{"id":545470,"date":"2026-04-07T12:34:44","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T12:34:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/545470\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T12:34:44","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T12:34:44","slug":"t-mobile-arena-at-10-las-vegas-venue-marks-its-first-decade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/545470\/","title":{"rendered":"T-Mobile Arena at 10: Las Vegas venue marks its first decade"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s been 10 years since the T-Mobile Arena officially opened its doors and helped to usher in an era of major professional sports and top-tier entertainment in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n

On April 6, 2016, Las Vegas locals the Killers christened the $375 million facility with comedian and talk show host Jimmy Kimmel, who grew up in Las Vegas, introducing the band. \u201cThere\u2019s no one better to baptize this new venue,\u201d Kimmel said in a prerecorded video played before the Killers took the stage that day. \u201cMr. Las Vegas\u201d himself, Wayne Newton, served as the opening act.<\/p>\n

That inaugural year saw a bevy of events including UFC 200 as well as concerts featuring Guns N\u2019 Roses, Garth Brooks, George Strait and Billy Joel. On May 7, 2016, the arena hosted its first boxing match, with Saul \u201cCanelo\u201d Alvarez viciously knocking out Amir Khan in front of 16,540 fans.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been an amazing 10 years of being open, longer than that when you get down to the pre-planning stages of it,\u201d said Dan Quinn, senior vice president of entertainment and arena venue operations for MGM Resorts International. \u201cAnytime you have the dreams and visions of a project like this, to get to see it go from an image on a piece of paper to building it, to then actually having hosted all the events we\u2019ve had for the 10 years, I mean, it\u2019s just been an incredible run.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\"First
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tFirst responders and medical personnel involved in the October 1st tragedy are backed by the Vegas Golden Knights and Arizona Coyotes for the singing of the national anthem during the Knights home opener Tuesday, Oct. 10, 2017, at the T-Mobile Arena. The Knights won 5-2 to extend their winning streak to 3-0. Sam Morris\/Las Vegas News Bureau<\/p>\n

Setting the stage<\/p>\n

Showing how T-Mobile Arena set the stage for the future of sports and entertainment in Las Vegas, each one of the aforementioned entities has performed or been part of an event at Allegiant Stadium, outside of Khan and the UFC.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think we\u2019ve shown that the building is capable of handling any event,\u201d Quinn said.<\/p>\n

Over the last 10 years the 20,000-fan capacity arena, just steps from the Strip, has hosted almost 1,000 events, a total that accounts for 12.6 million tickets sold and over $2 billion in total ticket revenue, according to MGM Resorts. During those events, 5 million fountain sodas have been poured and around 1 million hot dogs and servings of popcorn have been served.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\"Golden
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGolden Knights right wing Mark Stone (61) carries out the Stanley Cup during the raising of the 2023 Stanley Cup Championship banner before their NHL opening night game against the Seattle Kraken at T-Mobile Arena on Tuesday, Oct. 10, 2023, in Las Vegas. (L.E. Baskow\/Las Vegas Review-Journal) @Left_Eye_Images<\/p>\n

Golden era<\/p>\n

The NHL era of Las Vegas began at T-Mobile Arena on Sept. 26, 2017, in an exhibition match against the Los Angeles Kings.<\/p>\n

The team\u2019s next appearance at \u201cThe Fortress,\u201d as the arena has been nicknamed, on Oct. 10, 2017, was a more meaningful one, not just because it was the franchise\u2019s first regular season home game, but because it was just nine days after the Route 91 Harvest festival shooting on Oct. 1, 2017.<\/p>\n

The game opened with an emotional tribute to those affected by the mass shooting and it was the start of the team\u2019s rallying of the community in the aftermath of the tragedy. That historic first season, the Knights went all the way to the Stanley Cup Final, losing in five games to the Washington Capitals.<\/p>\n

The Knights have played 412 games at T-Mobile Arena since their 2017 debut, with no game more memorable than on June 13, 2023, when they beat the Florida Panthers to win the Stanley Cup.<\/p>\n

