Las Vegas is a sports lovers dream. You can see almost every game being played by heading to a sports book. We’ve got great programming for sports talk radio, including an affiliate that broadcasts in Spanish.

But the majority of the attention is directed toward the national sports scene. With the betting angle and the lack of a professional team, this makes some sense. However, there are plenty of exciting things happening locally.

Most notably, it looks like Mike Sanford has finally turned the corner with the UNLV football program. The team looked strong last year, beating Utah State in the home opener, putting a 27-0 beat down on Utah and dropping close games to Wisconsin and UNR, but it was unable to keep any momentum going and ended the season with only two wins.

The Rebels already have three victories this year, including an amazing comeback victory over the Arizona State Sun Devils in Tempe. If Sanford is able to keep the team focused, the Rebels have an outside chance of playing in a bowl game at the end of the season.

That is good news for Rebel fans for a number of reasons, the most obvious being a chance to see their team play without having to sign up for an expensive cable package or head to the bar to watch the team. For some reason, none of the local affiliates air Rebel football games. The games are on the Mountain Network, which is included with the expanded digital cable package and available on satellite networks, but nothing local.

A local fan base should never be forced to such extremes to see their team play. I’ve lived in a number of podunk towns in Arizona and New Mexico, and I’ve always been able to see New Mexico, New Mexico State, Arizona and Arizona State games on local television stations. Outside of Arizona State, none of those teams are touted any higher than the Rebels, and yet they had deals to broadcast their games throughout the state.

I don’t know for sure, but I suspect that there is some language in the contract with the Mountain Network that prevents such a deal. I certainly hope that is the case, because it is inexcusable for the local channels to air reruns of syndicated sitcoms or programs like Cops when the Rebels are on the gridiron, no matter how they are playing. It is worse now that the Rebels look to have finally found their identity.

The Rebels’ success isn’t the only thing to get excited about. The Las Vegas 51s announced a new affiliation for the upcoming season. The relationship with the Dodgers has ended, and the team will now develop talent for the Toronto Blue Jays. It’s probably not good news for the local Dodgers faithful, but it is better than the alternative of having no baseball team whatsoever.

There is also news that plans for the Harrah’s-AEG arena might be changing, and that a group of investors including some Hollywood bigwigs might now be joining the project. Harrah’s may still provide the land, but reports indicate the company will not be a financial partner in the project.
 
Some believe this improves the city’s chance of landing an NHL team when the arena is completed. The thinking is that the NHL feared that competition between the major players on the Strip would keep companies like MGM Mirage, Las Vegas Sands and Wynn Resorts from supporting the franchise by buying advertising space and purchasing luxury boxes. While the city’s success with boxing events clearly shows that that is not the case, anything that gets league officials more interested in locating a franchise in Las Vegas is a good thing.

Lastly, speaking of hockey and good things, the Wranglers are getting ready to launch a new season. The team is a perennial powerhouse in the ECHL and looks to be poised for another good season.

The team finally got out of the first round of the playoffs last year after a couple of disappointing playoff runs in the years before, but the bid to hoist the Kelly Cup fell short by just two games. The Wranglers lost to Cincinnati 4-2 in the championship series, ending a strong playoff run and capping an otherwise excellent season.

Some people say that Las Vegas is not a “major league city.” They are correct in the fact that we don’t yet have a professional franchise, but in all honesty, the teams that we have are considerably better than the franchises and teams in some of the “major league cities” like Milwaukee or Seattle.

By Greg Jones

Greg Jones is managing editor of Casino Connection Nevada, as well as associate editor of Global Gaming Business magazine.

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