Columnist Dean Juipe: Teams keep Las Vegas hopes alive

Dean Juipe

Tuesday, April 20, 1999 | 12:05 p.m.

Dean Juipe's column appears Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. His boxing notebook appears Thursday. Reach him at juipe@lasvegassun.com or 259-4084.

The dreamers just can't believe it.

They see Las Vegas and the steady influx of thousands of new residents every week, year after year, and the dollar signs cloud their view.

More people, they surmise, means more potential ticket buyers at local sporting events. So the overzealous, and those still in disbelief of the city's track record with sports teams, target Las Vegas as an expansion site for some second- or third-rate league that's either just getting off the ground or has a purely regional flavor.

One by one the leagues step forward and announce plans to place a team in Las Vegas. And as quickly as the advance notices arrive, the skeptical-yet-realistic media is right there to ridicule whatever new proposal is on the drawing board that particular day.

It's not that this isn't a great sports town. It is, and the city's sports books prove it.

But there's a big difference between following pro or college sports, and perhaps having an interest in betting on the games, versus caring a whit about some minor-league team or going to its games on a regular basis. However basic that reality is, outsiders in particular have a difficult time coming to grips with it.

What they don't realize is that as much as Las Vegans enjoy the high-profile sports they can devour on TV, they all but detest the lower-level ones that are deservedly anonymous.

And all these incoming Las Vegas newcomers must feel the same, because, despite their ever-growing number, they're not spending the dough it takes to keep these woebegone franchises that pass through town afloat.

Over the weekend the Las Vegas Thunder took its place in the city's sports-franchise graveyard, giving the International Hockey League team a fresh plot alongside the World Basketball League, the Arena Football League, the Continental Indoor Soccer League, Roller Hockey International, the Canadian Football League and the Professional Spring Football League. Each of those leagues launched teams -- and later watched them succumb -- in Las Vegas just this decade.

Nonetheless, upstart leagues keep coming back for more. And aside from the obvious -- that Las Vegas is an attractive city and a nice destination -- there simply isn't any rationale for it.

One league, RHI, is so lost it is coming back this summer for a second try at Las Vegas. The only explanation is that its league office has a collective IQ problem.

Also eyeing Las Vegas is the International Basketball League, the West Coast Hockey League and the Professional Indoor Football League. The IBL says it is committed to placing a team here despite the fact no local ownership can be found; the WCHL says it will be here by the fall of 2000 to offer its curious brand of roughhouse hockey; and the PIFL maintains an office in Las Vegas despite the fact it may only be for appearance's sake.

Other promissory leagues seem to be waiting in the wings, looking for something that just isn't here -- like interest in their product.

The time has long passed for having any sympathy for those who try and fail with sports franchises in Las Vegas. For anyone paying even a modicum of attention, the evidence is indisputable: If you're financing a sports team in this city, you had better have two shirts because you're surely going to lose one.