Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

It was fun while it lasted

Mountain West Conference commissioner Craig Thompson told his staff last week that he invites controversy about the league's decision to move its basketball tournament to Denver.

Next year, the conference's marquee basketball event will shift from the Thomas & Mack Center -- where the women's tournament starts Wednesday and the men's begins Thursday -- to the Pepsi Center, where it will be staged from 2004-06.

"I hope people show an interest," he said. "The worst thing in sports promotion is apathy. I hope people in Las Vegas are hopping mad and say, 'Why are you leaving? Idiots!' I hope people in Denver say, 'What? We have a pretty good city! We've hosted a lot of events, and it's worked. It's a class town.'

"I hope we turn it up."

Two dozen league officials, seeking a venue that isn't one of its members' home courts, approved the move to Colorado in August 2001, discarding a wealth of hotel, entertainment and restaurant choices in Las Vegas.

Questionable airfares, an airport that might actually be situated in a neighboring state, and limited access to hotels and the Pepsi Center are some of the other issues that might await those planning to visit Denver.

Moreover, a high of 78 degrees has been forecast Wednesday for Las Vegas by The Weather Channel, while Denver is supposed to hit 60.

"It was beautiful today, wasn't it?" said UNLV coach Charlie Spoonhour, with a tinge of sarcasm, Monday night.

"We will find out the cost of neutrality," Thompson said.

It hasn't yet turned into a Mountain West version of the Sharks vs. the Jets, and Wayne Newton fans haven't been spotted smashing John Denver CDs on sidewalks along the Strip.

However, the ramifications of Denver swiping a major event from Las Vegas are major. The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority estimate that 12,300 people visit the city for the tournament and generate nearly $9 million in non-gaming revenue.

Moose McGillycuddy's, on Maryland Parkway, is one of many businesses that will feel the pinch. Monday afternoon, Moose's manager Johnny Young doubled his usual weekly orders to ensure that he's stocked for a week in which his full staff will be on the clock.

Wyoming fans are coming.

"It's going to crush us," he said of the tournament leaving Las Vegas. "Oh yeah, we hate that it's moving. We don't want it to. We can't believe it's the last year here. Wyoming doesn't want it to go to Denver, either. There are no decent bars in Denver.

"They even asked if they could rent us out for three days. I said, No way. We're a Rebel bar."

That will be difficult to discern come Thursday, when the yellow-and-brown Cowboys banners are raised to the rafters. One of the school's vendors will also sell a variety of Wyoming gear inside Moose's.

Young figured about 600 Wyoming fans a day will call his place home.

"Every year it's gotten bigger," he said. "It was just wild in here last year, just a fun group of people. I don't have one bad thing to say about them. They come down here, appreciate everything we do for them and they enjoy themselves.

"It's tough enough to keep out-of-towners off the Strip and away from downtown. To come to a local place is pretty special. That's compliment enough for us, and we cater to them the best we can."

Thompson has heard regular speculation that the move was spearheaded by a faction of irate coaches who had tired of UNLV's supposed edge in playing tournament games on its own court.

The Rebels have participated in two of the three Mountain West tournaments on its own floor, advancing to the title game both times and forging a 5-1 record.

"From a personal standpoint, I think this is the best place to have it," Spoonhour said. "But I can understand other coaches' feelings. And I'm encouraged by the interest that's been shown in Denver, from a conference standpoint."

Utah coach Rick Majerus favored keeping it in Las Vegas, if it could be played on a court at, say, the MGM Grand Garden Arena. Michael Jordan will run a camp at the Mirage this summer, so Majerus knows just about anything is possible here.

The venue change, though, was agreed upon by a majority of a joint council -- comprised of an athletic director, a faculty representative and a senior women's administrator from each of the Mountain West's eight member programs -- 19 months ago.

A former version of the Western Athletic Conference had played its tournament at the Mack for the three years before the Mountain West was established, too. So this will be the seventh consecutive season of a hoops tournament at the Mack.

A change, Thompson said, should be refreshing.

The LVCVA's original joint bid, for the Las Vegas Bowl and the basketball tournament, was for three years, with an option for a fourth (this year), and the basketball tournament was put out for bid in 2001.

Officials from The Pit in Albuquerque, the Delta Center in Salt Lake City, Cox Arena in San Diego, Pepsi Center and the Mack expressed interest. The joint council picked the Pepsi Center and recommended exercising the option to keep the tournament at the Mack this season.

"They looked at all the bids and did all the due diligence," Thompson said.

There are no escape clauses in the league's three-year deal with the 19,099-seat Pepsi Center, whose rental cost, Thompson said, is less than the $150,000 that the Mountain West paid for use of the 18,500-seat Thomas & Mack Center.

However, the Pepsi Center will also earn a percentage from ticket sales.

"That's a good initiative for Pepsi Center to work hard, too," Thompson said. "The more tickets that are sold, the more they make."

Dan Butterly, a Mountain West assistant commissioner in charge of marketing, recently told Spoonhour that there has been a "huge interest" for tickets to the event in Denver.

"That's one thing that concerned me, how we'd be received in Denver," Spoonhour said. "Dan is optimistic that there will be big crowds, that Denver will really welcome our tournament with open arms."

For Wyoming fans, it's only a two-hour drive, over to Cheyenne on I-80 and then down I-25 to Denver. But it won't be the same, even with more than 10,000 alumni living in the Denver area.

John Stark, director of The Cowboy Joe Club, a non-profit organization with a member base of more than 3,000 that serves as the main fund-raising arm for Wyoming athletics, was torn Monday.

Denver is closer, but it's hardly Las Vegas.

"It's the funniest thing to watch, when Wyoming plays at the Thomas & Mack Center," Stark said. "Watch the beer vendors, the business they do. Unfortunately, if we get bounced from the tournament, those beer vendors are very bored when BYU and Utah play.

"Oh well, BYU is probably happy to see it moved to somewhere less sinful."

If Thompson wanted controversy, he just got it.

"It's the all-time experiment," Thompson said. "If it works, we'll have no reason or impetus to change. If it doesn't work, we'll open it back up for bid. And the Thomas & Mack Center has proven to be a successful destination.

"Put it this way. I have no doubt in my mind that sometime in the future we will be back at the Thomas and Mack. It's not a gone-forever deal by any stretch."

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