By ALAN SNEL
LVSportsBiz.com
It’s that special time of year in Las Vegas. Late August, 100 degrees and the Las Vegas Bowl is having its annual luncheon at Hard Rock hotel-casino to implore local sports industry leaders to buy a bunch of tickets for the ESPN-owned college bowl game at Sam Boyd Stadium in December.
Technically speaking, it’s the Mitsubishi Motors Las Vegas Bowl and Jeff Holland, the car maker’s PR director for North America, said the Japan-headquartered car brand looked at several bowl games and picked Las Vegas for the city’s national appeal.
Mitsubishi typically doesn’t sponsor college football, but the car maker plans to bring in 600 car dealers, customers and workers for a meeting on the Friday before the Dec. 15 game that has a 12:30 p.m. local start.
Holland said Mitsubishi is already getting TV exposure on ESPN and plans car dealer sweepstakes contests across the country to create a buzz before the bowl game. Mitsubishi has 360 dealers in the U.S.
Mitsubishi is still working on various title sponsor activations, but the car company will be showcasing an electric SUV model that will power a blender and TV in a fun in-game tailgate display on the field at Sam Boyd Stadium.
John Saccenti, the Las Vegas Bowl executive director, said Mitsubishi has the title sponsorship for 2018 and 2019 and has an exclusive negotiating time period after the 2019 game to continue the partnership.
But Saccenti said Mitsubishi could not agree now to anything beyond the 2019 game because there are “too many unknowns” like the bowl game’s conference affiliations and the cost of staging the bowl game at the new Raiders stadium in 2020.
LVSportsBiz.com caught up with Saccenti for an interview before the lunch began.
The Las Vegas Bowl pits the best team of the Mountain West Conference against a team from the Pac 12.
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