The 2023 NFL Week 4 Roundup | Gran Turismo Las Vegas
UNDER what is now an eight-floor parking garage at Caesar’s Palace Las Vegas with an appetite for 5580 vehicles ($23/night, thank you very much), resided in the early 1980s an extremely short-lived Formula One experiment that ended in spectacular failure. Tucked up against the 15 freeway on the apron of the Caesars’s backlot, Formula One’s bold addition to the racing circuit came at a time of rapid expansion for the sport; an idea ahead of its time that read better on paper than in reality. The 2.3 mile course — hemmed in by the confines of a tight surface parking lot — folded back on itself five times hairpin-style and resembled something readily (and unflatteringly) crafted on an Etch-a-Sketch. Designed with great width to allow for overtaking atop perfectly flat, glass-smooth pavement and featuring generous runoff areas fortified with desert sand, the course challenged drivers with boredom and yawns. But the one feature Formula One didn’t count on was the intense heat of the Las Vegas sun. Drivers sweated profusely in race cars unequipped with air conditioning while spectators blanched at ringing the outdoor course seemingly miles from the nearest shade tree. Drivers migrated to Formula One’s more picturesque, temperate and well-attended outpost in Long Beach; Vegas fans balked. The Las Vegas Gran Prix episode hemorrhaged financial losses for host Caesar’s Palace, which after just its second running in 1982 pulled the plug. Well, 41 years later, Formula One is BACK, baby, and taking Las Vegas by storm. With an attached $560M price tag, the 2023 Las Vegas Formula One Grand Prix returns in six weeks on a scale both disruptive and moneyed that has turned the city upside down and soured enthusiasm among residents, casino employees and prospective attendees alike. A checkered flag or a white flag? We’re about to find out.
American firm Liberty Media purchased Formula One in 2016 and took years to mull over what exactly they’d purchased for $4.4B. Looking at Formula One’s schedule, blatantly obvious was its traditional widespread — and popular — international exposure. Pitstops in Australia, Italy, Monaco, Spain, Austria, Belgium and Japan penciled out the tentpoles of the Season. Glaringly absent, in Liberty’s eyes, was American exposure; a deep untapped market where NASCAR found a particularly favored and lucrative foothold generations ago. Liberty wanted to go to there and so Grand Prix additions to the circuit soon included such domestic locales as Miami and Austin. Liberty, crucially, took note of Formula One’s Caesar’s Palace folly in the early 1980s with an eye toward making amends for malformed ideation. Liberty studied the idea of bringing its racing lights to Sin City ala Gran Turismo: Vegas Edition. It would be expensive; it would be a massive civil engineering feat; it would take an unprecedented private-public partnership to pull off. When anything-goes civic leaders learned of Liberty’s ideation, they leapt at the chance to further burnish Las Vegas as a serious sporting destination, building upon the tremendous success of NHL’s Golden Knights, NFL’s Raiders, the impending arrival of the relocated-from-Oakland Athletics and a much-rumored NBA expansion team. At more than half a billion dollars all-in, a deal was struck, a giant ribbon cut and a city uprooted.
When Gran Turismo 5 was released for PS3 in late November 2010, the game was immediately praised for its photo-realism combined with the ability to choose among 1000 cars and 72 tracks of all stripes and degrees of difficulty. As a player, little attention is paid to to more urban racetracks and the logistical challenges they present. By nature, they don’t have to. Plopping an actual 3.9 mile winding racetrack atop one of America’s most glamorous cityscapes attracted an American can-do and will-do audacity right at home in Vegas. And why not? As designed, the course commences in the custom-built 300-foot long $480M so-called Paddock nestled adjacent to the Virgin Hotel and Casino. Drivers race north and bend around the newly-opened Sphere before whipping around the Palazzo along Sands Avenue before turning left on Las Vegas Blvd where Wynn, the Venetian, TI, the Mirage, Caesars’s Palace, Bellagio, the Cosmopolitan quickly blur in rearview mirrors. Another left just beyond Plant Hollywood bring drivers to the beginning of another loop. Repeat this for 90 minutes and you can image all the glitz meeting all that unleaded gasoline-perfumed grit. It’s all a glossy marketer’s dream (more on that later) and a perplexed city planner’s jigsaw puzzle.
