Wisconsin players hoist the championship trophy after defeating Arizona State, 20-13, during the SRS Distribution Las Vegas Bowl at Allegiant Stadium Thursday, Dec. 30, 2021.
Friday, Dec. 31, 2021 | 2 a.m.
At every turn on the way to Allegiant Stadium on Thursday night, you could easily spot supporters of the Wisconsin football team.
Decked out in red and white, they were walking across Hacienda bridge to get to the venue for the Las Vegas Bowl, tailgating in the parking lot, packed into nearby casinos and even at the convenience store on Russell Road near the stadium (presumably loading up on beer and other tailgating items).
“Look at what they built. Wow,” one fan told his partner when arriving at the stadium, presumably for the first time.
The Wisconsin faithful showed us win-or-we-won’t-support-you locals that there’s nothing like the buildup to a notable college athletic event. And, thankfully, Wisconsin’s 20-13 win is just the beginning in the progression for Las Vegas in hosting these meaningful collegiate games.
While there were plenty of empty seats in the light crowd of 32,515 fans Thursday — mind you, with COVID-19 cases surging nationally — the pregame atmosphere reaffirms what Las Vegas tourism officials have long proclaimed: We are a welcoming host and ready for more.
Bring on the Final Four. Bring on the College Football Playoff. And at nearby T-Mobile Arena, we’ll also take hockey’s Frozen Four.
Many dominoes had to fall to get to the moment where Las Vegas could be entered into the conversation to host big-time college events, including the Las Vegas Bowl in the early 2000s coordinating to have the Pac-12 Conference represented each year in the game.
League commissioner Tom Hansen, because of the state’s legalized sports gaming industry, hated the idea of one of his teams playing in Las Vegas, and refused to travel to the game.
That’s hardly the case in the modern-day landscape, as the Pac-12 hosted its football title game at near-capacity Allegiant Stadium last month, and also contests its conference basketball tournaments at T-Mobile Arena. This was the first Las Vegas Bowl at the new venue, where the Wisconsin band surely helped create a true college game-day setting. (The game, unfortunately, featured two deliberate offenses and not much consistent action).
“We helped prove Las Vegas was the place to be,” Las Vegas Bowl executive director John Saccenti said last month. “We helped open the door to people looking differently at Las Vegas.”
Another breakthrough came in 2006 when college basketball powers Kansas and Florida played at the Orleans Arena in a nationally televised game that went into overtime. South Point Arena general manager Steve Stallworth, then in charge at Orleans Arena, worked behind the scenes for two years — overcoming the NCAA’s anti-sports-betting stance — to book the game.
The immediate result: There wasn’t an empty seat in the 9,500-seat arena as supporters of both programs made a weekend of the event in Las Vegas. And the game, of course, was legendary as No. 10 Kansas knocked off top-ranked Florida in a back-and-forth affair.
The lasting result: By 2009, the West Coast Conference moved its tournament to the Orleans Arena. Now, Pac-12 Conference tournaments (T-Mobile Arena), Mountain West (Thomas & Mack Center), WAC (Orleans) and Big West (at the nearly constructed Dollar Loan Center in Henderson) are also in Southern Nevada and close to sportsbooks.
“I knew we could do college basketball and do it well,” Stallworth said in 2019.
The last box to check in qualifying for a seat at the table to host championship NCAA events was having a worthy venue, which when the nearly $2 billion Allegiant Stadium opened in 2020 was no longer an issue. It’s worth repeating: The $750 million in public money funded by a small hotel tax increase sure looks like a great investment by Nevada.
Imagine the Wisconsin faithful, or any university with a chance to win a national title, taking over the city for a few days. That kind of celebration is what Las Vegas does best, and what will surely be in our future.
