One by one, the dignitaries stepped to the podium Wednesday afternoon inside the Thomas & Mack Center’s crowded Strip View Pavilion. 

Nevada’s governor was the first to speak, followed by a prominent hotel-casino owner; the president of Las Vegas Events; the CEO of the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association; a veteran Clark County Commissioner (and current Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority board chairman); and finally UNLV’s president and athletics director.

They all gathered — along with several cowboy champions from the recent and distant past — not so much to ceremoniously open the chutes to the 2025 Wrangler National Finals Rodeo. Rather, this was more about commemorating the 40th anniversary of a remarkably successful marriage. 

That everyone descended on the Thomas & Mack for the celebration was only fitting. After all, the venue — and the campus on which it is stands — has been a dutiful partner in that marriage, serving as the home to professional rodeo’s showcase event since it relocated from Oklahoma City in 1985.

“We’re so proud to be the host of the NFR,” UNLV interim president Chris Heavey said during Wednesday’s reception, which was dubbed “40 Years in Vegas: A Gathering of Champions.” “UNLV exists to serve this community, and the NFR is a shining example of how we’ve been able to make this community a better, more vibrant place.”

From bust to boom

Vibrant. Prior to 1985, that word was never used to describe Las Vegas — or specifically the famous resort corridor that sits a mile west of UNLV — during the monthlong stretch between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

Just ask legendary Las Vegas casino operator and longtime NFR supporter Michael Gaughan.

“Forty years ago, December was a completely dead month in Las Vegas,” said Gaughan, who currently owns the South Point Hotel, Casino & Spa at the southern end of the Las Vegas Strip. “There was no business from the Monday after Thanksgiving until Christmas Day. Every hotel closed its showrooms. Every hotel furloughed [workers]. They used that time to shampoo the carpets and clean the kitchens.

“Before 1985, you could shoot a canyon down The Strip in December. The rodeo coming here changed all that.”

Thanks in no small part to both UNLV and its campus arena.

Opened two years prior to the NFR’s arrival, the Thomas & Mack Center was the ideal venue to stage the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association’s annual 10-day season-ending competition.

Ideal not just because it was, at the time, the only building in town that met the PRCA’s needs. But also because of how it was constructed and what it included: the oval shape offered the requisite space for the riding, roping, and racing competitions; the rodeo seating capacity of nearly 17,000 included dozens of then state-of-the-art suites; and the orientation was such that fans were right on top of the action with unimpeded views no matter where they sat in the two-deck facility.

Renovations and upgrades over the years — including the addition of a second entrance tunnel on the main level that allows for the separation of livestock and also speeds up the nightly competitions — have only improved the NFR fan’s experience.

“With the exception of Denver, I’ve been to every rodeo arena in the country over the last 40 years,” Gaughan said. “And I can confidently say that UNLV’s Thomas & Mack Center is the best rodeo arena that there is in the country.

“The sight lines, how it’s laid out with openings at both ends, how everything flows and operates — it’s the perfect venue for this event.”

Gaughan — who estimates he’s only missed about a half-dozen NFR performances at the Thomas & Mack — isn’t just offering a perspective from a VIP section, either.

“I think it was the second year the NFR was here, I sat in the last row of the second deck with my back against the wall — just to see what the worst seat in the house was like.

“There is not one bad seat in the Thomas & Mack.”

‘Truly an amazing production’

Such high praise certainly is music to the ears of Mike Newcomb.

Like Gaughan, Newcomb had a front-row seat for Wednesday’s 40th anniversary celebration — and rightfully so. As the executive director of facilities for UNLV, he holds the keys that unlock the Thomas & Mack Center’s doors through which more than 170,000 rodeo fans have passed every year for four decades.

Newcomb first got a glimpse of those fans some 35 years ago, when he was a first-year UNLV student and landed a part-time job with the Thomas & Mack Center. 

His initial thoughts in 1990 about working the NFR? About what one would expect from someone with East Coast roots. “I came from Connecticut, so I was like, ‘Ah, it’s just a rodeo. What’s the big deal?’”

By the end of the first go-round, Newcomb had his answer.

“It’s difficult to explain to someone who has never seen it,” he said. “But once you do, you immediately get it — the pageantry, how everything is meticulously planned out, the abilities of the athletes. It truly is an amazing production.”

