegas Strip hotel was able to leverage the race with its guests in the form of packages. Not only was it well attended, but ESPN said that more than 1.3 million people watched the Saturday night race on television.
It was the first Formula 1 Grand Prix event in Las Vegas in decades.
There was some concern about construction on the Las Vegas Strip, but those were mostly attributable to first-year problems such as building the course itself, as well as building hospitality suites for the hotels.
"This was an event that certainly had a lot of friction in the months leading up to it, a lot of construction in Las Vegas. Some of that will certainly be recurring but a lot of it will not be as dramatic in coming years," Halkyard said.
"F1 and the city got the city ready for this event. F1 invested hundreds of millions of dollars in capital in their paddock facility. That, along with money that we invested to build this hospitality experience, we'll reuse that year after year. I'm optimistic this is going to be a fantastic event in the years to come."
City and tourism officials said they believe the race was worth $1.2 billion of economic impact for Las Vegas. Most hotels will reveal their true impact when they announce fourth-quarter earnings next month.
The race was expected to begin a sports-related tourism increase in the city.
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