Sadly, local TV wasn’t option for UNLV-UNR game

They were lining up the NASCAR trucks for Saturday's race at Las Vegas Motor Speedway when a guy wearing a Route 66 shirt in the media center noticed one of the TVs had been switched. Instead of the race broadcast, it was showing the Arizona State-UCLA football game.

"Why are we watching football?" he said to nobody in particular.

Those of us in the media center not from the Southern states — i.e., Las Vegas locals — had our own introspective ruminations:

If we're watching football, why isn't it the UNLV-UNR game?

I wondered it myself, right after the blue team had pulled to within 13-10 in the fourth quarter and seemed to have momentum. Then I got the dreaded hanging hourglass on my computer screen. I had to reboot.

When the feed was reacquired, UNLV led 20-10. While my hourglass was hanging, one of the Rebels had intercepted a tipped pass that was hanging and returned it for a touchdown.

Most people blamed UNLV for the game not being shown on real TV.

This was not UNLV's fault.

Well, one supposes when the Mountain West decided to send Boise State most of the TV money under this new deal, the other conference members could have balked and opted out. But they didn't, because exposure — even if it's limited exposure — is important. And doing your own TV deal is cost prohibitive, and a thing of the past.

Here is the Reader's Digest version of how Boise State TV — er, the Mountain West's current TV deal — works:

The schedule essentially is put out to bid among the league's TV partners which pick the games they want. During late spring or early summer, the TV partners (CBS Sports, ESPN, Root) passed on UNR vs. UNLV. Next on the pecking order was Campus Insiders, a Chicago-based, online-only company.

Campus Insiders said we'll take Timmy Lupus. They selected the UNLV-UNR game. They owned all broadcast rights.

Local TV was not an option.

UNLV officials said the game attracted a Campus Insiders record 33,000 unique hits, which was roughly the amount of unique hits Rebels quarterback Blake Decker attracted when he separated his shoulder Saturday.

After the Rebels scored 80 points against Idaho State, UNLV athletic director Tina Kunzer-Murphy contacted the Mountain West requesting a waiver of the TV pecking order for the UNR game. "They said no, they would not give us that opportunity," she said of a locally produced broadcast.

So when UNLV linebacker Ryan McAleenan was running the football 52 yards in the other direction, crushing Wolf Pack hopes, I was watching a hanging hourglass in the LVMS media center.

I have heard from others saying they didn't have the money/time to purchase/install a new super-duper home computer network router, one of those Netgear Nighthawk dual band jobs or whatever, before the game. And that the Geek Squad was totally booked wiring homes for the Georgia Southern vs. Louisiana-Monroe game.

Remember when two-deep charts and injury reports dominated pregame coverage? Now it's "Here's how you can catch the UNLV-UNR game." The TV deal is so convoluted that UNLV puts out a news release before every game advising Rebels fans on how they can watch it.

Sometimes these news releases mention jumping through hoops, or at least hooking devices up to your TV set called Roku or Chromecast — or calling Nick Burns, Your Company's Computer Guy. This is usually when the heads of older UNLV football fans explode, and they pine for the days of rabbit ears and aluminum foil and announcers wearing loud sports jackets.

I was able to watch the last few minutes of the game with only minimal hanging hourglasses and video freeze-ups. After the last one, UNLV coach Tony Sanchez was seen hurtling a sideline barrier a la Edwin Moses. Cops were in hot pursuit.

I concluded the Rebels had hung on for the win, or Sanchez had robbed a bank at halftime.

People still were complaining about the internet feed or that the game wasn't shown on real TV hours after the Fremont Cannon was headed back to Las Vegas.

"Biggest UNLV football game in a while and all we get is ... brutal live coverage," one wrote via text message. "Interstate rival at that. It's not fair to the kids, or even to fans who will find themselves once again lonely (because of limited TV exposure) at the next home game.

"Great win though."

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ron Kantowski can be reached at rkantowski@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0352. Follow him on Twitter: @ronkantowski.