Thomas & Mack Center has been great venue for Wrangler NFR
hen the Thomas & Mack Center was conceived, there were no visions of cowboys roaming the halls or bulls beating them up on 2,000 tons of dirt. The Thomas & Mack Center was built for basketball, but the University of Nevada-Las Vegas could not afford its palace. It had to find events to pay its way and complete more than $15 million in finishes originally left out to make room for 3,000 more seats. “The Thomas & Mack Center was originally constructed with permanent seats on both ends, making it unusable for anything but basketball. The cement had just been poured when its new director, Dennis Finfrock came aboard,” said current Las Vegas Events President Pat Christenson. “Two weeks later, he was in front of the Nevada legislature, asking for $250,000 to rip it out.” The rest is history. In 1985, the NFR became the venue’s biggest event, and 29 years later, it still is. The storied facility has become synonymous with the world’s richest rodeo. Millions of fans have filed through its doors the last three decades to see their favorite rodeo superstars win gold. “The bottom line is that Las Vegas badly needed this type of venue,” said Christenson, who worked for the Thomas & Mack Center from its inception in 1983. “Once we opened the doors, we did every event imaginable. Every show we did generated revenue that paid the bills and allowed us to complete the building.”
Named for Las Vegas bankers E. Parry Thomas and Jerome Mack, the facility has played host to championship basketball, massive concerts featuring the likes of Garth Brooks, Mariah Carey, Elton John and U2 and championship boxing matches including some of the greatest names in the sport, from Evander Holyfield and Lennox Lewis, to Floyd Mayweather and Julio Cesar Chavez. Throw in events such as Disney on Ice, Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus, the Harlem Globetrotters, WWE Raw and Professional Bull Riders World Finals, and the facility’s history broadens even more. The largest venue of its type in a budding city like Las Vegas, the Thomas & Mack Center was a natural choice to host the Wrangler NFR. With 270 consecutive sellouts filling 17,600 seats each night, it is a partnership that has thrived through the years. For rodeo fans, the building offers great sight lines and is a convenient distance from anywhere on the strip. “The Thomas & Mack Center only has 30 suites and one concourse, which translate into the best sightlines in the country,” Christenson said. “There’s not another seat that’s as good in sports as the Gold Buckle seats. You’re right there, and how often can you look a bull right in the eye?” Contestants love competing there every December. “Oh, every time the excitement of riding there doesn’t wear off,” four-time World Champion Bareback