The financial impact on what a stadium would mean to UNLV was discussed at different points of Thursday’s gathering, but this remains a secondary and yet highly significant element: How big a part could a stadium play in securing the Rebels’ membership in a Power 5 conference?
Regents should have zero influence when it comes to those a university hires to run athletic programs, and that includes voting to approve the contracts offered coaches.
At the conclusion of spring practice, Johnny Stanton had done nothing to indicate that UNLV is about to unleash the next “Johnny Football.” By the fall, maybe that will change.
The win total released last week by the Golden Nugget for UNLV in 2016 would spell doom and gloom at countless programs across the country, but it should produce a different reaction in Las Vegas.
I met a couple of more guys one could look up to Monday morning at Lied Library on the UNLV campus. One stood 3 feet, 7 inches. His name is Brandon Hamilton.
For the sake of this discussion, let’s assume shovels will be placed in the ground at the $1 billion domed arena site on the edge of UNLV’s campus. And that the NFL rescinds its leather-helmet view of legal and highly monitored gambling on pro football.
This is no Iowa cornfield, and the only farming I have done lately is to roll a broken lawn mower out to the curb for a garage sale, but if you close your eyes and imagine what more than $1 billion might deliver Las Vegas in terms of a domed stadium, you just might see all that Ray Kinsella built and more.
It was at this time last year in a ballroom at the Phoenix Convention Center when Roger Goodell was posed a familiar question at his annual state of the league address at the Super Bowl: Did the commissioner think Las Vegas could sustain an NFL team?
