In 2003, my brother and I attended a Las Vegas Gladiators game at the Thomas & Mack Center. It was the team’s inaugural season in Las Vegas, and we’d never before seen an Arena Football League game.
We watched in astonishment as the first few plays unfolded, as running backs and wide receivers sprinted to the line of scrimmage before the ball was snapped and before ball carriers were slammed into padded walls that seemed pulled from the Circus Circus midway.
After the first series, my brother — a big NFL fan — asked, “Is anything illegal in this game?” Hard to tell.
The Gladiators fizzled in Las Vegas, moving to the Orleans Arena after that first season and to Cleveland in 2008.
The team that finally replaced the Gladiators, the Las Vegas Outlaws, moved in this year. Owned in part by Motley Crue frontman Vince Neil, the team has been beset by financial problems. Weeks ago, the Arena League seized control of the franchise, and the Outlaws’ paychecks since have been covered by the league office.
As we have learned, the rules seem ever flexible in the Arena Football League, even away from its half-sized gridiron.
For example, the Outlaws qualified for the playoffs this season, even though they lost seven more games than they won. But last week, the league announced it would fold the beleaguered franchise and halted operations for the New Orleans VooDoo.
Rare is it that a professional franchise reaches the playoffs and subsequently is folded by the league’s governing body. But rare is the league that sports a franchise owned by, and thus is a nifty marketing tool for, the venerable rock band Kiss. The Outlaws, with its Crue connection, were thought to be a convenient rival — if not opening act — for the L.A. Kiss.
Those who know the city’s professional sports history know this sort of outcome is not so rare in Las Vegas. The Outlaws are the third AFL team to play in our city, and each has failed to move the chains, as it were.
A favorite story from one of those teams, the Las Vegas Sting, sprung to mind when the Outlaws folded. It stems from a conversation I had a decade ago with Steve Stallworth, now arena director at South Point and a former UNLV quarterback. The Sting played at the Thomas & Mack from 1994 to 1995. Similar to the Gladiators and Outlaws who followed, the team struggled to sell tickets for the 18,000-capacity arena.
The marketing team hired by the Sting included Stallworth, who for a time was a member of the UNLV sports marketing division; another former UNLV sports marketing wiz, broadcaster Tony Cordasco; and longtime Las Vegas radio personality Mike O’Brian. They devised a promotional campaign to give away money — actual USDs — during Sting games.
The Sting would award $100 for every point scored by the home team. After each Sting touchdown, a team rep would roll a big drum brimming with tickets to midfield and pick out a single stub. O’Brian, with his thunderous voice, called out the lucky winner. A spotlight wound around the arena as O’Brian intoned, “Section 107! Stand! Now Row R! Seat 18!”
As Cordasco said at the time, “It was drama, a big buildup. It was insane.”
In their final game in Las Vegas, the Sting whipped the Arizona Rattlers 60-46 and gave away $6,000. Attendance was more than double the typical count, but the team was sold and moved to Anaheim.
The Sting now are a part of Las Vegas’ colorful minor-league sports history. But when giving away free money — or making the playoffs — can’t save a team, what’s the point?
The Outlaws’ perplexing demise is a sign — from above or behind the padded walls — that we need a real major-league team in this city. Enough with leagues that are equal parts football and goofball. We’ve paid our dues, thrice over.
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