The Haunting

Take that, Steve Wynn!

MGM Mirage today asked its shareholders to approve a corporate name change in June to become MGM Resorts International. That is, no "Mirage."

Speculation ensued that perhaps the switch is a precursor to a sale of the Mirage, but CEO Jim Murren insists it is, rather, a way for the company to position itself as more of a hospitality provider with plans for non-casino resorts in Egypt, India, China, and elsewhere.

Sure. And while they're at it, why don't they expunge the part of the name that ties the company to one of the most significant, groundbreaking moments in Vegas history, the 1989 opening of the first modern megaresort, the Mirage?

MGM Mirage, which is controlled by billionaire Kirk Kerkorian, came into being in 2000 when MGM Grand Inc. bought out Steve Wynn’s Mirage Resorts and, along with it, the Mirage, the Bellagio, the Treasure Island, the Golden Nugget sites, the Beau Rivage, and a half-interest in the Monte Carlo. As MGM Mirage, the company sold off the Golden Nuggets and the Treasure Island and picked up sole ownership of Monte Carlo when, in 2005, it bought Mandalay Resorts Group.

In a pre-earnings filing last week, MGM Mirage said the Bellagio, another landmark built by Wynn, was its top-earning property in the first quarter of 2010, despite the enormous publicity that surrounded the mid-December debut of the neighboring $8.5 billion CityCenter complex. Startup costs and expenses related to the condominium products available at CityCenter make a direct comparison unfair, but the filing did indicate that Aria, CityCenter’s 4,004-room hotel-casino centerpiece, saw a paltry 63 percent occupancy at a time when Strip-wide occupancy was at 85 percent.

That the company clearly continues to rely on the enterprises they’ve picked up from Wynn seems to annoy its brass, said David McKee, a gaming-business blogger for the Las Vegas Advisor.

“It’s retribution, and it’s an incredibly bad business decision because there is so much brand equity wrapped up in that Mirage name,” McKee said. “Kirk Kerkorian would not have bought those resorts were it not for all the value and mystique that Steve Wynn created. Plus, the financial performance of MGM properties on the Strip and Bellagio is kicking the crap out of everything else they own.”

The Mirage resort-casino, incidentally, was the company’s third-largest earner in the first quarter, so it’s aged reasonably well too.

Even without the Mirage name, Wynn’s legacy continues to loom large over the company. Murren works out of what was once Wynn’s office in the corporate headquarters at Bellagio and several of the company’s top executives worked for Wynn until the buyout.

MGM Mirage officials did not return calls or emails for comment Tuesday. But Murren clearly sounded frustrated in November by the notion that the Bellagio’s continued success belongs in any way to Wynn, who operated it for only two years before the buyout.

“I think it’s a total understatement of our capabilities to say that other people like Steve Wynn are the great visionaries and the only one who can open something here,” Murren said in a pre-CityCenter debut interview. “That’s just factually incorrect. We not only open things, but we operate them better than anybody.”

Still, the day’s other major MGM Mirage-related news—that Cirque du Soleil was planning a Michael Jackson-scored production to open on the Strip in 2012—had the former owner’s fingerprints on it.

It was, after all, Wynn who first brought Cirque to Las Vegas in 1992 and then built custom showrooms for the Montreal troupe’s first two permanent shows, Mystere, and O, on the Strip.

Another irony: They’ve replaced “Mirage” with “Resorts International.” Resorts International is, in fact, a casino company. It’s known at the moment for having surrendered Resorts Atlantic City to bankers because they couldn’t pay the mortgage.

“They just can’t get out from under Steve Wynn’s shadow, so they said, ‘Well, we’re just going to take the name of his company out,’ ” McKee said. "You get the impression they did not think this thing through."

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Steve Friess is a freelance writer based in Las Vegas. He writes the blog www.VegasHappensHere.com.