With comprehensive blueprints in-hand, the most disruptive parts of Formula One’s big Vegas plans began in earnest this past April. That’s when warnings of significant delays were signaled to residents, commuters, employees and visitors. Repaving work would begin. Pedestrian sun-beaten pavement was always going to be a non-starter. So up and out had to go the top foot of roadway for the entire 4 mile circuit. On some of the most traveled thoroughfares in all of Nevada, all the while keeping the city that never sleeps from suffering paralysis. Things went just was well as you’d expect. Some Venetian employees took to social media complaining of an hours-long queue just to leave the employee garage, such was the gridlock up and down the strip. The ordeal repeated itself all Summer at casinos of all stripes and naturally affected visitors approaching the Strip and even suffocated normally blissful secondary service roads paralleling the Strip. Some Uber drivers refused casino pickups or drop-offs. It’s a painful process that Formula One proclaims need not be undertaken for another six years. So there’s THAT. Oh yes and manholes? Gone. Can’t have those pesky metal frisbees interrupting driving dynamics. Who needs manholes anyways? Another item. Once the race begins — and there are three of them on successive November nights — those physically encircled/entrapped by the circuit cannot leave because of the continuous and active nature of the racetrack. So three temporary (some say unsightly) bridges are being constructed, two lanes in each direction and 800 feet long, to allow for “ease” of entry and exit within the central core. Weirdly, the bridges can be built and taken down in eight days. But perhaps the more galling part of Las Vegas’ transformation into a video game brought to life is what’s going on mid-Strip. To maximize financial inflow, Formula One in close coordination with MGM Resorts, Caesars Entertainment and other heavyweights is erecting ticketed viewing stands up and down famed Las Vegas Blvd. Multi-story, full-service structures featuring food and beverage and circuit-close seating are being constructed atop some of the city’s most prime attractions. Think the sidewalk fronting the famed Bellagio fountains and the Mirage volcano. Blasphemy, according to locals. In the case of the Bellagio, arborists were outraged when MGM claimed it would temporarily remove a dozen full-growth 25-year-old trees that famously shaded the tourist mecca to make room for the gargantuan grandstand. The trees were felled and fed into a chipper instead; the mulch donated to local parks. The trees and the grandstand can’t coexist it turns out because this race will be held annually every November until 2033. Fun stuff.
Prices and the cost of admission is a story unto itself. To view the race in person — anywhere — will cost you money. Formula One is charging race-front business a licensing fee under the logic that their patrons will benefit from Formula One’s gift. Business are in-turn tacking on surcharges to reservations during racetimes. MGM’s grandstand in front of the Bellagio? Try $2000 for the three-day event on for size. Just for a seat. A room IN the Bellagio for the race? Rates begin at $799 for a room — facing the 15 freeway, completely opposite the F1 action. Same story for all the casino hotels in every direction of center-strip. Taken together, you have to just consider the sheer money grab at play in real-time. But Vegas wouldn’t be the city it is without the forced hand of greedy economics. If you build it, they will come, as the adage goes. And when they arrive, they WILL pay.
Six weeks out from Formula One’s penultimate event of the 2023 Season, the repaving work is winding down, traffic is becoming less gridlock-strained and settling into the more normal congested levels typical of Vegas. Tourists throng to the thick sidewalks and pedestrian bridges framing a throbbing metropolis, even if they have to navigate around massive construction zones where impressive-looking grandstands are going up. And the good part of greedy economics is playing out in real-time. That marketer who looked glossy-eyed at a plausible money-grab in a prime destination for an event 40 years in the making? Well, sky-high pricing is driving would-be attendees to their sofas. Hotel pricing is now officially lower than the convention-filled weeks that append the event. But Formula One officials contend that demand for grandstand viewing remains strong and a scan of ticketing maps confirms this showing small pockets of availability here and there. Impressive for an event where standing tickets begin at $500. 105,000 fans are expected (to be monetized) and a total economic impact of $1B is in the offing. The casino hotels will fill-up at reduced rates, a glamorous nighttime addition to Formula One’s glittery calendar will debut impressively and then the laborious process of deconstructing Grand Prix’s magnificent paraphernalia will commence. The tide will turn and attention will next be drawn to the controversial opening the gargantuan 68-story, 3,644 room, blue-glassed Fountainbleu resort up-Strip ahead of Christmas. So come November 16th, sit back, relax, pull up your ESPN app, and empathize with the inhabitants of Sin City who will have to endure hosting an unusually disruptive sporting event annually for the next decade, at least. And enjoy a racing circuit that, when viewed from above, resembles an upside down pig. Symmetry and allegory in life. Priceless.
