No Amount of Marketing and All-You-Can-Eat Nachos Can Replace Winning for UNLV Football

 

By ALAN SNEL
LVSportsBiz.com

 

They’re trying.

 

Before Friday night’s UNLV football game, the athletic department set up the school’s hardwood basketball court outside Sam Boyd Stadium and UNLV’s men’s and women’s basketball teams had fun shooting hoops with a hyper emcee serving as pregame ringmaster.

 

 

 

Las Vegas lawyer Ed Bernstein, in one of his many sports sponsorship deals, participated in a pre-kickoff recognition of military vet and UNLV walk-on defensive back/receiver Darren Palmer. He joined the Rebels through open tryouts after attending the College of Southern Nevada in 2016 and after becoming a civilian. He’s a senior and a terrific story.

 

And let’s not forget UNLV football’s Eat All You Can ticket deal of gorging on all-you-eat nachos, popcorn, hot dogs and soda starting at $90 for a five-game plan.

 

But UNLV’s football program is no novelty act after 41 years and no matter what the athletic department rolls out in way of a fan amenity, or food deal or scoreboard entertainment clip, there’s no replacing just plain winning.

 

The football team may have played a competitive and entertaining first half when it led 21-20. But at the end of the evening, it was Air Force with the W — a 41-35 victory over the football Rebs, which yielded 572 yards to the service academy.

 

Announced attendance was  17,881. But everyone knows the actual number of folks in the stands in Sam Boyd Stadium was lower than that.

 

The team has two wins and five losses and it doesn’t look there will be much momentum when UNLV football calls the new Raiders stadium home starting in 2020.

 

 

 

 

 

No matter the best of intentions in the UNLV sports marketing efforts, there is no marketing like winning (and stopping the opposition from scoring.) UNLV’s porous defense had no answers or Air Force, which entered Friday night’s contest with the same 2-4 record as UNLV’s.

 

“Disappointing loss,” UNLV coach Tony Sanchez said after the game. “Defensively, we struggled.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hopes were high for 2018 after four bowl games and zero times ranked in the AP poll in 41 seasons of UNLV football.

 

But no amount of endless nachos will replace the joy of witnessing a UNLV football victory.

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