UNLV Basketball/Football and VGK Hockey: Polar Opposites in Attendance in Las Vegas
By ALAN SNEL
LVSportsBiz.com
LVSportsBiz.com photos by J. Tyge O’Donnell
A few UNLV basketball games ago, Marvin Menzies put it best about Las Vegas. To draw big crowds, your team has to be a winner. The city loves a winner, UNLV’s basketball coach said after a recent win over UC Riverside.
The UNLV stats page for Runnin’ Rebels basketball games says attendance approaches 8,000 for home games at Thomas and Mack Center. But perhaps that’s tickets distributed because it doesn’t look like that’s the actual number of butts in the red TMC seats. The number of folks in the building looks like it’s closer to the 4,000-5,000 range.
Just look at Friday night’s crowd for UNLV-Southern Utah. The open red seats in the lower bowl are striking.
And here’s the wider view of the arena.
One night after the Rebel hoopsters defeated Southern Utah, 76-71, at TMC, 18,252 VGK faithful packed T-Mobile Arena two miles west of the UNLV campus on Hockey Fights Cancer night. The Vegas Golden Knights defeated the San Jose Sharks Saturday night, 6-0, which means more free Krispy Kreme donuts for attendees (a dozen per fan).
After 11 home dates, the Golden Knights are averaging 18,283 fan a game — or 105.3 percent of capacity at T-Mobile Arena, which holds 17,367 at capacity. The VGK’s 105.3 percent of capacity is third highest in the NHL, behind Chicago and Minnesota.
On Saturday night, LVSportsBiz.com caught up with Fleury, who pitched career shutout number 53, at his locker after the game. The man known as Flower feels bad that Krispy Kreme has to give away dozens of donuts because of his handiwork in the net for VGK. Here’s some background on Krispy Kreme.
Fleury posted two straight shutouts over San Jose Saturday and Calgary Friday — which meant a run on free dozens of Krispy Kreme doughnuts for VGK fans who attended either one of the games. LVSportsBiz.com met a fan who went to a Krispy Kreme outlet where they had run out. But he received a rain check good for a year.
On Saturday, the Golden Knights went head-to-head with the UNLV football game at Sam Boyd Stadium, where the Rebels delivered a major upset over Nevada-Reno, defeating the Wolf Pack. 34-29, to claim the cannon. UNLV finished 4-8 on a season that also saw the Rebels defeat bowl-bound San Diego State in another stunner. On Monday, UNLV students will paint the cannon red at 11 a.m. outside the student union.
Tyge O’Donnell of LVSportsBiz.com was on the scene at Sam Boyd Stadium to document UNLV’s big upset.
A generation ago, the UNLV basketball team was the gold standard for sports in Las Vegas, which celebrated a national championship in hoops more than a quarter-century ago. But the hoops program hit rock bottom two seasons ago with a mere 11 wins and attendance now routinely falls below 10,000 these days in an arena that can hold 18,000 basketball fans.
The timing could not have been worse for UNLV basketball and football because the Las Vegas market is surging with VGK-mania and the launch of new pro sports teams in Las Vegas such as the WNBA Aces and United Soccer League’s Lights.
The Golden Knights highlighted Saturday’s game with Hockey Fights Cancer lavender jerseys. LVSportsBiz.com also interviewed several fans before the game about their personal battles with cancer, too.
Check out those LVSportsBiz.com reports here and here.
We also caught up with VGK defenseman Colin Miller, who scored his second goal in two days Saturday.
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