\u201cGetting to raise the cup was an incredible experience,\u201d Quinn said.<\/p>\n

Golden Knights president of business operations, John Penhollow, who joined the organization last summer, had watched the Knights success at T-Mobile from afar. But in his first 10 months on the job, he has has seen that The Fortress is truly the team\u2019s home.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s amazing to see how it\u2019s become the home for the Golden Knights,\u201d Penhollow said. \u201cIt didn\u2019t take long in that first year for the fans to feel the arena out, find their spots. It didn\u2019t take long for the hockey team to sort of feel out how they\u2019re going to play inside that arena. \u2026 You can call it home ice advantage, whatever you want to call it, but we do feel like when we\u2019re home, we always have a chance.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery game\u2019s exciting, win or lose,\u201d Penhollow continued. \u201cEven the games we\u2019ve lost, they\u2019ve been exciting for our fans and certainly the community. I would say that the first nine years, we couldn\u2019t have asked for much more, especially when you consider it was built without the Golden Knights really there to sit at the table.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\"Amanda
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tAmanda Nunes celebrates after defeating Miesha Tate during their women’s bantamweight championship mixed martial arts bout at UFC 200, Saturday, July 9, 2016, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo\/John Locher)<\/p>\n

Combat sports hub<\/p>\n

The UFC has called T-Mobile Arena the \u201cHome of UFC\u201d since 2017 when the MMA fight promotional company signed a deal with the arena. UFC recently extended that deal, and has signage in the building above the seating area to remind fans of that.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s incredible that we\u2019ve already been at T-Mobile Arena for ten years,\u201d UFC president and CEO Dana White said in a statement. \u201cWe just signed an extension with them so we will continue to bring the biggest and best events to Las Vegas for years to come.\u201d<\/p>\n

UFC has held 35 events at the arena, which is about 6 miles from the MMA promoter\u2019s headquarters. The most recent UFC event at T-Mobile Arena was on March 7 with UFC 326, headlined by Charles Oliveira\u2019s decision win over Max Halloway in their middleweight showdown.<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\"Floyd
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tFloyd Mayweather, left, lands a left hook on the jaw of Conor McGregor on Saturday, Aug 26, 2017, at T-Mobile Arena, in Las Vegas. Mayweather defeated McGregor by technical knockout in the 10th round to extend his record to 50-0. Benjamin Hager Las Vegas Review-Journal @benjaminhphoto<\/p>\n

Boxing business<\/p>\n

There have been 21 boxing events held at T-Mobile, resulting in 306,805 tickets sold, according to MGM Resorts. In the building\u2019s first year in a one-month span two megafights were hosted at the arena, netting a small fortune.<\/p>\n

On Aug. 26, 2017, T-Mobile Arena hosted the Floyd Mayweather-Conor McGregor boxing match. Then on Sept. 16, 2017, the first Canelo versus Gennady Golovkin bout took place. The two bouts brought in $100 million in ticket sales combined, Quinn said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn a lot of buildings, that\u2019s a great year. Crazy enough for us, that was just a month,\u201d Quinn said.<\/p>\n

After the Knights and T-Mobile Arena ushered in the era of major professional sports in Las Vegas in 2017, the WNBA\u2019s Aces arrived in 2018 and the NFL\u2019s Raiders relocated from Oakland to Las Vegas in 2020.<\/p>\n

The MLB\u2019s Athletics are scheduled to arrive in Las Vegas in 2028 to begin play in their $2 billion ballpark, which will be located about a half mile away from T-Mobile Arena.<\/p>\n

Basketball history<\/p>\n

Despite not being home to an NBA franchise, T-Mobile Arena has built quite the basketball history during its first decade. There have been 111 basketball events at the arena, with 1.1 million tickets sold to those events.<\/p>\n

