MGM Resorts has ideas beyond the status quo for Bruno Mars.
We learned this in a Teams chat this week with MGM Resorts International Chairman and CEO Bill Hornbuckle. The company’s team leader is taking part in Friday afternoon’s Bruno Mars Drive celebration at Toshiba Square, outside T-Mobile Arena.
Mars of course has consistently sold out Dolby Live at Park MGM, across the way from the new Bruno Mars Drive. The Pinky Ring, where Mars often performs pop-up shows and his Hooligans frequently headline, is a nightlife success story at Bellagio.
And the company wants more Bruno activity as he launches “The Romantic” tour Friday and Saturday at Allegiant Stadium.
Hornbuckle was asked if Mars will eventually return to residency at Dolby Live, where he has headlined since New Year’s Eve weekend 2016.
“I would certainly believe and hope so,” the exec said. “We are all-in on Bruno, and I think he’s all-in on MGM and the city of Las Vegas.”
The exec then confirmed plans to expand the company’s ongoing relationship with Mars at Park MGM and Bellagio.
“We’ve got additional ideas that go beyond Pinky Ring, both for this community and, frankly, for other locations we have,” Hornbuckle said. “I think you’ll see us extend that relationship over time.”
Asked if that meant a Pinky Ring location or Mars residency run at at MGM Grand National Harbor near Washington D.C., Hornbuckle just said, “You’re going to see more things with Bruno.”
Elsewhere in this back-and-forth, we covered T-Mobile, more Mars and last week’s announcement the Super Bowl is returning to Las Vegas. The highlights:
MGM Grand Garden Arena expansion was once in the company’s plans. Hornbuckle recalled the MGM Resorts team had been reviewing arena concepts for a decade before embarking on T-Mobile Arena construction.
“We were going with a build-it-and-they-will-come mentality. It was something we were literally working on for a decade before,” Hornbuckle said. “We were trying to first expand the Grand Garden, but the footprint wasn’t right.”
MGM’s management of T-Mobile was crucial. The company has been able to fill its schedule of more than 100 dates per year with the Golden Knights, UFC, concerts and such special events as Emirates NBA Cup and occasional Aces games. “When our partner, AEG, allowed us to be managing director, that allowed us to schedule whatever we wanted in there,” Hornbuckle said. “We thought that was important for the company in Las Vegas. … Then Bill Foley the Golden Knights showed up and away we went.”
The exec says Las Vegas has enough arenas. Hornbuckle echoed the message that T-Mobile Arena can be modified to meet current NBA standards should the league award an expansion team to Las Vegas in time for the ‘28 season. He says that additional suites, added parking, workout facilities, family lounges and related amenities can be built and upgraded without shutting down T-Mobile.
“The community does not need yet another arena. It just doesn’t. We operate three of them. There’s another one in town at UNLV, you may recall, so we just don’t,” Hornbuckle said. “Frankly, given the scale and scope and pricing and what a team may go for, we think it’s a unique opportunity for someone to come in with a partner like us, who, by the way, has 36,000 hotel rooms behind it and a database of 55 million people, to make a real case why an NBA team ought to land in T Mobile.”
The T-Mobile site was not the company’s first choice. In a piece of Las Vegas lore, the T-Mobile site had served as the temporary corporate and design center for City Center. It did not look like an appropriate location for a first-class sports and entertainment arena. But Hornbuckle’s colleague Tony Marnell II came to him and then-MGM Resorts Chairman Jim Murren to convince the officials build on that exact site.
“We were playing around with the idea down at Mandalay Bay, and Tony came to Jim and I and said, ‘Hey, this looks like a better idea,’” Hornbuckle said. “We had the same reaction, ‘Holy schmoly, this is going to be compact, tight.’” But the company spent $55 million on overflow parking at Excalibur and managed the space efficiently enough to host an NHL team, UFC, and many superstar concert tours.
We likely won’t see another George Strait-style residency at T-Mobile. “What we’ve done at Dolby Live has kind of displaced that,” Hornbuckle said. “We’ve proven with Bruno, with Lady Gaga and others that what we can generate in terms of revenue is pretty compelling and pretty interesting. At 5,000 seats, it’s more intimate. And so there’s only a few artists like George strange who could fill that consistently like he did.”
Obviously, with a sports tenant, scheduling is inconsistent, as the Golden Knights’ playoff run is proving. “We don’t’ know how long they’re going to play,” Hornbuckle said. “There are a couple acts we’d love to do, but over time, the focus has been on Dolby, really, with Bruno.”
Las Vegas earned its second Super Bowl bid. “Now that we’ve had a year under our belt, we’ve experienced it. We understand its requirements,” Hornbuckle said. “The reason it’s come back so quickly is it was raging success. So when you say up our game, I don’t know. I think it was pretty special when it was here. And I think the teams felt that way, and I think the league feels that way.”
There could be some tweaking to MGM Resort’s Super Bowl strategy. “In terms of programming, I’d like to fill out earlier in the week, so people potentially come into town earlier,” Hornbuckle said. “I’d like to think of a program that goes after the Super Bowl, so potentially we can people hang around a couple days longer. But at its core, I’d like to think Las Vegas has earned its way into the cycle.”
John Katsilometes’ column runs daily in the A section. Contact him at [email protected]. Follow @johnnykats on X, @JohnnyKats1 on Instagram.