Gladiators are feeling a little bigger in their smaller arena

Saturday, April 7, 2007 | 7:20 a.m.

Who: Las Vegas Gladiators vs. Kansas City Brigade

When: 3 p.m. Sunday

Where: Orleans Arena

Tickets: $15-$80; 284-7777, www.orleansarena.com

Sam Jankovich surveyed the crowd, announced at 6,593, for the Las Vegas Gladiators' home opener at the Orleans Arena on March 18 and pronounced it a good starting point.

After all, the Gladiators' general manager reasoned, the game was going up against the NCAA men's basketball tournament and had been competing with the NBA All-Star game, NASCAR weekend at Las Vegas Motor Speedway and the Mountain West Conference for the attention - and discretionary income - of the ticket-buying public.

After a road game, the local Arena Football League team again returned home to an even smaller crowd. Only 5,416 turned out Sunday to watch the Gladiators drop a 57-47 heartbreaker to division rival Utah and slip to 1-4 on the season.

Although the team's performance on the field gave Jankovich reason for hope, he clearly was not satisfied that the organization was playing to a half-empty arena.

"I would say it was a disappointment, yes," he said of Sunday's crowd.

The Gladiators made the move from the 18,000-seat Thomas & Mack Center to the more intimate Orleans Arena this season after playing to mostly empty seats at the Thomas & Mack for four years. The thought behind the move was that the team could create a buzz in the community by playing to sellout crowds at the Orleans Arena.

"All in all, I think we made the right move coming to this arena," Jankovich said. "I think the overall management of it is very good. This team is going to continue to get better and better and better ... and we're going to do a better job convincing people that they're going to have a fun time when they come out here."

But no matter how hard his sales and marketing team works, Jankovich said, there is no substitute for winning.

"No one wants to go to a movie unless it's a great movie, and no one wants to go to a restaurant unless it's a great restaurant if they're going to spend big money," he said.

"There are so many different things to do in this town, and you have to make it very entertaining. I don't think there's any question about it that the way we lost the New Orleans game turned some people off. Then we turned around and played very poorly (on the road) against Arizona - and all of those have a negative impact."

The Gladiators face another potential hurdle this weekend as Sunday's home game against Kansas City falls on Easter and is going head-to-head with the inaugural Vegas Grand Prix downtown.

"If we were winning, it would be no problem getting a good turnout," Jankovich said. "The one thing I'm encouraged about is if we do it right and we put together a quality football team, we will draw and we'll have a very successful franchise. And we'll have a franchise that's as good as any. I'm totally convinced of that."