Ron Kantowski on why UNLV’s new multimillion-dollar sports marketing deal rates more than ‘Miscellaneous’

Friday, Aug. 24, 2007 | 7:42 a.m.

A look at International Sports Properties Inc., UNLV's new athletic multimedia rights, corporate sales and sponsorship development partner:

Headquarters: Winston - Salem, N.C.

Established: 1992

What it does: Comprehensive multimedia sports marketing (including sales development, radio and TV broadcast production and syndication, facility sponsorships, at-event promotional and signage opportunities and corporate entertainment packages), event management and sports marketing consultation and promotional support services.

Claim to fame: The country's largest and fastest growing multimedia rights holder, ISP Sports serves as an active partner with more than 40 leading universities, four major conferences and two postseason bowl games.

Partner schools: Akron, Alabama, Auburn, Baylor, Boston College, Brigham Young, Cal, Central Florida, Cincinnati, Clemson, East Carolina, Florida State, Georgia, Georgia State, Georgia Tech, Houston, Kent State, Marshall, Miami (Fla.), Miami (Ohio), Ohio, Pittsburgh, Southern Methodist, South Carolina, Southern Mississippi, Syracuse, Texas Christian, Troy, Tulane, Alabama-Birmingham, UCLA, South Florida, Texas-El Paso, Vanderbilt, Villanova, Virginia Tech, Wake Forest and Washington.

Conference partners: ACC, Big East, Conference USA, Mid-American and Sun Belt.

Bowl partners: FedEx Orange Bowl and Meineke Car Care Bowl .

It had nothing to do with rogue referees, dog fighting and whatever underqualified redshirt freshman is going to wind up playing quarterback for the football team this fall. So that probably explains why UNLV's new $32million deal with an outside marketing firm was greeted with the kind of indifference normally associated with Kansas City Royals manager Buddy Bell changing his pitching rotation.

We're talking two paragraphs. In the briefs on Page 10C. Under the heading of "Miscellaneous." Which surely had to miff those responsible for putting this deal together with International Sports Properties Inc. of Winston-Salem, N.C.

Thirty-two million to UNLV over 10 years? Miscellaneous?

I must have been vacationing in the Wisconsin Dells when UNLV joined the Rockefeller Conference.

But first, let's clear something up. Although $32 million over the next decade would pay a lot of the bills the football team runs up, it's not $32 million in addition to what the Thomas & Mack Center already is generating. Not even close.

Last year, Daren Libonati, who runs the Thomas & Mack and Sam Boyd Stadium for UNLV, wrote a check for $2,157,476 that helped the athletic department balance its books.

In fact, according to budget numbers the Sun has obtained, "TMC Transfer," as it is listed on the ledger, represents 9.48percent of UNLV's entire athletic budget.

Multiply that $2.1 million over 10 years, and you come up with $21 million and a lot of change. There also are some revenue streams associated with the Thomas & Mack that run below the surface that, although not adding up to $32million, would have resulted in a king-size chunk of green for the athletic department - even had it kept its corporate sales and sponsorship development in house.

So how much will this deal with ISP mean in actual money?

"You're probably talking hundreds of thousands a year," said Rhett Vertrees, UNLV's associate vice president of finance.

"But less than a million?" I said.

"Less than a million," Vertrees said.

Oh.

Maybe somebody should have said that in the news release.

That said, this new deal is still more significant than who Buddy Bell is going to try as his No. 5 starter, and, more than those hundreds of thousands of newfound dollars, it's significant because of one word:

Guaranteed.

It seems we've been crying wolf about this new arena since Paul Splittorff was throwing strikes for Whitey Herzog . But if the Oscar B. Goodman Athletic and Convocation Center and Gin Joint does get built, it's surely going to vie for the prizefights and the rock concerts and the horse jumping shows and the bar mitzvahs and all the other events the Thomas & Mack hosts to supplement UNLV's athletic budget. And woo a lot of them away.

Without a deal like this, it's hard to imagine how UNLV would offset the loss of revenue a new arena would mean.

"Having that money guaranteed is nice," Vertrees said in this month's candidate for understatement of the year.

Also, having new scoreboards will be nice. As part of the deal, the center will receive a new scoreboard and courtside signage system that will enable Rebels fans to keep abreast of the San Diego State-New Mexico game. It also will provide a way for ISP to recoup the $3.5 million it will spend on the new scoreboard by selling advertising on it.

Although the news release said UNLV is guaranteed "more than $32 million" over the next 10 years, Vertrees said any profit sharing revenue from ISP probably wouldn't materialize for "a number of years."

Still, "all in all, it's good deal," he said, and ISP's reputation - it has more than 40 NCAA partners, including heavyweights such as Alabama, Auburn, Virginia Tech, Florida State and the FedEx Orange Bowl - suggest he's right.

Of course, if you're a satellite TV subscriber still hoping to watch the Rebels play Wyoming in football, you may have your doubts.