Is the Thomas & Mack half empty, or half full?

By Ron Kantowski

Monday, June 23, 2008 | 2 a.m.

If, as Forrest Gump said, life is a like a box of chocolates, then Daren Libonati would be the raspberry truffle on the outside of it.

Outside the box is where the director of UNLV’s Thomas & Mack Center and Sam Boyd Stadium does his best thinking. He’s the Angus MacGyver of the arena business. Had he been on the NASA payroll in 1970, Jim Lovell and his pals on Apollo 13 wouldn’t have had anything to worry about. Wanna fit a square peg into a round hole? Call Libonati.

That’s just what he did this weekend. He took a square peg — a bunch of little-known boxers and mixed martial artists — and a round hole — an empty Thomas & Mack Center — and kept pounding away until they fit together like fingers in a glove, or whatever you call those things that MMA guys wear over their bloody knuckles.

Every seat in the Thomas & Mack Center was spoken for Friday night for a promotion dubbed “A Night of Combat.”

“Free for All” would have been a better name for it, because that’s exactly what it was.

Every ticket was free.

The beer, however, was not.

Half the Mack was empty, because when tickets are free, people are a lot more likely to leave them attached to the refrigerator with a magnet or in a desk drawer. But half the Mack was full, too. The official tally was 8,962, which is just 5,000 fewer spectators than the Tampa Bay Rays drew Friday night, and they’re only a game out of first place.

Libonati says the next time the T&M does something like this, it will “keep the meter running” after it distributes the capacity of the building in freebies.

“It was just that we got to 16,000 so quick,” he said, fearing that if everybody showed up, the fire marshal wouldn’t be happy.

A few weeks ago, Libonati, a boxing guy, and Randy Couture, a mixed martial arts guy, were talking about their favorite sports during another ESPN Friday Night Fights card at Cox Pavilion, and how neat it would be if somebody put together a card that featured both forms of fisticuffs. And, of course, Couture’s wife, Kim.

The main event of the boxing portion of the card had Alonzo “Big Zo” Butler going up against Friday “The 13th” Ahunanya.

The main event of the MMA portion offered John Alessio vs. Pete Spratt. And the professional MMA debut of Kim Couture (who lost, by the way).

On the undercards: “Five other exciting bouts” in boxing and “four additional bouts” in MMA. “Exciting” and “additional” bouts are sort of the fistic equivalent of John Earl and the BoogieMan Band, a local blues act that opened for every former Sun Records recording artist who ever played Las Vegas.

Nothing against the BoogieMan Band, Pete Spratt and boxers named for days of the week, but Libonati knew fight fans weren’t going to drop $250 a ringside seat to watch these guys beat each other up.

So he fell back on the two tenets that have made the Thomas & Mack Center the second-highest grossing sports arena in the country behind Madison Square Garden.

1. If you have the ability to think, you can always create, and,

2. If you understand the needs of your partners, and meet them, you, too, will be successful.

In this case, by giving tickets away, Libonati created a nice crowd, which met the needs of promoter Artie Pelullo, ESPN, Channel 13 News, Lotus Broadcasting and his other partners. Each received 1,000 free tickets of their own, to be distributed among the people with whom they do business. In return, Libonati got some free publicity.

To help underwrite the show, Libonati brought on a fledgling company called MLSE — Major League Sports Entertainment — which wants to introduce its brand to Las Vegas. On Friday night, MLSE shook hands with about 9,000 spectators, so it can be assumed its needs were met.

Fans who wanted a free ticket had to access UNLVtickets.com to get one, so the home office was happy.

And the suite holders who pay good money to watch the Rebels play basketball in comfort got a little more bang for their bucks. Twenty of the 30 suites were occupied Friday night.

Oh yeah, I almost forget the fans. Do you know how many $6 beers you can afford when you don’t spend money to get in?

In the end, Libonati said the T&M will break even on the boxing-MMA card, probably even make a little money. He’ll make a lot more in the long run through business relationships that were made or maintained.

“Our model is you’ve got to create more than a receipt,” he said. “This type of special event thinking is what has made us unique in our industry. By creating special events, we are able to generate revenues that are shared by the entire campus.”

It’s that sort of outside-the-box thinking that makes Daren Libonati such a huge asset to the UNLV athletic department, especially with Free Parking money from Carson City having taken a ride on the Reading.

It also makes you wonder whether UNLV wouldn’t be better off if he was the guy in charge of it.