Breaking News About Silver Dollar Classic!


Nonchalant

Nonchalant

Hail, Hail To Thee...
BLACK COMMUNITY URGED TO BOYCOTT COPYCAT LAS VEGAS BLACK COLLEGE FOOTBALL CLASSIC STOLEN FROM BLACK BUSINESSMEN

Los Angeles, California

The Silver Dollar Classic, the Black College Football Classic that was successfully launched in Las Vegas on September 21, 2002, was robbed of the opportunity to do business in Las Vegas in 2003.

Pat Christenson, President of Las Vegas Events, a special division of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, has taken the Silver Dollar Classic concept and renamed a copycat event to be held in September 2003 at the Sam Boyd Stadium According to the Las Vegas Review Journal, the name of the black football classic has been changed to the Las Vegas Classic. This gives the impression that the Silver Dollar Classic event has been renamed.

It could be viewed as a ploy to manipulate those who attended the Silver Dollar Classic last year, into returning to attend the same event.

Silver Dollar Classic was created in 2000 out of the vision and commitment of seven Los Angeles African-American Businessmen, led by Publisher Calvin Lovick. Most of these businessmen are graduates of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU).

This annual event was created to assist in the development of young African-Americans and to expose them to the historical black college and university experience, which is primarily in the southeast. These businessmen hosted the first annual black college football classic west of the Rockies.

In 2002 the Inaugural Silver Dollar Classic was held at the Sam Boyd Stadium, under the leadership of Daren Libonati, Director of Thomas and Mack/Sam Boyd Stadium in Las Vegas. The official stadium count was 25,000 at the football game and another 13,000 at the Battle of the Bands event held at the Thomas and Mack.

Approximately 30,000 African Americans traveled to Las Vegas for the exciting weekend event, which generated substantial revenue for the City of Las Vegas. The attendance exceeded the expectations of the Las Vegas representatives, who until that time, were unfamiliar with the traditions of the Historically Black Colleges and Universities, prestigious alumni, friends, families and fans. It is our belief that prior to the Silver Dollar Classic, Pat Christenson, Daren Libonati, or the Event Management Leader were totally unfamiliar with the long-standing tradition and loyalty which centers around black college football competition or the unique Battle of the Bands, Calvin Lovick stated.

Following the Silver Dollar Classic, the City of Las Vegas realized the potential revenue that could be generated by hosting a Black college football game in their city, according to Earl Harris, Vice President of Operations for Silver Dollar Classic. Silver Dollar Classic officials were informed that the initial financial requirements for hosting their 2003 event at the Sam Boyd Stadium would be ten times the amount they paid in 2002 plus a $2,000,000 line of credit and a letter of reference. These requirements were not in effect in 2002, when there was no track record.

The new conditional requirements for the 2003 Silver Dollar Classic were implemented in spite of the Silver Dollar Classic success in 2002.

There are no African-Americans involved in the planning of the copycat event, the Las Vegas Classic, scheduled for September 2003 at Sam Boyd Stadium. In fact, the event was planned without the knowledge or participation of the original African-American creators of the Classic. Historically Black College and University football is an arena that African-Americans have always treated with the utmost loyalty, pride, respect and love. The Silver Dollar Classic is therefore asking those considering attending the copycat, Las Vegas Black College Football game scheduled for September 2003 to boycott this event.
 
It is to my knowledge that A&T and Southern both have not signed this contract. And tell me why does UNLV get the profits from concessions? :rolleyes: I just don't see either institution about to kick out $1 millon for this game...what do you all think?...Carry On..
 



"I just don't see either institution about to kick out $1 millon for this game...what do you all think?"

The 2 mil line of credit is applicable to the prospective promoters not the universities.

Actually, this controversy is relative old news
 
Originally posted by JROCK
"I just don't see either institution about to kick out $1 millon for this game...what do you all think?"

The 2 mil line of credit is applicable to the prospective promoters not the universities.

Actually, this controversy is relative old news
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Thanx for clearing that up...so what's the deal with this game then?
 
Originally posted by Nonchalant


I was thinking the same thing...like in LA...Carry On..
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Would be nice, there once was an LA classic. The best venues we have out here are the Coliseum or Rose Bowl, now that would be nice. Diego has the Gold Coast Classic.
 