Those events include one-off college basketball games, Pac-12 Conference championships, USA basketball, Aces, the Harlem Globetrotters, NBA exhibition games and NBA Cup games.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think maybe basketball gets a little bit overshadowed in the building \u2014 with VGK calling it home, we\u2019re presumed to be a hockey building,\u201d Quinn said. \u201cWe\u2019ve been lucky enough to have Duke in the building a couple of times. Duke-Gonzaga, Duke-UNLV. We played a CBS Sports Classic with Kentucky, (North) Carolina \u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re lucky and spoiled that we\u2019ve had a pretty decent portfolio of basketball, even though we don\u2019t have the luxury of calling an NBA team home currently.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\"Los
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tLos Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James (23) rejects a shot boy Indiana Pacers center Myles Turner (33) during the first half of their NBA in-season tournament championship game at T-Mobile Arena on Saturday, Dec. 9, 2023, in Las Vegas. (L.E. Baskow\/Las Vegas Review-Journal) @Left_Eye_Images<\/p>\n

NBA future?<\/p>\n

The NBA could be next to join, as the league is officially exploring expanding to Las Vegas and T-Mobile Arena could find a new tenant, should a franchise be awarded to the city. Part of the exploration process will be nailing down the ownership group, who would be ready to pay the reported between $7 billion and $10 billion expansion fee \u2014 and determining where the expansion franchise would play their home games at.<\/p>\n

Knights owner Bill Foley, who owns a partial stake in T-Mobile Arena, has stated that he is interested in pursuing ownership of an NBA expansion team and that he\u2019s looking at renovating T-Mobile Arena to the tune of $300 million.<\/p>\n

Quinn said that T-Mobile was built with both the NHL and NBA in mind and they are ready to host an NBA team should the city land one and the potential ownership group chooses to make the 10-year-old arena home. If that were the case, Quinn agreed that some upgrades would be in order.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe big thing would be if we were lucky enough to host an NBA team, we\u2019ve got some pretty interesting, pretty cool plans of things we could do to enhance the building,\u201d Quinn said.<\/p>\n

Penhollow said if an NBA team was added, they\u2019d likely hope for similar additions to the arena that the Knights would ask for. From the potential of upgrading LED screens and ribbon boards, to enhancing the food and beverage experience and looking at adding more premium seating, Penhollow is excited to play a part in planning the future of the decade-old facility.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s natural to think that \u2026 one of the big four major teams coming in, it\u2019s going to afford all the parties you just mentioned, whether it\u2019s Dan\u2019s (Quinn) team, our team, the chance to have another team in the building to collaborate with, to talk about what the game experience could look like,\u201d Penhollow said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the same stuff that we might ask for, (would) be the same thing that an NBA team would ask for. Beautiful LEDs, beautiful lights, and have the acoustic and the sound system be top of the top. Have the culinary experience be amazing. So, it almost doesn\u2019t matter what the sport is, we all sort of end up asking for the same things to try to put into a building to make it a great fan experience,\u201d Penhollow added. \u201cReally, the only difference is going to be we have the ice, they have the court. But the rest of the building, we\u2019re going to hopefully try to program together. If we\u2019re fortunate enough to even get an NBA team \u2014 we\u2019re still far away from hopefully something actually happening \u2014 but we\u2019ll see.\u201d<\/p>\n

Contact Mick Akers at makers@reviewjournal.com<\/a> or 702-387-2920. Follow @mickakers<\/a> on X.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It\u2019s been 10 years since the T-Mobile Arena officially opened its doors and helped to usher in an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":545471,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5129],"tags":[149,5317,5,4,74,39,5316],"class_list":{"0":"post-545470","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-vegas-golden-knights","8":"tag-golden-knights","9":"tag-goldenknights","10":"tag-hockey","11":"tag-nhl","12":"tag-vegas","13":"tag-vegas-golden-knights","14":"tag-vegasgoldenknights"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/116363453107874260","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545470","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=545470"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/545470\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/545471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=545470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=545470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=545470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}