Center of contention

Steve Kanigher and Steve Guiremand

Sunday, March 12, 2000 | 8:48 a.m.

The Thomas & Mack Center might as well be called Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde.

The home of the UNLV Rebels basketball and volleyball teams is the nation's highest-grossing university arena in terms of ticket sales. It has never sought financial help from taxpayers or students to balance its budget, and has been used as a model for newer arenas elsewhere. A former arena director called it a "community treasure."

But the facility also has laid off employees this year because of increased competition from resort arenas, battled the Internal Revenue Service and endured a turbulent relationship with the school's athletic department. In a fit of midlife crisis, the 17-year-old arena added a new facade last fall.

Arena director Pat Christenson, who also oversees Sam Boyd Stadium where UNLV plays football, said the key to understanding why the Thomas & Mack operates the way it does is to know its mission. With about 80 full-time and 1,500 part-time workers under his wing, Christenson will spend about $25.2 million to run both facilities this fiscal year.

"My job is to keep the venue in the black and in great shape," he said of the Thomas & Mack. "The decision was made to make this arena self-sufficient, so we had to go get events other than basketball. Since we've opened we've put $15 million back into our facilities. When we opened Thomas & Mack there was no paved parking. There were only half the number of restrooms and concession stands we have now."

Sometimes, however, that mission has been challenged by the UNLV athletic department, which is run separately from the arena and stadium. The facilities will contribute more than $1 million to the university's sports budget this fiscal year. But the athletic department, which rents the arena for its games, has sometimes complained that it should be getting more revenue as well as greater access to the facility.

"There is a balance you have to strike in terms of having the facility available for our teams to practice," UNLV Athletic Director Charles Cavagnaro said. "Particularly nowadays when you have more than men's basketball involved. You also have women's basketball and volleyball."

Different events

Even Cavagnaro conceded that using the arena for events other than UNLV athletics has its advantages for his department.

"There's nothing the matter with a world championship fight going on in here the same weekend a recruit comes in for a visit," he said.

There have been drawbacks for the athletic department, however. Most notable was the time the men's basketball team had to forfeit home court advantage for a 1997 National Invitation Tournament game because the Thomas & Mack was booked for "Pocahontas on Ice." UNLV wound up losing to the University of Arkansas on the road.

It wasn't until the departure of the Las Vegas Thunder hockey team from the Thomas & Mack last year that the arena's icy relationship with men's basketball coach Bill Bayno began to thaw. Once the Thunder left town, Bayno and his squad got far more practice time at the Thomas & Mack instead of having to rely on the relatively cramped North Gym.

"I was the happiest man in Las Vegas," Bayno said of the Thunder's demise. "There's no question that the extra practice time in the Thomas & Mack this season played a big part in our home record.

"Last year we came back from a two-week road trip and had five days of practice and not one of them could be in (Thomas & Mack) except the day of the game. That happened before the SMU and TCU home stand, where we lost both. Not to make excuses or anything, but it makes a difference."

Senior point guard Mark Dickel agreed that there is a big adjustment between practicing in the North Gym and playing at the Thomas & Mack. He said the team practiced so infrequently in the arena in past years that playing at the Thomas & Mack "was like an away game for us."

"Familiarity with the hoop and the court and the surroundings is very important for a shooter," Dickel said. "When you're used to the confines of an arena, it makes it so much easier to go out and shoot. In the past, we never really had that advantage. It made a huge difference this year to practice in here."

Christenson is happy to accommodate Bayno but he also recalled that former coach Jerry Tarkanian never complained about the lack of practice time at the arena.

"When Tark was here that was never an issue," Christenson said. "He liked the intimacy of practicing in the North Gym. But Billy likes to practice here. Still, it's hard for me to turn down $50,000 to $100,000 for an event so that they can practice in here."

The challenge for Christenson has been to keep UNLV athletics happy while maintaining a balanced budget. Christenson understands athletics. He was a former standout wrestler at the University of Wisconsin. But he said he could not balance the budget if the arena was simply turned over to university functions. The evidence is in the numbers.

