The first year six teams attended, and the games were staged at the Cox Pavilion, a 2,500-capacity arena on the campus of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. A handful of media members attended, as well as a few thousand fans across the entire schedule.

LeGarie and Albert Hall, the co-founder and current vice president for business operations for the summer league, put up $30,000 of their own money. Along with their staff, they managed to strike up a few relationships with brands like Reebok and Saturn. But no real marketing dollars were coming in, even though Hall went to creative lengths in search of them.

“I put a proposal on a size 21 shoe,” said Hall, who sent it off to the New York-New York Hotel and Casino. “It said, ‘We’re trying to get our foot in the door.’”

Though the two men lost money the first year, by the second they were profitable.

LeGarie and Hall are careful not to disparage their competition — the much smaller summer leagues in Orlando, Fla., and Utah — but it is clear they think teams that do not attend Vegas are making a poor decision, and are ceding a competitive advantage. The biggest differences between Las Vegas and Orlando, which hosts eight teams, are that in Orlando there are no fans and news media access is tightly controlled.