As the suns sets on Week 4 in the NFL, symmetry, asymmetry and allegory aplenty to go around. With MIA visiting Highmark Stadium, no one expected the Bills to toss the Fins so thoroughly by the tail all the way back into Biscayne Bay. Coming off a record 70 point game last week, the Fins suffered an egregious reversal of fortune at the hands of the Bills who prove every week that their humiliating loss to the Jets to open the Season was just a fluke. It’s clear that Josh Allen (21/25 320 yds 4TDs) is BACK and in fine post-season shape. WR Stefon Diggs (6 RECs 120 yds 3 TDs) had a similarly outstanding outing. BUF’s DEF bashed in MIA’s previously spotless record and inflicted extreme pressure on their opponent’s early-season offensive momentum. Tua’s wings have been clipped. Over in Chicago, watching Broncos at Bears was akin to seeing a funeral procession advance in in the rearview mirror. Sure they’re on the move, it’s painfully slow and annoying, but all is forgiven because you know where all parties will end up. That’s Broncos at Bears. Tarnished superstar Russell Wilson had a wonderful game (against a pity pat Defense) and engineered the avoidance of an embarrassing loss to a league punchline in a come-from-behind 31–28 “victory.” Still, there was plenty of stink to go around as both teams sift through the ever-widening debris field that is their collective 2023 seasons. Something even vaunted Sean Payton can’t seem to contemplate, much less address and resolve.
Over at Nissan Stadium, a menacing storm gathers in Cinci where highly-paid QB Joe Burrow, nursing a lingering calf injury, is doing no favors for his team as the Bengals fall to 1–3 after the so-so Titans finished off the AFC North basement dwellers with 24 unanswered points. The Bengals are comeback kings (look at 2022, for instance), but that’s predicated upon a healthy, flight-of-feet Joe. We’re not getting that. Time will tell but when it’s time to tell time, time will have run out. A thrilling OT WIN for the Eagles at home left intact their spotless record, 34–31. It was a lot more dramatic and tight than it should have been especially considering their opponents in WAS. Commanders QB Sam Howell proved hardier than his opponents expected but the team ultimately ran out of gas as PHL activated its DEF afterburner, unpleased to have deployed and depended upon such gadgetry against, well, Washington. In their eyes, a gimme turned into a get-me-outta-here ordeal. A not-so-close matchup with Pats at Cowboys where embroiled Mac Jones had to travel all the way to AT&T stadium to get benched (in the 3rd), such was the disaster unfolding on-field. Jones (12/21 150 yds 2 INTs) offered a wild (in a not good way) outing in an offensively offensive declaration, 3–38. Slop on both sides of the ball that allowed the Cowboys are much-needed return to the W column. In the NFC East, it’s them and PHL. Sorry, Commanders fans.
In our Round Robin, the Lions did away with any talk of a Jordan Love fairytale in Green Bay while the Falcons tanked, 7–23 against the Jags. ATL’s 2–2 record betrays the dire straights the team iw in. Ravens at Brownies witnessed Lamar Jackson going off and the Cleve going under, 3–28. The Rams trampled over the Colts, 29–23, in a game where LAR rookie WR Puka Nacua again roped in some fantastic numbers. Baker Mayfield and his Bucs are doing all the right things at NOLA’s expense as the Vikings finally found a WIN, though against the terrible Panthers. The 49ers remain with a perfect record (to go along with the perfect Brock Purdy/Christian McCaffrey pairing), and the Steelers are finding that sentimental adoration of hometown favorite QB Kenny Pickett needs to translate into something at some point just as the Driver in Training sticker is now officially OFF the back of HOU rookie QB CJ Stroud’s helmet where he continues to punch in some great stats for the Texans. Texans: 30, PIT: 6. Ouch. And finally, Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour pulled into MetLife where the Chiefs-Jets matchup was coincidentally double-booked, bringing Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds along for emotional support. Taylor came dangerously close to creating a jinx where KC was uncharacteristically on defense against a pitch-perfect Zach Wilson outing. But late dicey penalties ultimately went in favor of Taylor Swift and her backup complement of KC stage managers, 23–20. Is it accidental she has a theatrical filmed Eras Tour release coming out next week? Good on the Taylor Swift x NFL collab. NBC’s (producers cut to Taylor 17 times) highest ratings for a game since the Super Bowl resulted. Travis, who, again?
