Las Vegas Bowl hoping for possible CFP upgrade

LAS VEGAS — As the Las Vegas Bowl’s executive director, John Saccenti gets to hand out the Rossi Ralenkotter Championship Trophy every year.  

Friday, he gave the hardware to USC, which had overcome some self-inflicted wounds and a 24-7 deficit en route to defeating Texas A&M 35-31 in front of an announced crowd of 26,671 at Allegiant Stadium.

The Trojans (7-6) celebrated the Las Vegas homecoming of Trojans quarterback Jayden Maiava, who attended Liberty High School and last year operated in this stadium running UNLV’s Go-Go Offense before transferring to USC. Friday, Maiava passed for 295 yards and four touchdowns while being intercepted three times.

Saccenti doesn’t have a crystal ball. But when you’ve been running a bowl game for 11 years, you get a feel for things. Saccenti is optimistic that somehow, someway, the Las Vegas Bowl will find itself in the mix for hosting a game in the College Football Playoff.

“I feel we have a lot to offer (the CFP),” he said. “We have a great facility (in Allegiant Stadium) and we’re in a great city that people want to visit. I would like to think the committee would want to have Las Vegas be involved.”

It does.

There has been much speculation that the 2027 title game will be in Vegas, assuming there’s no conflict with the Consumer Electronics Show which comes to town every January. And with the playoff format expanded to 12 teams, it appears such a conflict will be avoided.

And with the city having successfully staged Super Bowl 58 back in February and getting high marks from the NFL, it would be hard to imagine the CFP committee saying no to Las Vegas.  

This year’s game will be at Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium on Jan. 20. Next year, Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium will host.

But even if the committee passes on Vegas for the championship game, that doesn’t mean it wouldn’t consider the Las Vegas Bowl for a second-round game or an opening-round contest if it decides to tweak the present format of having teams host on their campus.

The current format is locked in for two years so the earliest Saccenti and the LV Bowl can be considered is 2026. That also happens to be the year the game could have a new title sponsor.
SRS Distribution’s deal as the game’s title sponsor ends with next year’s game. Saccenti said the hope is to renew the deal with SRS, whose president and CEO is Dan Tinker, a 1996 graduate of Texas A&M.

Regardless, the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, which has put its immense weight and marketing might behind the game since its inception in 1992, stands ready to do whatever it takes to advance the Las Vegas Bowl.  

“We’re always going to be in good shape and we’re always going to be a place people want to come,” Saccenti said. “I will put our bowl week events up against anyone in the country.

“Nobody does events like his. Nobody does gifting to players like we do. That’s what it’s all about. To make sure we take care of these teams.”

The players from USC and Texas A&M got to experience The Sphere as part of their bowl week. They got to design their own pair of Air Jordan shoes. They went down to Fremont Street for an old-fashioned pep rally.

And they played Friday in a $2 billion state-of-the-art NFL stadium. The Trojans had already experienced that back in September when they beat LSU 27-20 in front of an Allegiant Stadium record crowd of 63,969 in the Vegas Kickoff Classic.

The attendance this time around wasn’t quite that. But that will change in the near future. Like everything in college ahtletics these days, things are in a state of flux. The current Las Vegas Bowl matchups have what used to be the Pac-12 vs. either the SEC or the Big Ten. With the Pac-12 restructuring, Saccenti figures change is coming for his game when it comes to the selection process.
“I think we’ll see more options,” he said of future games, whether or not the Las Vegas Bowl joins the CFP. “We have to make sure the bowl is also a marquee event that locals want to go to and be part of, but also that the fan bases we are inviting are excited and engaged.”

Of course, he’d prefer the decision be made for him by being in the CFP.

Saccenti, who knows something about marketing from his days of working for two of the town’s minor league sports franchises — the triple-A baseball Stars and the IHL’s Thunder (He was “Boom Boom,” the Thunder’s mascot) — has been able to grow the city’s bowl game during his 11-years as its executive director. From the humblest of beginnings in 1992 when Bowling Green defeated Nevada 35-34 at the old Sam Boyd Stadium, the Las Vegas Bowl now sits on the precipice of joining college football’s Big Boy Club. He’s convinced the day is coming soon when his game is part of the College Football Playoff.

Don’t bet against it. Who in their right mind ever thought the NFL would hold a Super Bowl here? Even crazier, who ever believed the NCAA would bring its men’s basketball Final Four to Vegas?