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Photo by: Rick Scuteri \/ AP Photo\/<\/p>\n
It\u2019s easy to root for a championship team, but it goes deeper for the Aces and the WNBA.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had a lot of fans who knew about the WNBA and the history of the WNBA, but once they started winning, the stage was packed,\u201d says Andrea Moodie, a longtime basketball fan. \u201cWinning will help. But I think once people got to know the women, got to know the team, got to understand the ownership \u2026 it\u2019s easy to become a fan.\u201d<\/p>\n
Against the backdrop of the explosion of major league professional sports in Las Vegas, the Aces have cemented themselves as the city\u2019s most decorated team, elevating women\u2019s sports from the sidelines to the center of the conversation. The team\u2019s success and the visibility of its superstar centerpiece are creating a measurable shift in Las Vegas\u2019 growing sports culture.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re setting the precedent that Vegas is the place to be. They\u2019re the team to follow. Everybody wants to be like them,\u201d says Leandra Galloway, another Aces season ticket holder. \u201cI\u2019m a Lakers fan and that\u2019s what it\u2019s kind of reminding me of\u2014dynasty, multiple rings. You can\u2019t really separate this group.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Every great dynasty needs a firm foundation. On the collegiate level, UNLV\u2019s Lady Rebels have established a dynasty of their own under three-time Mountain West Coach of the Year Lindy La Rocque, who has led the basketball team to four consecutive Mountain West regular season championships and three conference tournament titles since joining the program in 2020. (Click here for our interview.)\u00a0<\/p>\n
A winning basketball tradition extends from the high school level, where Cheyenne and Centennial coach Karen Weitz has built a legacy with 15 state championships and more than 750 victories. The five-time Nevada Coach of the Year and member of the Southern Nevada Sports Hall of Fame began coaching in the early \u201990s, well before the WNBA\u2019s inaugural season in 1997. The landscape looked a lot different then.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we started back in the mid-\u201990s \u2026 basketball in Vegas was terrible,\u201d Weitz says. \u201cReno had won the past 20 state titles. We weren\u2019t even respected. There was no middle school basketball here. There were no players coming out of Vegas that were D1 ballplayers. When I say nothing, it was nothing.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
High school state tournaments were never held in Southern Nevada back then. \u201cYou literally had to go to Reno all the time,\u201d she says.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Weitz studied the dominance of the northern opposition and established a year-round training program at Centennial High School, and her team broke through for its first state title. The cycle had been broken.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was probably the craziest moment in my life because to do something like that hadn\u2019t even been done in 20 years. It was pretty special,\u201d Weitz says.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The effort and talent of many other pioneers have strengthened that foundation of girls\u2019 and women\u2019s sports in Las Vegas, paving the way for the arrival of the WNBA in 2018. MGM Resorts International purchased the team, then the San Antonio Stars, and moved it to the Strip to play at Mandalay Bay\u2019s Michelob Ultra Arena. Raiders owner Mark Davis bought the Aces in 2021 and sustained their upward trajectory, hiring coach Becky Hammon in 2022.<\/p>\n
Basketball is not the only professional women\u2019s sport with a presence in Southern Nevada. The Vegas Thrill played its first season this year at Henderson\u2019s Lee\u2019s Family Forum in the upstart Major League Volleyball. The team is currently taking deposits for season tickets for the 2026 season.<\/p>\n
In case you\u2019ve been living under a rock, women\u2019s sports have exploded in popularity. A spring Associated Press poll found that three in 10 U.S. adults follow women\u2019s professional or college sports. The WNBA recently broke its single-season attendance record, with the league\u2019s 13 teams attracting more than 2.5 million fans over 226 games, according to the New York Times.\u00a0<\/p>\n
That cultural shift has introduced new opportunities in sports-friendly cities like Las Vegas, where a franchise location of the Sports Bra, the nation\u2019s first sports bar dedicated to broadcasting women\u2019s sports, is set to open in the near future.Jenny Nguyen founded the Portland-based bar in 2022 with little more than her instinct to guide her.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI felt like there was this women\u2019s sports fandom that was rooted in Portland, so that\u2019s what I was basing it on,\u201d Nguyen says. \u201cBut as soon as the news hit that this women\u2019s sports bar was opening, it almost felt like we\u2019d put a pinprick in a dam, and it just exploded with support.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were basically flipping the status quo on what a traditional sports bar is and has been for 40 years. So, there were a lot of naysayers out there, the same folks that say nobody watches women\u2019s sports were all up in our DMs being like, \u2018It\u2019s just a matter of time before you guys will have to show men\u2019s sports, because nobody\u2019s going to come.\u2019 But for every one comment like that, there were 10,000 that were like, \u2018This is the best thing ever.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Nguyen says she received hundreds of inquiries from entrepreneurs looking to open a Sports Bra franchise in big cities and tiny towns. For Las Vegas, she says the focus is to build a community with locals, so it makes more sense to establish the Sports Bra in a neighborhood rather than on the Strip.\u00a0<\/p>\n
For local fans like Tiffany Giardina and Leandra Galloway, it\u2019s about time women\u2019s sports had a designated home.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s like, finally something is happening,\u201d says Giardina. \u201cWhen we won the first championship, we were flying and we were in Houston Hobby [Airport], and we had to beg our server, \u2018Can you just put the Aces game on?\u2019 It was during Texas football.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI think a lot of people would follow it, and not just women and young little girls, men would go as well,\u201d Galloway says of the Sports Bra. \u201cIt\u2019s definitely necessary. Once people see that they have something like that here in Vegas, other bars, other establishments will catch on.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
It all goes back to visibility, Nguyen says.\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n <\/a><\/p>\n Las Vegas Aces players Aaliyah Nye, left, and Dana Evans celebrate a victory over the Dallas Wings at Michelob Ultra Arena at Mandalay Bay on August 17. <\/p>\n![\"Las](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/0817_sun_AcesWings25_t300.png\")
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