Kareem Abdul-Jabbar broke Wilt Chamberlain's NBA career scoring record with this shot on April 5, 1984, during a game between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Utah Jazz at the Thomas & Mack Center. It was one of 13 games the Jazz played in Las Vegas over two seasons. Photo by Wayne Kodey/Review-Journal.
Sam Battistone stands in his store called Field Of Dreams at the Forum Shops in Caesars Palace. Battistone owned the Utah Jazz when the team played 13 regular-season games at the Thomas & Mack Center. Photo by John Locher.
It wasn't for long, but Las Vegas had an NBA team.
Over the course of two seasons in the early '80s, the Utah Jazz played 13 "home" games at the Thomas & Mack Center.
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It was an experiment that Sam Battistone, then the team's owner, hoped would result in something positive. Ultimately, it did -- for Salt Lake City -- as the effort solidified the franchise in Utah.
Battistone said he had a vision in 1983 that an NBA team could call Las Vegas home.
"We were looking to expand our (fan base)," Battistone said of having the Jazz play in Southern Nevada. "Las Vegas had a brand new arena, it was close to Salt Lake City, and Vegas seemed to be an attractive market."
Battistone talked to Las Vegas power brokers, including developer Irwin Molasky and advertising executive Sig Rogich. He also talked with fellow owners before proceeding with the Las Vegas project.
The failed experiment led to Battistone selling the team to auto magnate Larry Miller in 1986. Five years later, the Jazz had a new arena -- the Delta Center -- and two future Hall of Fame players in Karl Malone and John Stockton.
Las Vegas basketball fans -- who faithfully supported the University of Nevada, Las Vegas Rebels -- got a taste of what it would be like to have an NBA franchise but never felt as though the Jazz was their own.
But what if Las Vegas fans had supported the Jazz, which went 7-6 here? Could the NBA have found a permanent home in Las Vegas?
There were -- and still are -- numerous obstacles in the NBA's path to Las Vegas. Topping the list are gambling, the lack of an NBA-quality arena and dismal local support.
TOUGH ODDS
Dave Fredman was in charge of the Jazz's Las Vegas operations in the 1983-84 season and doubted that the franchise would be moved here permanently.
"To be honest, if Las Vegas thought they would get an NBA franchise, that wasn't going to happen," Fredman said. "I knew David Stern pretty well back then, and there was no way he was going to allow (the move)."
Stern was the league's deputy commissioner at the time and became commissioner in 1984.
After contentious meetings with the Jazz and the NBA, local sports book operators agreed to take the Jazz's Las Vegas games off the betting boards. When the team played in Salt Lake City, the games went back up.
Battistone contends the league would have been forced to take a hard look at relocating the franchise if the Jazz's Las Vegas appearances had higher attendance.
"We were prepared to do it long term," Battistone said of playing at least 11 games at the Thomas & Mack in both the 1983-84 and 1984-85 seasons. "The fact is, our first game, we drew 13,000, which was more than the capacity of the Salt Palace."
The Salt Palace, built in 1969, already was antiquated by 1983. In Las Vegas, there was a new building with amenities the Salt Palace lacked: suites, ample parking and plenty of restrooms.
"It (the Thomas & Mack Center) was a great building," Battistone said. "We had tremendous cooperation from the people at UNLV and the city. We really thought we had everything in place to make it work in Vegas."
But it wasn't just about arenas. The Jazz wasn't a good team at that juncture. Since moving from New Orleans to Utah in 1979, the Jazz had won 30 games only once, in 1982. Ticket sales were lagging.
As the Jazz struggled to gain a foothold in Salt Lake City, the team also faced an uphill battle in Las Vegas.
Laura Herlovich, who handled public relations for the Jazz's 11 Las Vegas games in 1983-84, countered Battistone and said people didn't feel as though the team was theirs.
"It was as if they were playing the two cities against each other," said Herlovich, who now owns a public relations firm in Las Vegas. "There quickly became a feeling that if the fans in Las Vegas didn't support the team, they wouldn't come back, and the people in Salt Lake also were worried that if they didn't support the team better, that they'd move to Vegas."
Another problem was ticket prices. They were considered steep, especially compared with UNLV basketball ticket prices for what local fans thought was a superior product. Fredman said the Jazz's top ticket in 1983 was $25 in Las Vegas, and a UNLV ticket was going for roughly half that.
