Economy, high travel costs keep some Wisconsin fans away

Sam Morris / Las Vegas Sun

Wisconsin fans load up on bratwurst at a tailgate party before Saturday’s season-opening game against UNLV at Sam Boyd Stadium.

By Kyle B. Hansen (contact)

Saturday, Sept. 4, 2010 | 11:14 p.m.

Wisconsin Tailgate

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The poor economy and high Labor Day weekend travel costs probably kept some Wisconsin fans away from the UNLV game this year, but Sam Boyd Stadium still was just about 4,000 short of a sellout, school officials said.

A total of 31,107 people were at the game, a match-up that three years ago came close to setting a UNLV football attendance record.

In September 2007, the last time the two teams met in Las Vegas, the game drew the third-largest crowd in Rebel football history — a sellout of 38,250.

That year, rabid Wisconsin fans were so determined to not miss the game that they bought up 2,078 season tickets just so they’d be able to get their tickets early.

This year, Wisconsin fans, known for showing up en mass to away games, purchased only a couple hundred season tickets.

Single-game tickets sold for $75 for all seats — still significantly more than the $25 to $35 to see the Rebels play in-state rivals UNR and the $19 to $30 for other home games.

Despite not selling out, this year’s season opener still drew more fans than any game the Rebels played last year. Last season’s record at Sam Boyd was 29,917 set at the Hawaii game.

Not to be deterred, Wisconsin fans Al Ciesemier, Rick Romboy and Fred Reichelt traveled from the Milwaukee area for the game.

“Road games are a good excuse to travel and do a little drinking and do a little gambling,” Ciesemier said.

The three are spending nearly a week at a downtown hotel, but they had to buy all new clothes for their trip.

“All our Badger gear is long-sleeved. For this game, we had to buy short-sleeved stuff,” Ciesemier said while standing in the stadium parking lot where temperatures were still above 100 degrees at game time.

After pointing out that low temperatures have been in the 40s back home, Reichelt added, “But we’re enjoying the heat.”

John Burdick of Henderson and Eric Threeton of North Las Vegas were parked in the back of a pickup truck across the parking lot from Reichelt’s Wisconsin group.

“There’s a lot of Wisconsin fans here,” Threeton said. “We’re here to represent. We’ve got to show them we have some heart here in Las Vegas, too. We’ve been blasting the UNLV fight song to let everyone know.”

Burdick said they were “trying to make ourselves look good in front of the Wisconsin people.”

Another group showed that it is possible for fans of both schools to coexist in the tailgater’s natural habitat of a stadium parking lot.

A group of coworkers were joined by some Wisconsin family members, creating a group that was split evenly between fans of the two schools. Four wore red Rebels shirts and four wore red Badger shirts.

How do they do it?

“Beer,” one of the group said. “We’re drinking to get along.”

At another spot in the parking lot, the Alvirez, Cook and Stovall families, all locals, camped together in the front row of the parking lot, sharing drinks and food.

They came early to get a good spot and to “enjoy watching the people,” Leona Cook said.

“We’ve been watching all the crazy stuff going on,” Todd Stovall added, “like those guys over there painting themselves.”

Admittedly, none of this group of non-native Nevadans are major UNLV fans, but they like coming to the games anyway.

“We live in Vegas, so we’re going to support the Rebels as long as they aren’t playing one of our teams,” Lisa Alvirez said.

They were also eager to see what the new season would bring for the team under the direction of first-year coach Bobby Hauck.

“We’re excited about the new coach to see what he’ll bring to the program,” Andy Alvirez said.

Las Vegas Sun reporter Ray Brewer contributed to this report.