Fans of Top-Ranked Gonzaga Bulldogs Travel to Vegas for Game Tickets They Can’t Buy Back Home in Washington
By ALAN SNEL
LVSportsBiz.com
LVSportsBiz.com photos by J. Tyge O’Donnell
Tickets to watch the nation’s top-ranked Gonzaga Bulldogs are precious and hard to come by back in Spokane, Washington, which is why Zags Nation can come and visit Las Vegas for the WCC tournament in early March, score some nice two-rows-back, off-the-court seats for $75 a pop and take over the Orleans Arena like it’s a home game.
ESPN and its well-worn roundball commentator Dick Vitale were in the house courtside to call the game for the four-letter sports and entertainment network, and the Zags cruised by an eighth-seeded and undermanned Pepperdine squad, 100-74.
The 6,000-seat McCarthey Athletic Center, Gonzaga’s home court, is actually smaller than Orleans Arena, which can offer seats for Zags fans who are shut out from seeing Gonzaga games in person. They make the pilgrimage, young and old from eastern Washington, to the Orleans casino-hotel on Tropicana Avenue, about two miles west of the Strip. Veteran Gonzaga coach Mark Few has made a few visits to Las Vegas for the WCC tourney over the years.
LVSportsBiz.com sat with two recent Gonzaga graduates — Zack Brown and Landon Kissinger — who said 800 to 1,200 tickets are doled out to students at the Spokane campus. Brown, Gonzaga class of 2016 with a masters degree from there in 2018, said fans follow the Zags to Las Vegas because “there’s more access to get tickets.”
Brown said students will wait five or six hours on line for home game tickets. And other times, the student fan club called the “Kennel Club” will tweet out a ticket distribution location on campus and students will literally dash across the university grounds to get the tickets for games when Gonzaga plays rivals like St. Mary’s.
The Gonzaga basketball tickets are uploaded to the students’ ID cards, and cannot be transferred or sold to other fans, Kissinger said.
After the blowout win over Pepperdine, LVSportsBiz.com asked Few about the power of the Gonzaga brand, which appeal across the globe given the international backgrounds of past and current Bulldogs players.
The West Coast Conference receives a $300,000 subsidy from Las Vegas Events, the events arm of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA), to come to Las Vegas to stage its tournament. The WCC is in the final year of its contract with Las Vegas and is negotiating to renew the deal.
Gonzaga will play an old nemesis in the WCC tourney final after St. Mary’s defeated San Diego to also reach the final Tuesday. Both Gonzaga and St. Mary’s enjoyed double byes to reach the semifinals and will renew their rivalry at 6 p.m. tomorrow at Orleans Arena. Gonzaga has reached the WCC final in all 20 of Few’s seasons — a remarkable achievement. Gonzaga has won all those WCC tourney titles, except for two years against San Diego and two years against St. Mary’s.
Enjoy some more of LVSB photographer Tyge O’Donnell’s work.
