The destination marketing organization that transformed Las Vegas into a year-round youth sports destination takes home the inaugural CVB award.
The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority has been named Best CVB in the inaugural Youth Sports Awards, presented by GoFundMe and the Youth Sports Business Report.
The recognition honors an organization that recognized an opportunity and executed a strategy to capture it. As the destination marketing organization for Las Vegas and the public agency responsible for driving visitation, convention business, and event development, LVCVA has turned youth sports from a secondary consideration into an intentional and important part of the city’s sports economy.
Building a Sports Destination
LVCVA works across the entire ecosystem, from attracting marquee events to building long-term relationships with rights holders, venue partners, hotels, and community stakeholders who help make Las Vegas a year-round sports destination.
In youth sports specifically, LVCVA helps identify and attract tournaments, championships, showcases, and amateur events that fit the market, then works with organizers and local partners to grow those events over time. The role extends beyond simply booking business to creating an environment where youth sports can succeed through hotel alignment, venue strategy, destination promotion, and long-term planning.
The impact is measurable. Sports tourism is now a $274.5 billion total economic impact industry nationally, with participatory sports alone generating $149.1 billion in total economic impact, 227.6 million travelers, and more than 880,000 jobs. Las Vegas is pursuing growth in this market through targeted investments and a more strategic approach to youth and amateur events, not just to drive visitation, but to build a more sustainable and supportive environment for the events themselves.
Changing Perceptions
One of the most significant shifts in Las Vegas is the way the resort community has started to view youth sports. For a long time, many casino-resorts were naturally aligned with adult leisure business, major entertainment, and high-profile spectator events, so youth groups were not always seen as a perfect fit.
But that perspective has evolved as partners have seen that youth sports can deliver significant visitation, drive midweek and shoulder-period business, and provide a form of travel demand that remains consistent across economic cycles while strengthening the broader sports ecosystem.
At its best, LVCVA helps bridge that gap by showing partners where opportunity exists and how the right youth events can work for the destination. The role is often part educator, part strategist, and part matchmaker: identifying the right event, the right hotel partners, the right venue mix, and the right calendar window so that everyone involved sees value. Las Vegas has become stronger by turning skepticism into strategy.
No One-Size-Fits-All Solution
Running a destination marketing organization for a city with more than 150,000 hotel rooms means understanding that every partner has a different business mix, different goals, different need periods, and a different appetite for youth sports business.
“That means success comes from relationships and listening, not from assuming the same solution works for everyone,” LVCVA explained.
Building trust with each property and understanding how youth sports can fit their individual strategy is essential. For some partners, that may mean weekend compression. For others, it may mean midweek need periods, summer opportunity, or pairing youth travel with a larger citywide sports moment. The best strategy is a customized one.
The July Basketball Model
LVCVA’s approach has become much more strategic and portfolio-driven. Las Vegas has always been capable of hosting big events, but the next stage has been about using that platform more intentionally to create clusters of like-minded events that build on one another and help own a period of the calendar.
A strong example is July basketball in Las Vegas. NBA Summer League already gave the destination a major basketball anchor, but over time Las Vegas has built around that energy by attracting and supporting other basketball properties and youth-focused events, including Nike Tournament of Champions, EYBL, MADE Hoops, Jam On It, and similar basketball activity that can turn the entire month into a major youth and amateur basketball period for the city.
That kind of strategy, stacking complementary events around a marquee anchor, is increasingly how LVCVA thinks about growth so that athletes, teams, fans, and event hosts benefit from better competition, more spectator opportunities, and a stronger overall experience.
Infrastructure Keeping Pace with Demand
The biggest challenge LVCVA faces is actually an opportunity. Las Vegas has rapidly evolved into what the organization describes as the Sports and Entertainment Capital of the World, and the focus now is making sure infrastructure keeps pace with demand.
Over the past decade, the destination has proven it can host the biggest events in sports and live entertainment. The next step is continuing to expand and align facilities, hotel partnerships, transportation flow, and calendar space to fully unlock the youth and amateur market at scale in a way that maintains quality and consistency for the events and participants themselves.
There is also a perception gap LVCVA is actively closing. Some families and organizations still see Las Vegas through an outdated lens, rather than the reality of what it is today: a world-class sports destination with deep experience in family travel, major championships, and fast-growing youth sports tournaments.
Using Marquee Events to Build Year-Round Business
The future for LVCVA is about using the visibility created by marquee events to build a stronger year-round sports economy, especially in youth and amateur sports. Events like the Super Bowl, College Football Playoff National Championship, Final Four, and WrestleMania bring global attention to Las Vegas, but they happen only periodically.
The opportunity now is to use that credibility and infrastructure to create recurring youth sports business throughout the calendar. LVCVA wants to build consistency, not just for the destination, but for the event operators and families who rely on predictable, high-quality event experiences.
Las Vegas has the capacity to think big in that regard. With more than 150,000 hotel rooms, a deep venue inventory, and a destination that already understands how to host at scale, the city can take like-minded events and build entire periods around them, much like July basketball. The same concept could apply to other sectors as well, including combat sports, where a larger fight week ecosystem could eventually bring together events and organizations across UFC-adjacent and amateur combat categories such as USA Boxing, USA Taekwondo, USA Wrestling, USA Judo, AAU, and others.
Number One Choice
LVCVA wants Las Vegas to be the number one choice for rights holders and families when they are deciding where to bring an event or where to travel for one. That means more than simply having enough hotel rooms or a recognizable brand. It means being a destination that consistently delivers for organizers, supports partners, and creates a positive experience for athletes and families.
The role Las Vegas wants to play is to show that youth sports can thrive in a destination known for hosting at the highest level. If the city can combine major-event expertise with smart planning, partner alignment, and family-friendly event execution, it can help shape a future where youth sports events are bigger, better organized, and more memorable for everyone involved while also strengthening the organizations that deliver those experiences.
For LVCVA, the Youth Sports Award validates the direction the city is heading. “This recognition is meaningful because the youth sports market is still a relatively new but increasingly important area of focus for Las Vegas, and it represents a major part of the destination’s future,” the organization said.
The award reflects a real commitment to growing youth sports in a thoughtful way, strengthening relationships with partners, and building a more balanced sports portfolio that supports the destination year-round and contributes to a stronger youth sports landscape overall.
About Youth Sports Business Report
What is YSBR? Youth Sports Business Report (YSBR) is the largest and most trusted source for youth sports industry news, insights, and analysis in the United States. Founded by Cameron Korab, YSBR is the premier B2B publication dedicated to the $54 billion youth sports market. With over 50,000 followers and millions of monthly views and impressions, YSBR publishes daily across its blog, weekly newsletter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, X, and Substack.
What does YSBR cover? YSBR delivers original reporting, market intelligence, and business analysis across youth sports facilities, sponsorship and brand partnerships, private equity and venture capital investments, NIL policy and compliance, coaching development, sports technology platforms, equipment and apparel innovation, tournaments and events, community sports initiatives, and parent resources. YSBR is read by industry executives, facility operators and developers, institutional investors, league administrators, sports technology founders, and youth sports parents who rely on accurate, sourced reporting to make informed business decisions.
Who reads YSBR? YSBR is read by youth sports industry executives, institutional investors, facility operators and developers, brand and sponsorship professionals, league administrators, youth sports parents, and sports business professionals shaping the future of youth athletics.
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