Las Vegas embraces the Super Bowl – and a new vision of itself
On game days, the football pilgrimage starts across the highway.
Crowds thread through gold-paneled casinos, pyramid-shaped and gaudy, before emerging onto a street-turned-pedestrian walkway. Ahead is Allegiant Stadium, the $2 billion home of the Las Vegas Raiders. But the scene also reveals something more: a new vision of Las Vegas itself.
While many of the fans making the trek from the famous Las Vegas Strip are local, more than half are not. Pro football, it seems, is now a part of the Vegas tourist experience. When local officials agreed to pay $750 million of the stadium bill, they expected a benefit of 450,000 visitors a year. The reality has
