By Alan Snel
LVSportsBiz.com
LVSportsBiz.com photos by J. Tyge O’Donnell
Not only did the Las Vegas Aces and Las Vegas Aviators go head-to-head Thursday night in a battle for the sports fan dollar, but both teams staged dueling beer promotions.
The WNBA Aces debuted Dollar LaimBEER Night Thursday when the Washington Mystics came to Mandalay Bay Events Center on the Strip, while the Aviators hosted Sacramento and held their usual Thursday beer special of $2 beer night at their Summerlin ballpark where the Triple A baseball team is known to sell 6,000 cans of Dos Equis in two hours from 6-8 p.m.
The Aces held the LaimBEER Night as part of a “Throwback Thursday” promotion that drew an announced attendance of 4,416. The Aviators were sold out — a common sight at their brand-new ballpark. It was the Aviators 26th sellout of the season as the team drew an announced crowd of 10,089 fans Thursday evening.
An Aces game beer pourer said before tonight’s basketball game the 12-ounce plastic cups had ribbing on the side that was causing lots of foam when filling the cup. But they were working around that.
Not to be outdone, the Las Vegas Lights FC soccer team passed on having beer specials and instead has $2 tequila shots at all home games at Cashman Field in downtown. (The Aviators used to be known as the 51s, which held Dollar Beer Night on Thursdays at Cashman.)
Meanwhile, UNLV is using fan bait of solid food instead of beer or booze to lure people to buy football tickets. The Rebels have an “Eat All You Can” option for groups of 20 or more that began in 2018. The deal includes unlimited hot dogs, nachos, popcorn, and soda from select stands during UNLV football games, with group ticket prices for “Eat All You Can” starting as low as $19, depending on the game.
The Aces played poorly Thursday and lost to the Washington Mystics, 95-72. The MGM Resorts International-owned Aces fell to 4-4. They play the Dallas Wings at home Saturday. Meanwhile, the Aviators bested the Sacramento River Cats, 11-10, as the Howard Hughes Corp.-owned minor league team is 41-32 for the season in the Pacific Coast League.
In his postgame comments, Laimbeer was disappointed in his team’s play saying it was an experienced team wiping out an inexperienced team. “Well, what we saw tonight was an experienced basketball team kick the crap out of an inexperienced basketball team. I thought that Washington played very well. They understood this was a big game. You know, if we’re going to make the playoffs, this is going to be a team that we are competing with. They came into our building and just beat us up left and right, they played very well. And we didn’t. Little disappointing…”
Watch our post-game wrap-up here:
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