Madness In Vegas: How Las Vegas Became Hub Of College Basketball Tournaments Every March
By Pat Christenson for LVSportsBiz.com
In 1992, Tucker DiEdwardo happened to be camped out at then UNLV Soccer Coach Barry Barto’s house perusing the Vegas event landscape. DiEdwardo coached the Youngstown State swimming team, then joined the NCAA before becoming Commissioner of the Midwestern Collegiate Conference (at one time made up of schools such as Butler, Dayton, Loyola, St. Louis, and Xavier). He spent five years as President of the Indianapolis Sports Corporation and then tried something completely different – bar owner and operator. That lasted a year before he looked west.
Coincidentally, Las Vegas Events was looking for a president to replace its first, Herb McDonald. A letter from then Chair Jon Porter took a couple of weeks to make its way from Indiana back to Vegas. In a short time, Tucker was in front of the LVE board who offered him the job.
LVE was formed in 1983, as a private/non-profit organization charged with securing events on lower occupied weekends. Its first President, Herb McDonald, had done his job. He coordinated the effort to bring the NFR to Las Vegas. But the LVE board was looking for someone to expand the event calendar. Tucker did not waste any time, turning to good friend Karl Benson who had just become the Commissioner of the newly formed sixteen team Western Athletic Conference (WAC). He made him an offer they could not refuse.
The bid process required a presentation. Tucker dragged me and then interim President Kenny Guinn along. His presentation included a video to the song “The Future’s So Bright I Gotta Where Shades.” It was an upbeat presentation, but the offer stole the show…a $1M guarantee each for the football and basketball championships in Las Vegas. Slam Dunk!
How Tucker would get the ball in the basket and across the goal line was questioned by many, including me. It would require selling 15,000 season tickets for basketball and 35,000 tickets for the Football Championship game (Sam Boyd Stadium capacity in 1998 was only 30,000).
What the college world would discover in 1998 was Las Vegas was THE destination for championship events. In 1998 and 1999, 10,000 seats were added to Sam Boyd Stadium. Both years games sold out.
Basketball averaged more than 15,000 season tickets per year. UNLV contributed to the basketball’s tournament winning it in its first year. I still remember Mark Dickel, Tyrone Nesby, Keon Clark and Kaspars Kambala standing on the scorers table after cutting down the nets.
In 2000, the biggest schools from the WAC pulled away forming the Mountain West Conference (MWC). Vegas has hosted their tournament at the Thomas & Mack Center for 17 years.
In 2010, Las Vegas lured the Pac-12 Basketball Tournament away from Los Angeles. Now in its ninth year and currently played in T-Mobile Arena, it averages more than 15,000 seats per session.
The West Coast Conference (WCC) made its way to Vegas in 2011 playing in the 7,000-seat Orleans Arena. The WAC followed in 2011, also playing at the Orleans Arena.
