How did Thomas and Mack Center get to 40?

This year the Thomas and Mack Center celebrates its 40th Anniversary. I could not let the occasion pass without sharing some history on how the venue overcame the?original “basketball only” design, inadequate construction, and operating funding, to become the premier collegiate venue of its time.?

Six months before the opening of the Thomas and Mack Center, UNLV had to make cuts of $5 million in finishes. They had not ordered the basketball floor, there was no operating budget, and the state would not provide a bailout.??Forty years later, Thomas and Mack Center celebrate its 40th?anniversary as the undisputed top collegiate arena the past forty years. How did that happen???Here’s the story.

In 1976, I won a NCAA championship in wrestling at UW-Madison and, with a degree in Physical Education, I was sure my destiny lay in coaching and teaching. I spent a couple of years doing both in Waunakee, a little rural community just north of Madison, Wisconsin. Teaching wasn’t what I expected. I began a search for an institution where I could earn a postgraduate degree and coach wrestling.

That place seemed to be Louisiana State University. However, two weeks before leaving for LSU, I received a call from Dennis Finfrock, assistant athletic director, and head wrestling coach at UNLV.??The former BYU football player, sported a mustache reminiscent of Kurt Russell’s Wyatt Earp in?Tombstone. He offered me a full-time position as event coordinator and assistant wrestling coach.

After UNLV lured Jerry Tarkanian away from Long Beach State to coach the Runnin' Rebels basketball team in the mid-70s, they hatched a vision for a new state-of-the-art Las Vegas arena. From 1971 to 1982, the Rebels sold out the 6,700-seat Rotunda at the Las Vegas Convention Center. Was Vegas ready for the “Big Show”?

In 1979, UNLV Boosters and legislators worked to finance an arena. They, the state, and the federal government crafted a tax on slot machines earmarked for education. The state and federal government allocated a small portion of that tax to finance Thomas and Mack Center and Lawlor Events Center in Reno. Bankers Parry Thomas and Jerry Mack established the original land foundation and donated $500,000. For that and their substantial contributions to the growth of Las Vegas earned them the honor of having their names on the arena.

Before 1980, an outside entity, the Rebel Club controlled UNLV’s development arm (scholarship donor seats). In 1979, faced with budget deficits, UNLV did a financial audit of the Athletic Department, finding fiscal mismanagement and improprieties. UNLV had to find someone to right the ship; balance the budget and restore fiscal integrity.?

Their first choice did not work out so well!

UNLV’s choice to right the ship was Al Negratti. Negratti was reputed for running a tight ship. It appeared he’d be the right guy for the job. In 1980, to balance the budget, he made across the board administrative cuts and deep cuts to Olympic sports.??The reality of operating within these constraints and counter to the past liberal environment put an arrow on his back. He did the hard work, but rarely does an AD survive the dramatic culture shift he instituted.?

Their second choice worked!

In 1982, UNLV hired Brad Rothermel. By then, it was clear UNLV had to show the boosters were not running the Athletic Department. Rothermel brought oversight of scholarship donor seat sales and fundraising under the umbrella of the Athletic Department. Maybe, as important, he forged a good relationship with the coaching staff, especially Jerry Tarkanian.?

Rothermel inherited a smaller deficit ($250,000) than Negratti, but it was the last one.??UNLV Athletics operated in the black every year until he resigned in 1992, finishing with a $1.5 million surplus.?

But?Rothermel’s secret sauce was a present that he and Las Vegas fans were going to open the next year.

The designers initially planned Thomas and Mack Center, like most collegiate venues at the time, as a basketball-only venue. In 1982, cost over runs forced UNLV to cut all the finishes. In January 1983, UNLV told the Board of Regents there was no funding for pavement for the 6,000 parking spots designed,??the concourse, which separated the 9,500 balcony seats from the 9,000 plaza seats, and the concession stands would have a garage finish and only stubbed for plumbing and electric. There would be food and beverage equipment and although VIP suites were a first for a college venue, they were just dugouts on the concourse.

UNLV was faced with its heralded arena opening half finished and with no budget to operate.?

