Mountain West Conference Renews For Two More Years To Hold Hoops Tourney At Thomas & Mack Center Through 2024
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By Alan Snel, LVSportsBiz.com Publisher/Writer
Las Vegas, Nevada — Mountain West Conference Commissioner Gloria Nevarez said Thursday the conference has renewed its basketball tournament deal with the Thomas & Mack Center on the UNLV campus for two more years through 2024.
The Mountain West stages its men’s and women’s tourneys at the home arena of the UNLV Runnin’ Rebels by “neutralizing” the venue by using its own mountain-theme court and covering all UNLV logos and branding.
On Wednesday evening, the UNLV women won their second straight Mountain West title and automatic berth to the NCAA basketball tournament.
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The Mountain West Conference plans on hiring a branding and marketing company to take a “fresh, new look” at how the conference is branding its college sports product and selling its games and events, said Javan Hedlund, associate commissioner of external communications strategy.
The conference isn’t necessarily committed to launching any new marketing campaign, per se, Hedlund told LVSportsBiz.com during Wednesday’s session of the Mountain West Conference tournament at Thomas & Mack Center in Las Vegas.
But the branding company will analyze the Mountain West “brand” and offer comments on possible marketing approaches or even suggest the conference not change its marketing strategy, Hedlund said.
“They’re going to evaluate the Mountain West brand,” Hedlund said.
New Mountain West Commissioner Gloria Nevarez said the company will look at basic questions like “Who we are?” and if there’s need to update the conference creative art for its brand then there will be an update. But if there’s no need to update the brand message, the art can stay, she noted.
The conference was started in 1999 and uses “At The Peak” as its slogan.
UNLV is a member of the Mountain West Conference, which hired Nevarez as its new commissioner to replace the conference’s first commissioner, Craig Thompson.
Hedlund discussed several topics:
— For Friday’s four quarterfinals games, he’s expecting attendance to be in the 8,000-10,000 range, with attendance projected to be in the 10,000-12,000 range for Saturday’s semifinals. “It’s not a hard sell for people to come to Vegas,” Hedlund said.
— The top traveling fan bases for the MWC tourney are traditionally New Mexico, Wyoming, San Diego State, Utah State, Nevada and Boise State. “It’s really about pride,” Hedlund said. “You want to make Las Vegas your home court.”
— The Mountain West radio spot advertising the conference hoops tourney focused on appealing to various bans to create their own home courts at Thomas & Mack Center. “It’s really about pride,” Hedlund said. “You want to make Las Vegas your home court.”
— UNLV’s arena is neutralized for the basketball tournament so that the Lady Rebels and Runnin’ Rebels do not have a home court advantage over the other MWC teams. The Mountain West has its own court that has a mountain theme from the Final Four played in Denver in 2012.
— He liked TV conference basketball game broadcasts that offered locker room looks at how San Jose State coach Tim Miles and New Mexico coach Richard Pitino talked to their players.
LVSportsBiz.com will be reporting on the college basketball conference tournaments throughout the week.
