Columnist Ron Kantowski: Source: NFL out in Vegas, but NBA may be in

Tuesday, June 1, 1999 | 10:04 a.m.

Ron Kantowski's notes column appears Tuesday and Thursday. Reach him at ron@lasvegassun.com or 259-4088.

I 've long maintained that the only "Big 4" professional sport that would work here is football, because each game unto itself is a special event, and nobody does special events better than we do.

Mayoral candidate Oscar Goodman apparently felt the same way. He told Sun sports columnist Dean Juipe recently that talks already were under way between city and county government officials, executives from some very prominent Strip resorts and an existing NFL franchise about what it would take to move said franchise to Las Vegas.

According to a high-placed source at one of the resorts to which Goodman referred, that club was the Oakland Raiders.

Alas, the Raiders -- or for that matter, any other NFL team or even a new one -- won't be coming to Las Vegas in the immediate future or even the distant one, unless there's a change in the mindset of the resort moguls.

According to the source, after considerable discussion with Raiders representatives, the casino honchos concluded the logistics and dynamics involved in setting up and maintaining an NFL team aren't consistent with the business strategies of the resort sector.

The economics simply don't work, the source said.

But he said to "keep an eye" on basketball.

The NBA makes more sense to the casino guys because:

A: There already are arenas in town (including a couple with slot machines and blackjack tables) that could be made NBA-ready for less than what it costs to feed Shaquille O'Neal and,

B: With the NBA you get about 50 dates per year. With the NFL, you get only 10.

The source said the resort chiefs view pro sports the same way they do an exploding volcano, a pirate battle or an upscale shopping mall. It's just another way to entice people to enter the building, where the resorts have more ways to get into your wallet than Paul Simon does to leave his lover.

Plus, there's already an NBA interest in Las Vegas, what with the Maloof family recently having taken the reins of the Sacramento Kings. The Maloofs, who formerly owned the NBA's Houston Rockets before purchasing the Fiesta hotel-casino, seem totally content with leaving the Kings in Sacramento, where they are wildly popular.

But that doesn't mean another team or even a new one couldn't wind up calling Las Vegas home, according to the aforementioned casino executive.

He even went so far as to use the term "strong likelihood" in regard to the NBA-to-Las Vegas possibility.

* SHE'S GOT MILK: Eleven-year-old Brianne Waitman of Las Vegas is one of 25 students from around the country who have been named "Good Sport" winners by Sports Illustrated for Kids magazine. She is pictured, along with the other 24 winners, in one of those milk mustache ads in the June issue of SI for Kids.

The heading under her picture reads: "Brianne is a volunteer interpreter for sight-impaired and hearing-impaired students at her school (Fremont Middle School). She plays soccer and has won the President's Academic and Fitness Award."

Brianne also will be featured in milk mustache spots airing on Nickelodeon June 12 and 13. She was selected from among 40,000 entries for the award.

* WHAT ARE TEAMMATES FOR? Indy 500 commentator Tom Sneva, who owns a small percentage of the Gold Coast hotel-casino, was trying to point out how teammates help each other on the track by stating that one was "breaking wind" for the other.

He didn't say whether the teammates had ordered the same high-fiber breakfast before heading to the track on Sunday.

What he meant to say -- although given Sneva referred to "skid marks" in a driver's suit during last year's race telecast, you can never be sure -- was that one teammate was running ahead of the other, creating an aerodynamic draft.

* ADD INDY: That whooshing sound you heard as the cars came down for the white flag Sunday wasn't the fuel tank in Robby Gordon's fuel tank going dry, but a big sigh of relief from Indy Racing League founder Tony George.

George hatched the IRL four years ago as a low-cost alternative to the established Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART) series, whose cars are no longer legal at the venerable Brickyard. The first three 500s since the bitter split were won by Buddy Lazier, Arie Luyendyk and Eddie Cheever, each of whom had either never won in CART or been replaced as a full-time driver.

Gordon became the first CART regular to cross party lines when he ran in this year's 500 in a car entered by John Menard, the only team owner who competes in both series. Gordon had logged a grand total of 11 laps in the IRL car (and those included his four qualifying laps) prior to Sunday but appeared on the verge of winning the 500 before he ran out of fuel.

Had Gordon won, it would have been a public relations disaster for the credibility-challenged IRL.

* PARTING SHOT: Steve Spurrier, Florida football coach, telling Gator fans that a fire at Auburn's football dormitory had destroyed 20 books: "But the real tragedy was that 15 hadn't been colored yet."