Quantifying the Spatial Accessibility of Major Sports Infrastructure: A Geospatial Analysis of the Allegiant Stadium's Regional Reach in Nevada

Major sports infrastructure investments represent significant commitments of public and private capital, yet their spatial accessibility — the degree to which surrounding communities can physically access the venue — remains inadequately quantified in the urban planning literature. This study presents a geospatial analysis of the Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, Nevada, examining the spatial distribution of 517 towns across the state relative to the stadium using geodesic distance computation. The analysis employs a Geographic Information System (GIS) pipeline utilizing U.S. Census Bureau shapefiles processed with the GeoPandas library, coordinate reference system transformation from NAD 1983 Albers to WGS84, and geodesic distance calculation via the Geopy library's WGS84 ellipsoid model. Results reveal a highly uneven accessibility distribution, with 20 towns located within 26 kilometers of the stadium — predominantly in the Las Vegas metropolitan area — while rural communities in northern Nevada are situated over 500 kilometers away. Distance-based heatmap and bar chart visualizations illustrate the concentration of accessible communities and the sharp accessibility gradient across the state. The findings contribute to the growing literature on infrastructure accessibility assessment and provide a reproducible methodological framework applicable to spatial analysis of major infrastructure projects in urban and regional planning contexts. The methodology demonstrates the practical utility of open-source geospatial tools for quantifying the catchment area and regional reach of large-scale public amenities.