"People complained that it was too much money," said Fredman, who added that the cheapest Jazz ticket was $5.
JAZZ BOOSTERS
One of the biggest supporters of the Jazz's Las Vegas venture was Jerry Tarkanian, UNLV's coach at the time.
"I thought it would be good for basketball and good for the city," Tarkanian said. "I never saw the Jazz as a threat to what we were doing. ... I thought having the NBA in Vegas was a good thing for the city. I still do."
So did Rogich, who handled advertising for the Jazz when his public relations company was hired by Battistone.
"At the time, Las Vegas was a basketball-crazy town because of 'Tark' and the Rebels, so I wasn't worried," Rogich said of the Jazz's attempt to gain acceptance in Las Vegas. "I thought if we had an NBA team here, it would be a positive way to put a Las Vegas dateline on newspapers across the country. To me, that was invaluable exposure for the city."
But privately, Rogich had concerns about the Jazz's ability to succeed in Las Vegas.
"My main misgiving was the NBA's attendance wasn't all that great in a lot of places," he said, recalling that the Los Angeles Lakers, with Magic Johnson and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and the Boston Celtics, with Larry Bird, were doing well. ''But a lot of teams were having a hard time selling tickets. But ... I thought we could do as well in Las Vegas as they were doing in Salt Lake."
In 13 regular-season games at the Thomas & Mack, the Jazz drew more than 10,000 fans only twice. The first time was Nov. 23, 1983, when 13,150 showed up for a matchup with the Chicago Bulls in Utah's first game here.
But many in the crowd were rooting for the Bulls and Reggie Theus, the former UNLV star playing in Las Vegas for the first time since turning pro in 1977.
The second time came April 5, 1984, when 18,332 packed the Thomas & Mack and watched Lakers center Abdul-Jabbar break Wilt Chamberlain's NBA career scoring record. Many fans that night were pulling for the Lakers.
As the team struggled at the turnstiles, it didn't fare much better on the court, going 5-6 in 1983-84 in Las Vegas. Frank Layden was in his third season as coach, and he was building a competitive team that had an exciting scorer in Adrian Dantley and a 7-foot-4-inch center, Mark Eaton.
The Jazz finished 1983-84 with its first winning record since moving from New Orleans, going 45-37. The team also made its first postseason appearance, defeating the Denver Nuggets in the first round of the playoffs before losing to the Phoenix Suns in six games in the Western Conference semifinals.
TROUBLE SPOT
The gambling issue always hovered over the Jazz in Las Vegas. Sports book operators took exception to the idea that they were doing something immoral, and they resented the NBA's attempt to make them out to be bad guys.
"There's a misnomer that we didn't want the Jazz here," said Vic Salerno, founder and CEO of Leroy's Sports.
"We loved to have them here," Salerno said.
But he said sports book operators didn't like the NBA dictating to them how to do business.
"We were legitimate businessmen doing something that was legal and regulated, and they were trying to make us out to be the bad guys. I didn't think that was right," he said.
The NBA went before the Nevada Gaming Control Board seeking removal of the Jazz's Las Vegas games from the betting boards. Salerno, representing a group of independent sports books, said talk turned contentious at that point.
"To the best of my recollection, it was pretty heated," Salerno said. "The NBA wanted all the (Jazz) games off the board, and there was no way we were going to stand for that. We were worried that if we gave in, where would it stop? The next thing you know, the NFL and (Major League) Baseball would demand the same thing."
The board voted 3-2 to allow the books to accept bets on the Jazz's Las Vegas games. But as a show of support for the venture and the city, the books agreed to not accept wagers on the Jazz when it played here.
"I don't think it amounted to much," Salerno said of the loss in handle.
Layden said he thought it was one of the big reasons the Jazz was unable to make it in Las Vegas.
"When David Stern said you couldn't have the games on the betting boards, it really put a damper on it," he said. "It was silly. But I think the people in the sports book industry felt, and rightly so, that they were being picked on. ... I just think it really hurt our chances of succeeding."
Rogich agreed.
"To ask the industry to give up their right to take bets on the NBA so the team could play (in Las Vegas) was dead wrong," he said. "I could understand where he (Stern) was coming from, but he's wrong. If anything, it enhances the integrity of the game when you can accept legal wagers on the games. If there's any funny money that shows up, the books will know about it in a minute."
