Las Vegas doesn’t cheat. The first thing the tourist sees when arriving at the airport and his last vision when leaving are slot machines. Business is business is the norm everywhere in the US, but in Las Vegas it is even a little more so. Las Vegas is another league: the great casino built in the desert, the vacation mecca of the American middle class, She is so puritanical, willing to transgress and let herself be fleeced, What happens in Las Vegas stays in Las Vegas. Gambling, false luxury (and even so, very expensive), horterism of many zeros, dollars, many dollars, alcohol, drugs, transgression… Hunter S. Thompson in ‘Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas’ and James Ellroy in his American trilogy portrayed it better than anyone, even though Ellroy is known for his visceral, take-no-prisoners hatred of the city.
Las Vegas fascinates because the vulgar and the sublime coexist there, the lumpen and extravagance of wealth, fast-paced hamburgers and restaurants that accumulate Michelin stars. Outside its center of large luxury hotels and papier-mâché replicas of the wonders of the world lies a city of suburban houses in which an army invisible to the eyes of the wealthy lives with their more than fair salaries and the tips of the wealthy. tourists from hotel and casino workers, most of them Latino. And at the same time, the best artists in the world perform there in long residences. U2 just finished a 40-concert residency in which he celebrated the anniversary of his ‘Achtung Baby’ in a futuristic concert hall called the Sphere, 112 meters high that houses 17,500 people seated and 21,500 standing, is covered with an LED screen and has a sound from 1,600 speakers. Pure spectacle, pure Las Vegas.
The legacy of Elvis Presley
This Las Vegas residence for renowned artists was created by Elvis Presley, as journalist Richard Zoglin tells in the book ‘Elvis in Vegas: How the King reinvented the Las Vegas show’. The King of Rock reformulated Frank Sinatra’s Las Vegas and his ‘rat pack’ and pioneered the concept of large concerts by resident artists who play daily to thousands of people. In his case, there were more than 600 concerts at the International Hotel in Las Vegas for seven years. During this time, Elvis (and his manager, Tom Parker) became rich but also distanced himself from rock, concert tours and his audience who could not afford the trip to Las Vegas. The decline of the King of Rock in Las Vegas was not just physical.
This week, Rafa Nadal and Carlos Alcaraz starred in an exhibition match in Las Vegas, broadcast by Netflix to its subscribers. It was a good match (3-6, 6-4, 14-12 for Alcaraz) for which the Manacorí pocketed a million and a half euros and the Murcian, one million. It was not the first nor will it be the last match of this type: Saudi Arabia is preparing the 6 Kings Slam for October, in which Nadal, Alcaraz, Djokovic, Medvedev, Rune and Sinner will compete for a tournament with prizes much higher than those of a Grand Slam.
This, it seems, is an unstoppable trend. Aside from the ‘sportwahing’ of authoritarian regimes, there is essentially not much difference between these exhibition matches, the LIV Golf or the soccer Super League project. It is argued that fans want to see (and are willing to pay for it) the best to play among themselves, and the classic organization of tournaments does not facilitate it. The more Nadal Vs Alcaraz or Haaland Vs Mbappé, the better, it doesn’t matter if it’s in Las Vegas or Riyadh. What is important is the global audience, the VIPs in the stands and the television subscriptions. The sport? Here we talk about spectacle. When will we have Nadal-Alcaraz every day in Las Vegas for 40 nights? Full capacity would be assured. But is that really what we want?
The resignations
The artistic price that Elvis paid to perform daily in Las Vegas was to give up the usual music circuit: the recording studio, the records, the tours. The proliferation of exhibition matches, superleagues and supertournaments with a purely economic motive threatens to put an end to the traditional way of understanding sport, the spectacle before the competition. What would have become of Elvis, of rock, if he had not settled in Las Vegas? What will become of the sport if it settles in Las Vegas or Riyadh?