Dennis Finfrock grew up in Yuma, Arizona. He played football at BYU before moving to Las Vegas to teach and coach wrestling at Chaparral High School. In 1976, UNLV hired him to start a wrestling program. Finfrock was ambitious, with the endurance of a marathon runner. He juggled his assistant athletic director duties with his position as head wrestling coach and ran his own crowd-management company, FINCO. While he aspired to one day to be athletic director, he also saw that UNLV was struggling with the fiscal challenges of its new arena. He had an idea.

The University had little choice; without additional state or university funding for operations or even to complete construction, the arena had to pay its own way. Finfrock’s idea was to operate the arena as an enterprise, rather than a traditional state-funded university facility. He lobbied then-Chair of the Board of Regents, Jack McBride. Finfrock got his way and an interim position as arena director. He hired me as his assistant. With ZERO venue management experience, we were on the clock.?

To generate the revenue to complete about five million dollars in arena finishes and fund an operating budget, Finfrock set out to manage the arena like professional sports teams, aggressively booking touring events like concerts, family shows, and motor sports.

Our crash course in arena management began at the Houston Summit, then San Diego Sports Arena, Oakland Coliseum, Phoenix Coliseum and finally Madison Square Garden. Each venue opened their arms for two-three days of hands-on learning and training. We learned what we needed to develop a plan that included aggressively booking events and selling revenue from signage and the thirty VIP boxes. However, the biggest challenge was changing a basketball exclusive venue into one with the ability to generate revenues from the events we intended to book.?

This was no small task!

On Finfrock's first day on the job, he learned that the cement, which made up the foundation of the end zone courtside seats, had been poured two weeks ago. This was not a concern for a “basketball only” venue. However, it prevented fifty percent of the events we were considering and would cut the capacity for the other events in half.

Finfrock was a problem solver!

The legislator was in session. Finfrock found someone to sponsor a bill to fund two hundred and fifty thousand dollars?to jack hammer and excavate the cement that was just poured.?Very humbly, he appeared before the legislature for approval.?

What was significant about the removal of that cement is that it increased the floor space to one hundred and fifty feet. Without the additional space, most concerts would pass, and the venue could not accommodate motorsport events or rodeos.

Wait a minute…rodeos!

Anyone that has been to the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo knows that it’s the best fan rodeo in the country.??The additional floor space qualified the venue by the length of a cowboys chap.??The contestants, who are used to working with 200 feet or more room, found it less than ideal. But as NFR cowboy Rod Hay said when asked about the short arena, “I’d stop a steer on a dime for the money Las Vegas is paying,” (which was double). Fans and contestants both won.

We brought in Volume Services, a venue food and beverage contractor. They built out the concession stands and paid us 35% of gross sales. Rent, the F&B and merchandise rebate, and parking generated between $50,000-150,000 per event. In addition, the 30 boxes around the arena sold for between $12,000 and $30,000. The box owner handled the design and transformation from cement to a VIP entertainment room. The last piece of revenue was signage.

The Thomas and Mack Center opened on November 21st, 1983.??Volume Services served soda, beer, and hotdogs out of portable equipment that season. Fans parked in 6,000?dirt?spaces. The concourse looked like my garage. We opened with eight full-time employees. The rest would come as we generated revenue.

But none of that mattered when the Runnin’ Rebels took the floor!

For ten years, there was no better show in town. The popular team easily filled the additional 11,000 seats. The Rotunda transformed the light show and included spotlights, gobo lights projecting images of "The Shark" on the floor, and a rowdy pep band and 18,500 frenzied fans in the crowd. We thought fireworks in a basketball arena would never fly until KISS’s concert. Until they installed video boards over the court, fireworks were the next ingredient.

We wasted no time booking events.??In the first year, we hosted twenty-four concerts. Genesis, Lionel Richie, Waylon’ and Willie (do you believe Willie’s still touring!), Van Halen, Rod Stewart…

Truck Pulls (remember them?) Monster Trucks

And family shows!

Stay tuned for Part II as the venue continues to grow. The Runnin’ Rebels go on a historic run… more concerts, the WAC basketball Tournament, Michael Jordan, Kareem Abdul Jabbar, PBR World Finals, the Thunder and a dozen minor league sports and the …

National Finals Rodeo!

Thomas and Mack Center’s 40 Year Anniversary blog is part of a a series.??You can catch up at?Pat’s Points

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