Stern repeatedly has said he does not want his league's fans rooting on an artificial outcome, such as the point spread.
"When a team wins a game, it shouldn't be booed because they didn't cover the spread," Stern said two years ago. "That sends a bad message."
It was under those conditions that Fredman tried to sell tickets and promote the team in Las Vegas. He was an intern with New Orleans in 1974, moved with the Jazz to Utah and accepted the assignment to run the Las Vegas operation in 1983.
Fredman charged into the product with wide-eyed optimism.
He was in charge of the entire operation, from marketing and ticket sales, to lining up a place to practice, to players' lodging.
"I was 30 years old and brash enough to think I could pull this off," said Fredman, who now works for the Jazz as a scout. "I was also very loyal to Sam, so how could I say no?"
Fredman's office was in a trailer in a shopping center parking lot at Maryland Parkway and Katy Avenue.
"We didn't have an unlimited budget, and we had a very small staff (five people), so we did what we had to do to make it work," he said.
Herlovich had just been promoted to public relations director to replace Fredman, one of only three female public relations directors in the NBA in 1983. She knew it would be a challenge to not only generate interest among the media in Las Vegas but to placate the Salt Lake City media, which was taking Battistone to task for moving a quarter of the team's home games out of town.
Fredman admitted the pricing of Jazz tickets in Las Vegas was an issue. He also said blocks of tickets were dispensed to hotels in hopes of getting customers or employees to attend games.
"We did a lot of trade-out business," he said.
Attendance figures for 1983-84 fell short of expectations, as the Jazz averaged just 8,913 per game for the 11 dates. Despite the lack of support, Battistone was willing to give it another chance in the 1984-85 season, but changes in the team's management doomed any chance for success.
Dave Checketts was hired as team president after the original Las Vegas deal for 1983 had been made, and he wasn't thrilled with the idea of a split schedule. He couldn't do anything about 1983-84, but 1984-85 was another matter. The plan was to play some preseason games and only seven regular-season games in Las Vegas.
"We tried to bring in Larry Bird and Julius Erving in the preseason," said Checketts, now the owner of the NHL's St. Louis Blues and Major League Soccer's Real Salt Lake. "But there wasn't much juice. The crowds were small, maybe 6,000, 7,000, and I was thinking to myself, 'If we can't draw for Larry Bird or Dr. J, this probably isn't going to work here.'"
Fredman said Checketts was trying to do what was best for the Jazz.
"He was trying to make the franchise work in Utah," Fredman said. "I had mixed emotions. You don't want to see something with your fingerprints on it fail. At the same time, you wanted to see the franchise make it (in Utah)."
Also, year two in Las Vegas was run far differently by the Jazz. Fredman returned to Salt Lake City before the season to work on the team's new in-house broadcast division. Herlovich was fired. The team brought in a skeleton game-night staff for the Las Vegas games. And after just 3,737 showed up Nov. 2 to see the Jazz defeat Seattle 107-101, it was evident the Las Vegas experiment had run its course.
On Dec. 8, the Jazz defeated Kansas City 123-120 as Dantley scored 38 points in front of 4,006. That was the last time a regular-season NBA game was played in Las Vegas.
Battistone said given the franchise's struggles at the time, he thought he did the right thing. He said he would do it again, albeit with some changes.
"We absolutely did the right thing coming to Vegas," said Battistone, who now lives in Henderson and owns Field Of Dreams, a sports memorabilia company that has stores nationwide. "I just wish we had the opportunity to do it the right way. We were understaffed, and that was a factor. We didn't have the resources to devote properly to promoting the team."
Fredman said despite the Jazz's decision to leave, he's not ready to call the Las Vegas experiment a failure.
"If you look at the 1983-84 ticket receipts and revenues, Vegas fared better than Salt Lake," he said. "I look back on that year as one that I'll never forget. Whoever thought we'd make the playoffs for the first time, win the division and be the team Kareem would break the scoring record against?
"To me, Vegas and that year will always be special."
IF YOU PLAY IT, WILL THEY COME?
Results of the Utah Jazz's 13 regular-season home games played in Las Vegas from 1983 to 1984:
