Jai alai on the Strip: the court, the players and the community
Inside the original MGM Grand’s fronton—and the Basque community that outlasted a short-lived professional sport.
Read the storyTHE ARENALV READING ROOM
The whole story.
Beyond the score.
Don King and the promoters. UNLV and the home crowd. Racing’s lost circuits. Original ArenaLV features and reading notes drawn from sports magazines, newspapers and specialist archives.
Don King and the making of a fight town
Champions, television, resort partners and the dealmakers who turned a Las Vegas fight into a worldwide event.
Read the storyBefore the Strip circuit: Stardust, Caesars and the world of racing
Sports cars in the desert, two F1 title deciders and the American open-wheel races that followed.
Read the storyUNLV gave Las Vegas a team of its own
The coach, the championship and the local attachment that preceded the city’s major-league boom.
Read the storyFrom the undercard to the championship
Christy Martin, Deirdre Gogarty and the Aces belong in the centre of the Las Vegas story.
Read the storyLas Vegas makes athletes, too
Golf milestones, a local baseball pathway and Andre Agassi’s work after the tour.
Read the storyRodeo made December a sporting season
How Las Vegas competed for the National Finals Rodeo—and why the people behind the deal mattered.
Read the storyHow television changed the fight business
The UFC’s growth shows why a sports city is also a place where audiences are built.
Read the storyFROM THE MAGAZINES & ARCHIVESOpen the back issues
42 selected source readings, with the Las Vegas connection explained. Read the note here, then follow the original reporting at its publisher.
42 readings
Don King makes the promoter a star
Television, heavyweight champions and a promoter determined to become part of the show.
Sports Illustrated
Read the archive noteAli and Patterson: the city becomes a training camp
Before the Convention Center bout, the publicity battle spread across Las Vegas.
Sports Illustrated
Read the archive noteAli–Holmes: the cost of one more big night
Pat Putnam’s report examines a painful Caesars Palace heavyweight spectacle.
Sports Illustrated
Read the archive noteBob Arum and the work of selling a fight
A national profile follows Top Rank’s promoter through decades of promotion.
Sports Illustrated
Read the archive noteHagler–Hearns, forty years later
The Ring revisits the middleweight showdown that became a Caesars Palace landmark.
The Ring
Read the archive noteForeman’s second act, through Moorer’s eyes
An MGM Grand upset is remembered by the champion who lost his title.
The Ring
Read the archive noteForeman and Lyle trade knockdowns at Caesars
A specialist boxing account revisits an extraordinary heavyweight exchange.
The Ring
Read the archive noteThe 89-second comeback and the man across the ring
Peter McNeeley looks back on the MGM Grand night that defined his public identity.
Sports Illustrated
Read the archive noteHolyfield, Tyson and the reporting after the bite
A Vault podcast returns to the MGM Grand rematch and SI’s contemporary coverage.
Sports Illustrated
Read the archive noteThe New Yorker enters the Tyson aftermath
David Remnick examines the meaning of a notorious Las Vegas fight.
The New Yorker
Read the archive noteChávez, De La Hoya and a changing generation
A Caesars Palace title fight sits inside the history of the Chávez family.
Sports Illustrated
Read the archive noteThe women who changed the Tyson undercard
Christy Martin and Deirdre Gogarty made a women’s bout impossible to overlook.
International Women’s Boxing Hall of Fame
Read the archive noteWhen King and Arum shared a Las Vegas promotion
De La Hoya–Trinidad brought rival promoters and resort partners together.
Las Vegas Sun
Read the archive noteA dot-com advertisement enters the ring
Fight trunks became advertising space during the early internet boom.
Wired
Read the archive noteA world championship in the Caesars parking lot
Alan Henry’s contemporary race report explains how Las Vegas decided the F1 title.
Motor Sport
Read the archive noteWhy the first Vegas F1 experiment felt so strange
A specialist magazine revisits the commercial ambitions and sporting reality of Caesars Palace.
Motor Sport
Read the archive noteCarlos Reutemann’s championship that slipped away
Nigel Roebuck looks back at a driver whose final title opportunity ended in Las Vegas.
Motor Sport
Read the archive noteAlboreto wins the second Caesars Palace Grand Prix
The race record puts Tyrrell at the front of the 1982 Las Vegas field.
Motor Sport
Read the archive noteAfter Formula 1, Caesars turns to CART
American open-wheel racing continued the Caesars Palace experiment.
Motor Sport
Read the archive noteCaesars’ 1984 American open-wheel chapter
A second CART entry belongs beside the more familiar Formula 1 history.
Motor Sport
Read the archive noteStardust’s place in the first Can-Am season
Long before the Strip circuit, sports cars settled a championship in the desert.
Motor Sport
Read the archive noteThe vanished raceway behind the Stardust name
A resort-backed track hosted sports cars, Indy cars and drag racing.
Motor Sport
Read the archive noteIndy cars raced at Stardust in 1968
The Stardust 150 connects Las Vegas to American championship racing.
Motor Sport
Read the archive noteGene Romero learns a new kind of racing at Stardust
A motorcycle champion’s biography preserves another use of a vanished Vegas circuit.
Motor Sport
Read the archive noteTarkanian, Las Vegas and the team that belonged to the town
Selena Roberts visits the retired coach and the city still attached to him.
Sports Illustrated
Read the archive noteRemembering the Runnin’ Rebels’ national impact
An SI remembrance looks at the coach, his teams and his arguments with college basketball’s establishment.
Sports Illustrated
Read the archive noteTiger Woods’s first PGA Tour victory happened here
A Las Vegas playoff launched one of golf’s most consequential professional careers.
Golf Digest
Read the archive noteAndre Agassi’s second arena: a Las Vegas school
A visit to Agassi Prep follows the tennis star’s work beyond the tour.
Tennis
Read the archive noteAgassi’s legacy beyond the baseline
The school’s growth becomes part of a Las Vegas athlete’s lasting record.
Tennis
Read the archive noteBryce Harper’s Las Vegas years in photographs
SI’s gallery traces a local teenager’s journey into professional baseball.
Sports Illustrated
Read the archive noteHarper’s route through the College of Southern Nevada
A junior-college plan made Southern Nevada part of the national draft conversation.
Sports Illustrated
Read the archive noteThe Golden Knights, seen from the residents’ side
Charlotte Wilder follows people who live in a city usually described through its visitors.
Sports Illustrated
Read the archive noteAn expansion season that rewrote expectations
The magazine’s “Win City” report captures the first-season playoff breakthrough.
Sports Illustrated
Read the archive noteThe Aces bring a WNBA championship home
Las Vegas won its first WNBA title with a decisive game in Connecticut.
Sports Illustrated / Associated Press
Read the archive noteHow Hammon, Wilson and Gray shaped the title team
Ben Pickman looks beneath the championship result at the Aces’ winning combination.
Sports Illustrated
Read the archive noteThe television gamble behind The Ultimate Fighter
A retrospective follows the programme that helped change the UFC’s audience.
Sports Illustrated
Read the archive noteLorenzo Fertitta on building an audience for a sport
A later business interview looks back at lessons from the UFC’s rise.
Sports Illustrated
Read the archive noteFrom a television finale to UFC 100
SI’s review of defining MMA moments charts the sport’s changing scale.
Sports Illustrated
Read the archive noteHow the National Finals Rodeo came to Las Vegas
A prize-money proposal helped turn December into a major sporting season.
NFR Experience / Las Vegas Events
Read the archive noteBenny Binion’s place in the rodeo story
A downtown casino figure helped bring a major Western sporting event to the city.
ProRodeo Hall of Fame
Read the archive noteWrestleMania turns Caesars into a Roman spectacle
The resort’s outdoor setting became part of the wrestling production itself.
WWE
Read the archive noteThe eight minutes that kept being remembered
SI revisits Hagler–Hearns a quarter-century after the Caesars Palace fight.
Sports Illustrated
Read the archive noteNo reading matches these filters.
Notes are original ArenaLV summaries, not reproductions of the articles. Original features, retrospective reporting, audio and database records are identified on their pages. Publisher subscriptions or other access restrictions may apply.