Las Vegas Bowl committee works year-round for success

The lifespan of a college football bowl game continues to dwindle while more meaningless bowls get added to the postseason schedule. This season, 39 bowl games will be played starting in December.

You could say the Las Vegas Bowl is lucky to be celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, but the executive director of the local bowl, John Saccenti, wouldn’t call it luck.

The Las Vegas Bowl committee doesn’t just watch a few games in November then get together for a week to select two teams to play at Sam Boyd Stadium. It’s year-round work for the committee made up of 40 local business leaders on volunteer time.

“We’re not starting when the college football season starts,” Saccenti, 40, said last week. “This process starts January and February when we evaluate the prior season. And we dive into next season in April and May when we take care of sponsorships, tickets and all of the bowl week events.”

There are 27 events the Las Vegas Bowl hosts throughout the year, with 17 taking place on bowl week. Saccenti and his crew spent the majority of the spring and summer coordinating the events and getting sponsors on board. For example, one event is a night for the two teams of this year’s game to see a free show on the Strip.

“It’s not easy planning for two teams with 150 people on it,” Saccenti said. “There’s a lot of planning that goes into it. I would say we’re about 85 percent done with the events for bowl week.”

The other big item on the offseason agenda was ticket advertisement. Saccenti is hoping to get a repeat of last year when 42,213 fans crowded Sam Boyd Stadium for Utah’s win against Brigham Young. The announced crowd from 2015 was the second largest in the bowl’s history.

There are 8,000 tickets left for the public to this year’s game on Dec. 17, according to Saccenti. Tickets can be purchased at www.lvbowl.com.

“This year, we wanted our 25th game to be special,” said Saccenti, who has been part of the committee for 15 years. “To only have 8,000 tickets left, and we’re not even into the season yet, shows how hard our committee has worked to get the word out.

“My goal is to have zero tickets left by the time we announce the teams.”

As for the game, Saccenti said they’re going back to the format of the Mountain West champion versus an invited Pac-12 squad, and it’s going to stay that way until at least 2019 when the current contract is up.

The Las Vegas Bowl committee has a group of five people, mostly former college football players, scouting the Pac-12 and Mountain West teams during the season to get a feel for the teams come selection time. Saccenti also travels to meet up with athletic directors and coaches; his first stop is the Rose Bowl for UCLA versus UNLV on Saturday.

“It really helps to see these programs and fan bases in person,” Saccenti said. “I try to gauge the interest of the teams and see who really wants to play in Las Vegas.”

Next up on the list for Saccenti is the Las Vegas Bowl kickoff luncheon on Sept. 29 at the Hard Rock Hotel. The latest Las Vegas Bowl Hall of Fame class is expected to be announced at the luncheon.

“The goal there is to generate support for the game, and each one on the committee is responsible for bringing in three business leaders. We want to keep generating local support.”

Contact Gilbert Manzano at gmanzano@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0492. Follow@gmanzano24 on Twitter.