Baseball winter meetings coming back to Las Vegas

Baseball’s winter meetings will return to Las Vegas in 2018 at Mandalay Bay.

The meetings, where major league and minor league executives gather to discuss issues and possible deals, also were in Las Vegas in 2008. The 2018 meetings will be the week of Dec. 9.

“The baseball winter meetings provide great exposure for Mandalay Bay, MGM Resorts and Las Vegas in general,” said Daniel Rush, vice president of global sports and events sales for MGM Resorts International. “All the networks will broadcast live from our host property.”

51s president Don Logan said a group started pushing for the winter meetings to come back to Las Vegas four years ago. Logan said the 2008 event struggled with Minor League Baseball at the Hilton, Major League Baseball at the Bellagio and the trade show at the Convention Center.

“It’s going to be so good at the Mandalay Bay. It’s state of the art, beautiful, brand new,” Logan said. “Everybody is right there. Everything is right there. You’ll get a lot more business done.

“It’s going to be the winter meetings from a venue perspective in terms of productivity and accessibility and everything that there’s ever been.”

Logan said the 51s would be involved in helping Major League Baseball and Minor League Baseball plan an event that will make it a memorable experience.

Also, the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics will hold its annual convention in 2020 and 2022 at Mandalay Bay. The 2020 convention will be the week of June 7 and the 2022 convention the week of June 26.

“NACDA is part of our strategy of over the years of lobbying the NCAA to have championship events in Las Vegas,” Rush said. “The hope is by having the ADs here, it will be a major factor to bring championship events to the city.”

The NCAA does not allow championship events to be played in Las Vegas, but there has been a movement to change the rule.

“There’s probably no city in the world that can do a convention as well as we do it here,” Logan said. “The space at the Mandalay (Bay) Events Center, the Mandalay Bay itself, the Delano, the Four Seasons all being in one area, there’s no other venues in the country where we can get everybody under one roof with the quality convention space, meeting space, dining space, shopping and obviously the entertainment.”

Contact Mark Anderson at manderson@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2914. Follow @markanderson65 on Twitter. Contact Betsy Helfand at bhelfand@reviewjournal.com. Follow @BetsyHelfand on Twitter.