A Rant About UNLV Fan Apathy

Hello,Here is a story from the college newspaper I write for at UNLV called the Rebel Yell (http://www.ryunlv.com/). I put up the whole article because the school paper wishes you to register to read their content.
Peace!

Sports Commentary
By ARNOLD KNIGHTLY
Published: Thursday, September 9, 2004

On the ESPN broadcast of the UNLV-Tennessee football game Sunday night it was reported that the Rebels returned 4,300 of their 5,000 tickets for the game. As I looked out of the press box at section BB across the way, where the few Rebels fans sat, I believe this report was accurate. This means that of the 108,625 people who attended the game, 700 were Rebel fans. Actually, 697 were because I gave my three tickets to my sister Amy, our brother-in-law Kevin, and his 8-year-old son Robert, all Vols fans dressed in orange.

Discouraged, but not surprised, by the number of people who made the trip from Las Vegas, I set out after the game to find any fellow UNLV student I could who made the 2,000 mile trip. I found one.

Standing in the darkness watching the UNLV team buses pull away from Neyland Stadium, I met Brittany Blasier. Blasier is a freshman Education major who flew from Las Vegas to meet her family in Little Rock, Arkansas, where she is from, and then drove out to Knoxville for the game. According to mapquest.com, the drive is over eight hours and covers 528 miles!

When I asked her why she came all this way she explained her boyfriend is on the team (#33 Dan Rankin, also a freshman from Arkansas) and she wanted to come out and support the Rebels.

So what did she think of being a Rebel supporter in a crowd that numbered 108,625 strong?

"It was enormous, it was incredible," Blasier said. "It was extremely intimidating for just a sea of orange, and then just little spots of red, which was misleading because some of them were Coke vendors." Note: the vendors at the stadium wear red shirts.

I then asked Blasier if she felt the crowd could have affected the team's performance in any way?

"I think it might have been overwhelming for the opening game because (the stadium) is so big. And (Knoxville) is far, too, way out of their stomping grounds."

True, the game is far away "from their stomping grounds," but teams play great distances from home every year, and bring more than 697 people. Just the night before, I watched Oregon State almost upset LSU on ESPN. The whole corner of the upper deck was Beavers fans; I am guessing their whole 5000 ticket allotment. So why are so many Oregon State fans willing to make the trip and so few UNLV fans?

Maybe the Beavers fans felt they had a better chance, but both UNLV and Oregon State were 20-point underdogs going into their respective games.

The distance between Corvallis, Ore., and Baton Rouge, La., is 2600 miles, 700 miles more than the distance between Las Vegas and Knoxville. But who is going to drive that anyway? Most people will fly.

To get to Knoxville, you fly into Atlanta, connect into Knoxville and repeat on the way back. This cost me $375 round-trip. To get from Corvallis to Baton Rogue is a whole different set of logistics. First, an Oregon State fan probably drives 40 miles south to Eugene and flies directly to Baton Rogue for about $100 more. But I really do not think this is the why Oregon State brought fans and UNLV did not. The reason Rebels fans did not travel is fan apathy.

So the next question is why have teams like Tennessee on the schedule in the first place? Accountants and no other reason. It has been reported that UNLV got a nice check of over $500,000, but our fans are not going to make the trip, so the game has to be about the money. At least with Wisconsin we get a return game. Tennessee would, probably, never come here. Could we not get the same check closer to home against a team willing to play here? Also, if we barely draw 20,000 at home, why ask those fans that do care to travel so far to watch their team? Would the program not be better served playing schools in our time zone so fans can travel if they so desired? I understand the Tennessee game is left over from a previous regime in the athletic department, but it should not be scheduled again. Fans of UNLV football need to be realistic about the level of play the Rebels will be able to achieve in the future. John Robinson himself is quoted in The Las Vegas Review-Journal last Friday as saying that UNLV football will be on the rise over the next ten years, but that the Rebels "won't ever be USC." Okay, but why not be one of the top teams in the Mountain West every year and possibly break through once in a while, like Utah is doing this year?

Utah may be the best team on the Rebels schedule this season, and could possibly upset the balance of the Bowl Championship Series this season by going undefeated. But one cannot expect Utah to play at that level every year. They went 10-2 last season, but had losing seasons two of the three seasons before that. This year the Utes travel to Arizona as a return game for a visit the Wildcats made in 2000. UNLV played at Arizona in 2001 and I hope there was a return game in that package for the future.

If the program desires to schedule schools from power conferences like the Southeastern Conference, go get Kentucky, Vanderbilt or Mississippi State, not Tennessee. As an example, the scheduling of Kansas out of the Big 12 Conference makes good sense from a fan standpoint. Not traditional football powers like Oklahoma and Texas, the Jayhawks are a nice scheduling match up that the Rebels fans would not be considered crazy for believing their team could win. While Kansas did beat the Rebels pretty hard last season, UNLV defeated them in 2002 got at Sam Boyd. Another belief in scheduling games like Tennessee is the thought that these contests give the Rebels' program national exposure and helps in recruiting. Tennessee has beaten UNLV over the two meetings 104-20 on national television! If I was a prospective recruit, and I saw (1) UNLV get beaten pretty badly and (2) no one from Las Vegas cares, why would I want to come here? I am not a football player looking for a school, nor do I claim to know anything about running an athletic department, but losing that badly cannot be beneficial to anyone in the long run, not even the accountants.