Monday, Dec. 16, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.
The Las Vegas Stars and Thunder have gone Hollywood, or at least halfway.
Two weeks after Ken Stickney announced "We have not, nor ever will, consider selling the Las Vegas Thunder," he and his father, Hank, watched entertainment giant Peter Guber and Paul Schaeffer -- not David Letterman's sidekick -- buy out the minor-league teams' minority stockholders to join the Stickneys as equal partners.
Mandalay Sports Enterprises, a division of Guber and Schaeffer's Mandalay Entertainment, was formed to operate the sports organizations, which include the International Hockey League's Thunder, the Stars triple-A baseball team and the Lake Elsinore Storm, a single-A baseball team the Stickneys also own.
The deal was finalized this weekend after six months of negotiations.
"This is a partnership and a deal that involves basically transferring some old partners out and some new partners in," Ken Stickney said today. "But any changes from the standpoint of operational or managerial control, they're not happening."
In addition to stressing no change in the team's day-to-day operations, Stickney asserted the Las Vegas teams will remain here.
"We didn't sell out," he said. "We're not going anywhere."
Guber, 55, has made previous bids on sports franchises, but at the major-league level. He unsuccessfully tried to purchase the NHL's Quebec Nordiques and Los Angeles Kings as well as the NBA's Los Angeles Lakers and Miami Heat.
"I have always believed that professional sports were an entertainment attraction, and that a sports franchise can amount to an intellectual property," Guber said in a statement. "I saw this as an opportunity for Mandalay to form a strategic alliance with professional sports managers who have a proven track record."
Guber's meteoric rise in the entertainment industry began as a 29-year-old, when he was named head of production at Columbia Studios. Later, he became chairman of Sony Pictures but was ousted in 1994 when the company's movie unit lost $3.2 billion.
Sony is an investor in Mandalay Entertainment, which produces films and television shows.
"The organization has been on a firm financial footing, but now it's firmer," Stickney said.
The presence of Guber and Schaeffer is expected to provide the Stars and Thunder with more entertainment value.
"The exciting part of it is that these guys are significant players in the entertainment business," Stars general manager Don Logan said, "and pro sports -- particularly at the minor-league level -- is entertainment.
"The expertise they have is the ability to bring in big-name people and get them involved in different events and really put kind of a movie-industry spin on some of the stuff we do. It could really enhance and improve what we do."
Guber is close with several NHL high rollers.
"The world moves around contacts and Guber is one of the most well-connected people on the planet," Stickney said.
"He knows half a dozen NHL owners on a personal basis, like having dinner in their homes. Do you think he'll help us get a permanent NHL affiliation for the Thunder? I don't think it'll hurt.
"He'll help us in a thousand ways and thousand more we haven't thought of yet."
One of those ways, all parties involved hope, is increased attendance.
When the Stickneys took over the Stars' ownership in 1992, they said the team was capable of drawing half million people a year, but attendance has remained stagnant.
In 1991, the Stars drew 330,699 in their 72 annual home games. Last year, the team drew 313,212. The largest season attendance under the Stickneys was 386,310 in 1993.
Last season's Thunder attendance was 318,611 for 41 home games.
"I think you always have to strive to (increase attendance), to get bigger and better," Logan said. "It's obvious, with so many people moving into the valley all the time, that there are plenty of potential new customers out there.
"That's where we really have to figure out how to maximize the opportunity to get the new people involved and then, of course, to get the people that are here already that don't come out as often as you'd like to get out there more often."
The Thunder has lost millions every season since its inception in 1993. This season's projected loss is expected to be in the six-figure range, while Stickney cautiously predicts the team will break even next season.
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