Ron Kantowski is a Las Vegas Sun sports writer. Reach him at [email protected] or (702) 259-4088.
From the looks of things, the Arena Football League is going to throw one heck of a party in Las Vegas this weekend.
There's the Arena Football Mascot Challenge at ESPN Zone, the ArenaBall Awards Show at the Hard Rock, the ArenaBowl Fan Fest at the Fremont Street Experience, the ArenaBattle Skills Competition at the Orleans Arena, the ArenaBash featuring performances by Maroon 5, Gavin DeGraw, John Legend and Low Millions at the MGM Grand Garden and ArenaBowl Game Day featuring performances by Bryan Adams and Kool & the Gang at the Thomas & Mack Center.
That's a lot of ways to throw your hat into ArenaBowl XIX.
Oh yeah, there's also going to be a football game, or at least a reasonable facsimile of one, pitting ... wait a minute, I know there's a press release around here somewhere. Ah yes, here it is ... the Georgia Force of the National Conference against the American Conference-champion Colorado Crush.
The game almost seems like an afterthought. But then, when was the last time anybody needed a good reason to come to Las Vegas? Watching grown men kick and throw a football off a net seems like the perfect excuse to play a little blackjack, toss back a few martinis and ogle some cocktail waitresses, at least as far as the AFL is concerned.
"It already can be termed a success in other areas," said Chris McCloskey, an AFL spokesman, about a game that isn't expected to sell out. But then, as McCloskey noted, neither did Super Bowl I.
McCloskey talked about behind-the-scenes events, such as the league's Partnership Summit, where the owners and other big shots meet to discuss league matters and try to explain the nuances of indoor football to one another, and how Las Vegas' allure has increased the number of delegates in attendance.
This year, big-cheese AFL franchise owners such as Jerry Jones, John Elway and Jon Bon Jovi are attending. What are the chances those guys show if the game is played in Grand Rapids?
"Last year we had just one week to plan and only a handful showed up -- no more than 10," McCloskey said of the executive types. "This year, we've got 400 coming."
This is the first year the league's championship game is being played at a neutral site. It's an experiment, and given Las Vegas' dubious reputation for supporting professional sports that are considered less than major league, it's kind of like sending the Absent Minded Professor into the chemistry lab with nitro in one pocket, glycerine in the other and a lit Bunsen burner in his hand.
As of Thursday, the AFL said about 10,000 tickets had been sold, or at least spoken for, and McCloskey said the league is still hoping for a sellout at the T&M, which seats about 15,000 for indoor football -- a fact nobody affiliated with our arena team, the Gladiators, could possibly know.
But if the AFL is counting on a walk-up crowd of Las Vegans to fill up the place, better send a few buses to a few Station casinos and bring along some 2-for-1 tickets. Check that. With seats in the balcony going for $50, better make it 3-for-1 tickets.
Initially, I thought if the AFL would have been a little more aggressive in promoting the game locally -- erected a few billboards along I-215, purchased some local TV spots on a channel other than 3 or perhaps made Elway, the co-owner of the Denver team, available to the media on a conference call earlier in the week -- there might be a bigger buzz about the game by now.
But all things considered, the AFL's primary local partner in the ArenaBowl venture, Pat Christenson and his staff at Las Vegas Events, are pleased with the effort.
"They've done a real professional job," Christenson said. "There was an enormous amount of work that had to be done. When you think about it, they've gone from (producing) one event (the championship game) to about six."
McCloskey said it's more like nine, which means he must be counting the ArenaBash after party and the two sets that Dennis Quaid and the Sharks will play at the awards show as events unto themselves.
Arena football, as McCloskey said, isn't for everybody and I'm one of those every bodies, as it kind of reminds me of playing sock-drawer basketball against my kid brother in our bedroom with my Alice Cooper records cranked to 11. Only with arena football, it's the Black Eyed Peas with the volume set on 14.
No matter what you think of the game, getting it started in Las Vegas has been a major undertaking.
"This certainly is different than anything we've done in the past," McCloskey said.
And if Las Vegas supports it, it also will be something different than anything we've ever done in the past.
But at least give the AFL credit for trying a new approach. It had access to Las Vegas, one of the world's most popular destinations, so it decided to play its biggest game in a city that never sleeps instead of say, one that never wakes up.
Conversely, when the Mountain West Conference was presented with the same opportunity with regard to its basketball tournament, it chose to hold it in Denver.
It's one thing to try something different in an attempt to raise your net a little higher. It's quite another to try something different to prove it doesn't go all the way to the top.
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