Las Vegas will be the site for 2005 ArenaBowl

Adam Candee

Thursday, Oct. 14, 2004 | 9:21 a.m.

Adam Candee

The Arena Football League is set to award its first neutral-site ArenaBowl to Las Vegas at a Monday news conference at Fashion Show Mall.

The league issued a press release Wednesday promising a "major announcement" at the gathering that will include AFL commissioner David Baker, Las Vegas mayor Oscar Goodman and Las Vegas Gladiators owner Jim Ferraro. Speculation has been strong for two months that the league would bring its premier event to Las Vegas after Baker gave it credence at the league's August board of directors meeting at MGM Grand, when it approved the neutral-site concept.

"Las Vegas is a leading candidate," Baker said at the time.

The ArenaBowl, which is the championship game of the AFL, has been played at the arena of the participating team with the best record for its first 18 years. That left league officials scrambling to get in place with only a week's notice to coordinate the title game.

Baker wants to turn the ArenaBowl into a weeklong celebration for the league, much like the National Football League does with the Super Bowl. By determining the location of the game in advance, NBC gets plenty of time to coordinate its TV broadcast of the game and corporate sponsors can plan for an outing to Las Vegas in June.

The move also allows the league to work on attracting higher quality entertainment for the festivities. Fans can plan trips to the big game as well.

The game will likely be played at the Thomas & Mack Center, where the Gladiators play their home games. In its arena football configuration, the stadium holds about 17,000 people, but the Gladiators usually draw between 6,000 and 9,000 fans per game with much of the upper deck curtained off. Some sight lines in the building are obstructed in the upper deck.

Other leading contenders to host the game were: Phoenix; Tampa Bay; New Orleans; and Orlando.