Rugby in Vegas, the Tour de France in Scotland -- why sports tourism is booming

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At Las Vegas's Allegiant Stadium, an official leans in to make himself heard. "I've worked here for Raiders games, Taylor Swift concerts, the Super Bowl . . . and I ain't never experienced an atmosphere like this!"

Just below us, an 8,000-strong army of Wigan Warriors fans are running through a stand-shaking rendition of their favourite rugby league chants. Accompanied by drums, many of the songs from this multigenerational sea of red are gleefully directed at the opposition supporters: a homogenous blob of sky-blue and yellow at the far end of the stadium.

But it's not a question of "home" and "away": in fact Wigan are here to play Warrington Wolves. This is a local derby -- that is, between teams based in northern English towns little more than 10 miles apart -- just one that's been given the most implausible of international upgrades.

The clash is one of four being staged at the Las Vegas stadium over the course of a single, cloudless spring day. Later we'll watch teams from Australasia's National Rugby League (NRL) battle it out, followed by a rather one-sided women's rugby international between England and Australia's all-conquering Jillaroos. In total, there are more than 45,000 fans, who hail largely from the rugby league heartlands of north-west England and south-east Australia. But rugby-curious Las Vegans have helped swell the numbers. "It's basically NFL without the pads," I hear one Wigan fan explaining to a perplexed local in the queue for the taco stand.

I'm no hardcore "leaguey". But as a sporting occasion, this is next-level: a buzzing, multinational crowd lapping up a festival atmosphere. DJs, light shows and a set from an Australian rock band to keep energy levels high during the nine-hour extravaganza. And when it's all done, it's not a soggy pie and a traipse home in horizontal rain, but a smilingly ushered stroll back across Frank Sinatra Drive to the near-endless, unsleeping attractions of the Las Vegas Strip.

Sports are portable. You can develop a relationship with a league or team or event and . . . make a difference for your city in a relatively short period

The roots of this strange sporting relocation lie partly in rugby league's ongoing efforts to boost its global profile and break into the lucrative American market. But more than that, events such as these are the product of a multibillion-dollar repositioning of Sin City, as it hopes to capitalise on one of the fastest-growing segments in travel: sports tourism.

Already valued at more than $600bn and generating around 10 per cent of the world's expenditure on tourism, according to the UN's World Tourism Organization, the sector is picking up momentum like a rugby league prop charging a defensive line. The WTO estimates that the sector could more than double in value by 2030 as destinations cotton on to the portability of big sporting events, and their role as an engine for tourism.

A double dividend seems to be on offer, from the visitors who attend the event itself, and the boost in profile that accompanies it. When Qatar hosted the Fifa World Cup in 2022, 3.4mn football fans attended the tournament -- but the bigger rewards came the following year, when tourism arrivals rose 58 per cent. Neighbouring Saudi Arabia has put sport at the centre of its tourism-focused diversification drive, which has a target of 150mn annual visitors by 2030. Since 2018, the kingdom has hosted nearly 100 major events, from tennis and sailing to Formula 1, funded by its Public Investment Fund. Ironically, this includes the sort of big-money boxing bouts over which Vegas used to enjoy a monopoly.

Cycling's flagship event, the Tour de France, was an early adopter, and facilitator, of the concept of sports tourism. Its first foreign "Grand Départ" (the opening stage of the race) was in 1954, in Amsterdam. It has proved a durable commodity; Barcelona is paying €9.68mn to host the first three stages of next summer's race -- an emphatic acknowledgment of the short- and long-term value of bringing the world's best riders to the Catalan capital. In 2027, the race will start in Edinburgh, the first time the event has visited Scotland.

In May, it was announced that Barcelona's sister and often rival city, Madrid, would this autumn host the first regular-season NFL American football game to be held in Spain. It's one of a record seven overseas matches, in five countries, to be staged this year by a league that has long understood the profile-profit symbiosis of taking a sport to new destinations.

Steve Hill is the president and CEO of Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA), which has signed a four-year deal with the NRL to host rugby league at the Allegiant Stadium. This annual fixture takes its place in a packed calendar of major sporting events, now including Formula 1, ATP tennis, the NFL, Ultimate Fighting Championship and international and club football. The total value to the city is "well into the double-digit billion dollars", says Hill -- excluding the marketing benefit, which he describes as a "mind-bogglingly big number if we went out and tried to buy it".

Hill says sports tourism is something that most major destinations around the world can benefit from. "Sports are portable. You can develop a relationship with a league or a team or an event, and it can move. So there's an opportunity to make a difference for your city in a relatively short period, and you probably don't have to build too much more infrastructure in order to do it."

That's not always the case. Vegas may have more than 150,000 hotel rooms and a clutch of futuristic stadiums, shortly to be augmented by a £1.32bn, 33,000-capacity baseball stadium for its newly acquired Major League Baseball franchise. But destinations with less of a sporting heritage are often having to start from scratch -- sometimes to a preposterous degree. Saudi Arabia's successful bid to host the 2029 Asian Winter Games is predicated on a purpose-built mountain resort in the desert, something that has left environmentalists aghast and prompted criticism from leading skiers and the French Ski Federation.

Accusations of "sportswashing" -- hosting and importing matches and events to launder reputations or distract from human rights abuses -- have clung to attempts by countries such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Russia and China to court visitors in this way.

Further critics of the sports tourism juggernaut are to be found among loyal fans priced out of itinerant clashes. Stewart Frodsham, Wigan Warriors' head of media and marketing admits that there were "one or two" complaints from frustrated Wigan season ticket-holders, but he says the club's huge travelling support vindicated the boldness of the initiative. "Most of our fans are used to us thinking differently," he adds.

A fun bet to have in the world's gambling capital is on what prestige sporting acquisition will be next. Cricket and cycling, two of the most popular sports in the world, are obvious candidates. Hill says the city is in discussions with the Amaury Sport Organisation, the organiser of the Tour de France and other top cycling events, "not necessarily around bringing the Tour de France right away to Las Vegas, but on some other exciting possibilities".

He adds: "Vegas is kind of a soccer town already, and we'd love to do the same thing with cricket. We think it would be a fun thing to do and it would bring the attention of a different group of fans from around the world." What price an England-Australia Ashes Test here within the next 10 years? "We think it makes sense and we think we can do it," he replies, confidently.

On my flight home, I'm sat next to a family of Warrington Wolves fans. Morale is high; a week in Vegas has more than compensated for their team's eight-try hammering, it seems. They all proudly wear their Wolves replica shirts. Except, that is, for their son. He's dressed in an oversized green Canberra Raiders strip -- having swapped it with an Australian fan as they left the stadium on match day. I guess there's more than one way to lose your shirt in Vegas these days.