Big League Weekend alive

Steve Guiremand

Tuesday, May 25, 1999 | 10:23 a.m.

Don't shovel any dirt on Big League Weekend just yet.

Despite the fact the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority voted to eliminate its $500,000 in financial support last week as part of a $5 million cutback in event sponsorships, Las Vegas Stars general manager Don Logan is hopeful a solution can be worked out to keep the popular event in place.

"You know it's a great event, we know it's a great event," Logan said. "Hopefully we can work something out."

The loss of the $500,000 was a huge loss for Logan and company, who used a major portion of the LVCVA's money as guarantees to bring in teams like the Chicago Cubs, Seattle Mariners and Cleveland Indians in recent years.

Logan declined to say how much each team gets as a guarantee.

"It varies," he said. "But it ain't cheap to get prominent clubs. The (Arizona) Diamondbacks are doing it (hosting spring training games) now. New Orleans is doing it. Those people have 50,000 seats in their stadiums, so they can afford to offer teams a lot more to play than we can."

Logan is scheduled to meet with Rossi Ralenkotter, the vice president of marketing for the LVCVA, in the next week or two to try to come up with a formula to keep Las Vegas competitive in bidding for teams to play in Big League Weekend.

"Right now I'm optimistic that something can be worked out," Logan said. "But people should be concerned."

"At this point in time, there is no money in our budget to sponsor Big League Weekend again," Ralenkotter said. "But we're hoping we can find a way that the LVCVA can help without a sponsorship."

That includes the LVCVA helping out in obtaining a new sponsor for Big League Weekend and helping to negotiate a possible television deal for the games.

"We'll sit down and evaluate the whole situation," Ralenkotter said. "At that time we'll determine of what assistance the LVCVA can be."

Big League Weekend began in 1993 as a way to spark local interest in pro baseball after a long college basketball season.

Logan began inviting multiple major league teams to town for multiple games. One of the games in '93 between the Chicago Cubs and White Sox drew a standing room crowd of more than 15,000 fans to Cashman Field.

Logan believes Big League Weekend is a win-win situation for the city of Las Vegas as well as the Stars.

He estimated that more than 3,000 fans from out of town attended this year's Big League Weekend, which featured the Cubs and Seattle Mariners and sluggers Sammy Sosa and Ken Griffey Jr.