Originally posted by limefree


Would be nice, there once was an LA classic. The best venues we have out here are the Coliseum or Rose Bowl, now that would be nice.
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FUNNY YOU SHOULD MENTION THE L.A. CLASSIC I FOUND A TAPE OF THE L.A. CLASSIC THAT I SHOT IN 1989. THE ICON THAT IS GRAMBLING VS. alcorn.
 
Originally posted by jag4life


LA would be even better anyway!!
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No it wouldn't! Take it from someone who knows. Folks in LA could care less about an HBCU football game. They just don't care. As you can see, they don't even care about having an NFL team there.
 
Originally posted by JROCK
[B
Actually, this controversy is relative old news [/B]
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If it's so old news what do the schools involved attempting to do?

Do they or do they not have a contract with Pat Christenson, President of Las Vegas Events, a special division of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority?

Have it been signed?

If not, are there any alternatives to playing this game in Vegas?

If these aligations are true are they still going to participate in this venture?
 
Originally posted by Fiyah


If it's so old news what do the schools involved attempting to do?

Do they or do they not have a contract with Pat Christenson, President of Las Vegas Events, a special division of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority?

Have it been signed?

If not, are there any alternatives to playing this game in Vegas?

If these aligations are true are they still going to participate in this venture?
Click to expand...

We (Nation) discussed this last week in the forum. To my knowledge the adminstration haven't made a decision yet, if they have it hasn't been released. Should know something by the next board meeting.
 
man people when I tell you don't believe the hype......please do so.

This e-mail is propoganda for a group of business men who didn't take care of business. This is not and I can't say it strongly enough....a racial issue. It is plain and simple....business. The promoters of this game are taking much better care of the 2 schools involved than last years promoters. And all of that nonsense in that e-mail about how the game was "ripped from under them" is nothing more than those individulas who were to profit the most spitting sour grapes because they blew the deal. It wasn't taken from them, they just didn't do the proper job, and like any good business idea, someone else saw a chance to do it, and they did. See it is situations like this,where someone wants to play the race card to cover their own arse after they didn't do their job. If they had taken as much time and effort to plan the game as they put into writing this letter. Then all of this would be a non issue.

How can this e-mail and those who support it talk about supportig your own, but would suggest that people and alumni boycott this game which is promoting two of our nations largest and most popular HBCU's, why because one of the new promoters is white? If so, then black America is in a sad state of affairs. We scream judge us by our character, yet we want to judge this game based on the racial makeup of some of the promoters, because contrary to what this letter will have you believe, they aren't all white.

Ask GSU and TnSU when we finally got paid for last years game, and ask SU and A&T if there money is already guranteed and ready to go, if they haven't already received money for their travel expenses.

There is always another side to every story.....
 



I "bean" what you say Suge...the promoters should have handled their business, got the legal paper work completed to protect their interest and took care of the teams to ensure they wouldn't lose "their" game.
 
GOOD OLE BOY NETWORK.


Originally posted by Nonchalant


Pat Christenson, President of Las Vegas Events, a special division of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, has taken the Silver Dollar Classic concept and renamed a copycat event to be held in September 2003 at the Sam Boyd Stadium.

The new conditional requirements for the 2003 Silver Dollar Classic were implemented in spite of the Silver Dollar Classic success in 2002.

Click to expand...
 
Suge,

This ain't business, this is a plan to get rid of the bruthas. If you and your boys had been the promoters, you wouldn't be saying that this is just business.

"Following the Silver Dollar Classic, the City of Las Vegas realized the potential revenue that could be generated by hosting a Black college football game in their city, according to Earl Harris, Vice President of Operations for Silver Dollar Classic. Silver Dollar Classic officials were informed that the initial financial requirements for hosting their 2003 event at the Sam Boyd Stadium would be ten times the amount they paid in 2002 plus a $2,000,000 line of credit and a letter of reference. These requirements were not in effect in 2002, when there was no track record."

