Columnist Dean Juipe: City still apathetic toward IBL

Dean Juipe

Wednesday, April 12, 2000 | 10:01 a.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 setting was such that the ushers could offer personalized service.

Need escorting to your seat? "Right this way."

Maybe a hot dog to go with that cola? "I'll be happy to get that for you."

Perhaps a pillow to sit on? "Let me see what we have."

Yes, there are advantages to attending a sporting event that fails to attract much of a crowd. And Tuesday night at the Thomas & Mack Center, by actual count at the tipoff there were precisely 188 spectators on hand to see the Las Vegas Silver Bandits and the New Mexico Slam renew what is becoming a cozy rivalry.

It was a game that meant nothing in the standings and almost nothing to the vast majority of Las Vegans, most of whom look upon the International Basketball League as little more than a nondescript ship passing in the night.

That reality hasn't escaped the Silver Bandits or some of their employees, and more than one expressed dismay about the team's future.

But wasn't this team just "sold" a couple of weeks ago to a Las Vegas-based ownership group headed by a couple of ex-UNLV Rebels? Wasn't that supposed to provide an infusion of interest in the team and the league, both of which have debuted this season to widespread nonchalance?

Well, based on a few findings and some guesswork, it's possible there was a "catch" in that transaction. It's not unrealistic to believe not a single dollar changed hands as the league turned the team over to a group headed by Jackie Robinson.

"I wouldn't be surprised if that's exactly how it went down," one insider said, when asked if it's possible the IBL gave Robinson the team with only a few strings attached. If the franchise somehow succeeds, the deal will be reviewed; if it fails, no one from the incoming group will lose any money.

And as for the 10 percent "purchased" by the Las Vegas Review-Journal, R-J general manager Allan Fleming all but admitted the paper didn't have to reach for its wallet. "It's a trade," he said, with the R-J (and Sun, as its unwitting business partner in this deal) providing free ads to the team in exchange for tickets or other acts of goodwill. "I'd rather not get into the finances (but) the trade is really part of how we purchased the team."

And you thought the team was paying for all those promotional ads that appear in both papers, sometimes as often as three times in a single edition.

On the bright side, the wife of a former casino mogul likes the Silver Bandits and she may already be involved with the new ownership group.

That group, by the way, gets a pat on the back from Doug Sanderson, who labored on behalf of the IBL through most of 1999 looking for someone to buy the franchise. He wasn't successful and eventually relinquished the task, but he said Tuesday that Robinson's group "fits the biography of the kind of ownership that's needed. He knows the team is a long shot, but if it succeeds it will be a nice toy for him."

Right now, however, he's playing with that toy in virtual solitude. He has some competent, friendly people working for him and the Silver Bandits aren't a bad product, but the real question is the same as when the season began: Does anyone care?