Plan the Las Vegas road trip after all.
The Arizona football team will be opening the season on the road in Las Vegas despite much talk that UNLV was going to move its home game from Sam Boyd Stadium to University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, which would have generated a windfall of between $750,000 and a $1 million.
Arizona athletic director Greg Byrne said about two weeks ago that the deal was all but done and that fans could expect the game to be played in metro Phoenix. That revelation came at about the same time that UNLV athletic director Jim Livengood, who previously held the same position at Arizona, announced that he'd be retiring next month.
But things changed, as they often do when it comes to Vegas.
Livengood said Friday in a prepared statement: “We were approached by a promoter to move our September 7 home football game against Arizona to Glendale’s University of Phoenix Stadium but we’ve decided to keep the game in Las Vegas. We went through the process with the University of Arizona, Russ Potts Productions and Global Spectrum (which manages the stadium) and everyone was great in trying to make this thing work. We just couldn’t get the numbers to match up and in the end everyone agreed it would be best to keep the game here. We are excited to have seven home games this fall and that the Rebels will be opening up at Sam Boyd Stadium against a Pac-12 opponent.”
Byrne reacted with a statement on Twitter:
Arizona should still have a decent fan contingent in Las Vegas, which is just a seven-hour drive and about a 70-minute flight from Tucson. UA fans blanketed Vegas in March at the Pac-12 tournament, being held there for the first time, and it's likely that they'll be there in abundance on Sept. 7.