Last year the university used the Thomas & Mack for events such as sports and graduation ceremonies that spanned 28 days and produced a total attendance of 215,400. But other activities such as concerts and the National Finals Rodeo took up 103 days and were attended by 674,591 people. The rodeo alone produces 10 percent of the arena's revenue and about 175,000 fans.

Whether the Thomas & Mack is being run properly is the subject of an ongoing audit, its first ever by an outside firm. Bob Anderson, the arena's long-time finance director, is retiring this year so it is hoped the audit will benefit his successor.

UNLV Controller Louis Dubois said preliminary audit findings indicated "there was nothing to scream about." But Thomas & Mack officials have had a series of recent setbacks. To wit:

But the arena still can compete when it comes to big events. The trade publication Amusement Business reported that the Nov. 13 Evander Holyfield-Lennox Lewis heavyweight fight, which sold $16.8 million in tickets, and the 10-day National Finals Rodeo, which attracted $6.5 million in gate receipts, gave the Thomas & Mack the second and fifth highest-grossing arena events in the nation last year. The Radio City Christmas Spectacular in New York City was the top grossing event with $54.1 million for 208 shows.

Amusement Business also reported that for uses other than team sports the Thomas & Mack ranked second among arenas by grossing $35.4 million for 51 such events between December 1998 and last Dec. 6, just ahead of the fourth place MGM Grand Garden, which grossed $30.3 million for 27 events. The top grossing arena was Continental Airlines Arena in East Rutherford, N.J., with $43 million for 93 events. The previous year MGM Grand and the Thomas & Mack ranked ninth and 10th respectively.

Big-name acts

Big-name entertainers continue to play at the UNLV arena. The last concert of 1999 featured Elton John and Tina Turner, an event sponsored by Caesars Palace. Singer Mariah Carey will perform there on March 18. But other big-name acts, such as the Rolling Stones, Cher, the Eagles and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, have chosen the resorts over the university venue.

"The Thomas & Mack Center has certain advantages we don't have in terms of capacity," said Mark Prows, director of the 17,100-seat MGM arena. "But there's a tremendous cachet with playing the MGM Grand. Our customers have one-stop shopping because they can stay at the hotel and eat at world-class restaurants. We also have very strong relationships with the entertainment world."

Because the resorts are in the business of attracting high-rollers, they can command some of the steepest concert ticket prices in the nation. That can translate to bigger paydays for performers. Christenson, who said his arena caters to local residents, doesn't want to fall into the trap of a bidding war.

"We originally thought we could compete with them for more events," he said of the resorts. "But as a university venue with a bottom line we have to be conservative in booking events in terms of what we can support."

To remain competitive Christenson last year formed ArenaNetwork, which allows the Thomas & Mack and 29 other arenas to market their facilities and acquire information about upcoming shows. Instead of waiting for concert promoters to come to them, the UNLV facility and its partners are going after the shows.

The Thomas & Mack used the network to land both the rock group Creed, which played March 2, and Carey. The arena is now trying to get a touring gymnastics show.

"What we wanted was access to information about the acts and what they were looking for," Christenson said. "We would like to buy national tours but we can't do that until we have more arenas."

The Thomas & Mack wasn't conceived as a special events venue, however. It was built because Tarkanian and the nationally ranked Rebels men's basketball program he coached had outgrown a 6,327-seat Las Vegas Convention Center facility. The Rebels were treated shabbily there because they often played second fiddle to conventions.

The arena opened as the nation's fourth-largest college basketball facility with 18,500 seats. It was named for former Valley Bank of Nevada executives E. Parry Thomas and Jerome D. Mack, who donated $1 million toward construction.

The first event, a Nov. 21, 1983, basketball game between UNLV and the University of Victoria, was followed a month later by official grand opening ceremonies that featured entertainers Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Diana Ross. The Utah Jazz of the National Basketball Association also played there on occasion during the arena's infancy.

The arena quickly became known as the "Shark Tank" after Tarkanian's nickname, Tark the Shark. Tarkanian reportedly did not care who ran the facility as long as his team got first crack.

The Thomas & Mack was supposed to have a permanent basketball court, but those plans were changed after the concrete floor was partially completed. University officials, led by then-arena manager Dennis Finfrock, replaced some concrete rows on both ends of the arena with retractable seats to gain 50 percent more floor space. By combining the retractable seats with a temporary basketball surface, UNLV believed it could also host entertainment such as circuses, rodeos and concerts.