That line of credit is not impossible to get, especially if you cleared a nice amount of money with the 2002 classic. But when you don't have "hard goods" to secure the line with and you may not have garnered revenue to justify a line that high, then that can be difficult to obtain. Really, a $2 million line for a classic that's only going to draw about 30K is kinda ridiculous. You should only need a line of about $500K and that's even high. Your line of creidt for a classic should only need to cover the costs of putting on the classic. It's only a form of financial insurance that you can actually put the event on. No classic is going to cost $2 million to put on. Not even close. The line of credit has nothing to to with laibility insurance coverage.

The Amerikan way:
1) Let the brothers do all the upfront work,
2) Give them a 1 year deal to see if it'll work,
3) Price them out after it's successful, and
4) Then characterize the knock-off as having changed its name, but still somehow related to the original.
Yeah, The Amerikan Way.
 
HERE IS A EMAIL ABOUT THE SITUATUION FROM THE 5Q.

A decision will have to be made soon though. I wonder if there's a deadline?
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Here's the response...

FROM: "Pat Christenson"
DATE: Thu, 3 Apr 2003 16:10:25 -0800
TO: "Deena Smith"
SUBJECT: RE: Las Vegas Football Classic

Tentatively, the universities participating are Southern and NC A&T. I am not sure when it will be official. We are tentatively sponsoring it based on finalization of teams.


Pat
 
I guess I straddle the fence on this issue.

On one hand I'm disgusted at the way the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority deceived people by having everyone think that they were the same promoters from last year's classic.

But I also agree w/ Suge because the "bruthas" didn't handle their business. They could have enter a three year deal w/ an option to buy out if the event wasn't successful.

And regarding "initial financial requirements for hosting their 2003 event at the Sam Boyd Stadium would be ten times the amount they paid in 2002 plus a $2,000,000 line of credit " this is not uncommon w/in the stadium business.

THe bottom line is that the black promoters were lax in putting this whole thing together and if they would have taken those 2 years to plan out things right then maybe they would be going through this.
 
Thank you GA, because you just provided even more insight into how stadiums and booking stadiums works!

And further more, how exactly did the current promotors try to pass themselves off as the same as last year? The name of the game changed. Just because it is in the same city in no way means that it was the same group putting the game on. Frankly these people dropped the ball, and someone came in and picked it up. You fumble the ball, there is a chance the other team will pick it up.
 
Originally posted by SAME OLD G


No it wouldn't! Take it from someone who knows. Folks in LA could care less about an HBCU football game. They just don't care. As you can see, they don't even care about having an NFL team there.
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I don't think so. There are a lot of HBCU Alum out here that would definitely look forward to a game. Looking at the numbers that Vegas put up I think L.A. could do the same or better. I don't think interest would be a problem.

:topic:
Now the business about having an NFL team. With the second largest television market wouldn't the NFL care about having a team here? At one point there was a big squabble about renovation of a stadium or building a new one and that was the fault of the city. Currently there is a stadium that they are exploring as the new home for a relocated team, not expansion and they are waiting on an environmental impact report on the ARROYO (hint). They are a lot closer than expected.
 
Suge, and GramAlum

:read:


...thanks for posting your points of view. Because from the initial post, one might believe that "something was stolen from us"[ie, Black folks], and that may still be the case OR not. But all the while I kept asking myself [and other posters on the other HBCU message boards]

* Why didn't these organizers/promoters of last year's Silver Dollar Classic plan for more than the first year? i.e., How come they did not plan for a minimum 5-year deal for this event? That would have [and I am guessing here] locked in their rates, expenses, fees, etc. without having to worry about "rate hikes" - right? What type of contract did these brothers have? I'm sure the 100 BM have a multiple-year contract to put on the Atlanta Football Classic and I know the Bayou Classic is under a multiple-year contract. I wonder what's the deal with this Las Vegas game? Did these brothers really drop the ball? Or is this just business as usual, i.e., DOLLARS TALK and BS WALKS. :smh:
 
Often times entities will not allow you contract a multi-year deal for their facilities, because they view their events as their first priority. Also creating longer multi-year contracts would more than likely require the organizer or promoter to invest more upfront for deposits and etc.

Personally, I do not think it there was anything unlawfully done in this case, but I think it obviously that some unscrouplous (inmoral)business practices game into play and not being on the inside and knowing all the facts it really difficult for me have a firm stay one way or the other. But, on general principle based on what I currently am aware of I will not attend the event and I was actually looking forward to making a vacation out of this event.
 
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