UNLV scrambles to get on radio

John Robinson's debut as UNLV's football coach is eight weeks from today. But where will fans be able to tune in to hear the broadcast of the Rebels' 1999 season opener at North Texas?

It won't be on KXNT 840-AM, the home for UNLV's football and men's basketball teams the past three years.

The 50,000-watt station exercised its option not to broadcast the games after university officials would not renegotiate terms of the 1996 agreement. The station, along with sister station KSFN 1140-AM, which is run by CBS Radio, will not be airing Lady Rebels basketball or UNLV baseball either.

"We didn't want to drop it," Alan Gray, vice president and general manager of KXNT said Wednesday. "We wanted to continue to do the games, but have the coaches shows on KSFN.

"But they had no interest in renegotiating the contract. It was a three-year deal that was rammed down our throats and we weren't interested in doing it under the old terms."

In a letter dated June 24, the station informed UNLV it was not going to exercise its option to pick up the fourth year, thus opening the door for other stations to bid for the rights.

That process is currently under way. UNLV will pay whichever station successfully bids for the broadcasts a flat fee to purchase air time. However, the school will retain the rights to all inventory along with control over the talent.

Contracts for the upcoming season have been tended to football play-by-play man Tony Cordasco and the basketball broadcast team of play-by-play announcer Ken Korach and analyst Glen Gondrezick.

Associate athletic director Jerry Koloskie said he's not sure which station will carry the games, but he's confident it will be business as usual come Sept. 2 when Robinson's debut takes place at Denton, Texas.

"There's no question we'll be on the air," Koloskie said. "It's just a matter of where and a matter of who.

"I've been told it's out to bid. Personally, I think it will work out. But being in a new league (the Mountain West Conference) with a new football coach, it's very important we make sure we have the right station."

KXNT is a 50,000-watt clear-channel station that reaches four states, including parts of Southern California, an important recruiting base for football. The only other local station that matches KXNT's range is KDWN 720-AM, which was the former home of UNLV sports.

However, sources say that KDWN is not interested in picking up UNLV as its sports programming quota is full with the Los Angeles Dodgers and UCLA basketball and football.

Ironically, UNLV may find itself on a smaller station in its own market than UCLA. That doesn't figure to sit well with Robinson, who coached at USC before coming to Las Vegas.

Robinson is vacationing in Hawaii and could not be reached for comment.

Gray said KXNT had expressed concerns about the future of broadcasting UNLV games back in late March. It was prepared to pick up the option for this year provided some changes could be made in the existing agreement.

"We just wanted to move some things around and they didn't want that," Gray said. "We're a different radio station than we were three years ago."

Gray said he had talked to Bill Townsend, director of corporate sales for the Thomas & Mack Center, which controls the radio rights for the school's athletic department under the previous sports marketing deal brokered four years ago.

However, Townsend informed Gray that the contract could not be renegotiated and it became a take-it-or-leave-it proposition for the station.

"They didn't give us much choice," Gray said.

Townsend is also on vacation and could not be reached for comment.

Bill Glatts, the Thomas & Mack's facilities and building director who also oversees bidding on broadcasting, said he hopes a deal can be struck in the next 30 days.

"We'll hit it real fast," Glatts said of the bidding process. "I hope we'll have it all done by Aug. 15."

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