LVCVA board OKs sponsorship for new Pro Bull Riders team event

The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority on Tuesday approved more than $15 million in contracts, including a five-year $6.4 million deal with Professional Bull Riders LLC for a new team bull-riding championship event to culminate in Las Vegas.

The new series will have its playoffs and championships at T-Mobile Arena when the inaugural PBR Team Series Championship arrives Nov. 4-6.

Sponsorship of the event will start at $1.1 million next year, gradually increasing to $1.45 million in the 2027 fiscal year, locking the event into Las Vegas for five years through 2026.

LVCVA researchers expect the Teams World Championships will attract 21,000 visitors and generate nearly $39.8 million in total economic impact each year.

The agreement designates Las Vegas as the “Official Resort and Global Gaming Destination” for PBR and PBR Teams. It will include a media and brand awareness program for Las Vegas that will provide television, social and digital media assets.

The LVCVA board also:

— Unanimously approved a three-year $1.2 million contract for hospitality research to Washington-based Heart + Mind Strategies LLC. Heart + Mind was one of 10 companies to respond to a request for information to produce surveys used in the LVCVA’s series of annual visitor profile studies.

— Agreed to spend $1.2 million with Bloomington, Minnesota-based ConvergeOne Inc. to upgrade the 12-year-old Las Vegas Convention Center network infrastructure system installed by Cisco Systems Inc.

— Agreed to spend $750,000 to extend an advertising and sponsorship agreement with American Express Open for a lounge at the Convention Center’s Central Hall catering to American Express customers. The lounge receives positive feedback from attendees, exhibitors and show management and is viewed as a valuable addition to the services offered at the Convention Center.

— In another agreement, the LVCVA will be on the receiving end of a $5.75 million deal with Los Angeles-based Boingo LLC in a naming rights, advertising and sponsorship deal on the Las Vegas Convention Center monorail station straddling Desert Inn Road. The two-year deal has an eight-year extension clause. Boingo will provide wireless service at the station, which will be branded with the company name, and one monorail train will have a Boingo wrap.

In another matter, LVCVA President and CEO Steve Hill announced that 114,000 people attended last month’s Specialty Equipment Market Association auto aftermarket trade show, by far the largest trade show event in any venue in the United States this year.

Tuesday’s meeting was the last for Marilyn Spiegel, the board’s vice chair. Spiegel is retiring as president of Wynn Las Vegas and Encore and will be replaced there by Encore Boston Harbor President Brian Gullbrants.

It hasn’t been announced who will replace Spiegel on the LVCVA board.

Contact Richard N. Velotta at rvelotta@reviewjournal.com or 702-477-3893. Follow @RickVelotta on Twitter.