It was a radical departure from the norm because most campus arenas at the time were used primarily for collegiate sports.

"If these changes weren't made and the philosophy was for us to be a single-purpose arena, the financial support it would have taken to make this venue viable would have been incredible," Christenson said. "This decision gave the community a venue that could generate tremendous economic value."

The conversions were made in part because the Board of Regents wanted the building to be self-sufficient financially. The arena and the companion Lawlor Events Center at the University of Nevada, Reno, were financed by a combined $40 million in state-backed construction bonds and $16 million from federal slot tax revenue.

The belief at the time was that the Thomas & Mack needed other events in addition to basketball to make the arena pay for itself. University officials also decided to operate the arena separately from the athletic department, which had been swimming in red ink through years of deficit spending.

Finfrock, who also served as an interim athletic director at UNLV, had no problem with the creation of a separate department for arena operations. Now an executive with the ticketing company used by the Thomas & Mack, he said the arena's flexibility is one of its major selling points where local residents are concerned.

"It's versatile and has something for everyone," Finfrock said. "The main factor that contributes to its success is the community feeling. If you work on the Strip, you don't want to go back to the Strip for entertainment. You want some place that is easy to get to with good parking. It has a clean, safe atmosphere that people feel good about.

"There will always be a place for the Thomas & Mack because of the community treasure effect."

Tarkanian reportedly agreed to play on the road in mid-December after the Thomas & Mack landed the National Finals Rodeo for the first time in 1985. The coach said then that he agreed to the annual two-week hiatus from the arena because he was told the rodeo would be good for Las Vegas economically.

Not everyone was happy with that arrangement, however. UNLV boosters feared that the arena was not making college athletics its priority. The Thomas & Mack consistently operated in the black early on, however. By the late 1980s arena profits were diverted to help upgrade Sam Boyd Stadium.

But by 1995 the arena began experiencing financial pains. Rising costs of labor, power and maintenance were blamed for a $1 increase in the parking fee to $4.

Loss of revenue

The arena also had to lay off 15 employees to balance the loss of revenue from the break-up of the Grateful Dead. The rock band had generated $650,000 in revenue for the university in prior years through annual three-day concerts at the stadium. Another stadium tenant that was lost was the Las Vegas Posse of the Canadian Football League.

But a 1997 UNLV study revealed that the arena and football stadium contributed $1.1 billion to the local economy and added more than 1,700 jobs over the previous 12 years. The study was released just before the Nevada Legislature approved $27 million from slot machine taxes to help fund expansions at the stadium and arena. The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority also kicked in $5 million for improvements, including construction of a second arena tunnel to help the rodeo.

Some of the design concepts used by the Thomas & Mack have been studied by such big schools as Ohio State and Michigan State. The Thomas & Mack was one of six arenas Texas Tech officials visited when they planned their United Spirit Arena, which opened last fall. Texas Tech Athletic Director Gerald Myers came away impressed.

"It's a nice arena, a big arena," Myers said. "It has good design features. We looked at their meeting rooms and liked them a lot."

Whether the same will be said years from now about the planned Cox Pavilion remains to be seen. It has been a struggle just to get the pavilion built.

The facility that will be used for UNLV basketball and volleyball practice when the arena is occupied was initially projected to cost $8 million. But those projections have nearly doubled, with only $5 million available from Cox Communications Inc. The Board of Regents came to the rescue in January by approving a $13.5 million loan for the pavilion and the targeted opening date is in December.

But Bayno is not yet convinced that the pavilion will help his squad.

"It all depends on the shooting background," he said. "If the wall is right behind the basket like at the North Gym, it won't make a lot of difference."

Meantime, there is lingering talk of a possible downtown arena to house professional basketball or hockey, yet another facility that could compete with the Thomas & Mack. Christenson, however, doesn't believe pro sports will be brought to town anytime soon.

"Until I see more I don't see us changing our strategy just because another facility may be built," he said. "I still see us as the neutral site in Las Vegas. When you play the Thomas & Mack you're playing for the city."

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