And one for which Newcomb’s team — which is comprised of 80 full-time employees and hundreds of part-time event staff workers — plays a highly integral role.

From the moment rodeo fans arrive on the Thomas & Mack property to the time they depart when the three-hour performance concludes, countless parking attendants, ticket scanners, ushers, concessionaires, technicians, food-and-beverage personnel, and cleanup crews do their part to ensure each go-round goes off without a hitch.

Offering the total package

Indeed, the well-oiled Thomas & Mack Center machine is a huge reason why the Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association has returned to the venue year after year, decade after decade — even as newer event facilities have been constructed up, down and all around the Las Vegas Strip.

“We now have so many great venues in Las Vegas,” Heavey said during Wednesday’s celebratory news conference at the Strip View Pavilion. “But back in the day, the Thomas & Mack was quite unique and still has a bunch of attributes that make it the ideal site for the NFR.”

No less an authority than the NFR’s boss concurs. 

“There are some modern amenities that we’d like to see that come with a newer building — wider concourses, more plush suites, etc.,” PRCA CEO Tom Glause said, “but our members, our athletes and especially our fans love the Thomas & Mack. There’s a lot of energy, and the action is up-close and intimate. So even though there are some limitations, they’re limitations that we can work within.”

Especially given the fact that the arena itself and Thomas & Mack’s capable staff are only two of the positive attributes that UNLV brings to this 40-year relationship. UNLV also offers: 

• Close proximity to the Las Vegas Strip and downtown — where the majority of visiting rodeo enthusiasts eat, gamble, attend NFR-related concerts and events, and (occasionally) sleep — as well as to the Las Vegas Convention Center, home to the wildly popular Cowboy Christmas gift show.
• Plenty of indoor and outdoor space for pre- and post-competition entertainment and programming.
• And perhaps most important of all, a large intramural sports field that serves as the overnight and daytime home for the bucking bulls and broncs as well as steers, calves, and horses.

It’s a prime piece of real estate that no other large-scale arena in Las Vegas can offer during the NFR.

A full house is a winning hand

In 2024, more than 170,000 fans filled the Thomas & Mack for the Wrangler NFR’s 10 go-rounds. 

Of course, that doesn’t qualify as breaking news. With the exception of 2020 — when the COVID-19 pandemic forced the PRCA to relocate its marquee event to a baseball stadium near Dallas — every NFR performance at the T&M since 1987 has sold out.

By the time the curtain closes on the 2025 NFR, the sellout streak will stand at 389 events.
 
Needless to say, the economic impact for all parties involved — resort owners, the city, the county, the PRCA, and UNLV — has been immense.

“To have 170,000 people come through our building over a 10-day stretch in what is otherwise a pretty slow month of December is huge for us,” said Newcomb, who became a full-time Thomas & Mack employee in 1996 and has served in his current role since 2011. “But beyond the financial impact, being connected to the NFR has helped [UNLV and the Thomas & Mack] grow our relationship with the city, with Las Vegas Events, with the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.”

Adds Heavey: “I’ve had the pleasure of seeing the NFR on this campus since I got here in 1992. And I’m really proud of the fact that UNLV, as a community resource, played a part in bringing the NFR to our beautiful city and has continued to support it for all these decades.”

The best news about this particular marriage? It’s not ending anytime soon.

In June 2024, the PRCA and Las Vegas Events reached an extension that will keep the NFR at the Thomas & Mack Center through at least 2035.

In other words, the powers that be can go ahead and start planning a 50th anniversary celebration. Which is just fine with Shad Mayfield.

The tie-down roper and 2024 all-around NFR champion was among a group of reigning titleholders who joined several 1985 NFR champs at Wednesday’s gathering.

After taking his turn at the podium during the news conference, Mayfield spoke about his affinity for the building where he made his NFR debut in 2019 — and where his father, calf roper Sylvester Mayfield, did the same in, yep, 1985.

“I had just turned 19 years old when I first walked into this building as a competitor. It was something I had dreamed of since I was a little kid,” Mayfield said. “My first go-round here, I was so nervous. I had goose bumps. Then when I was in the box getting ready to go and they announced my name, there was no other feeling like it.

“This arena means the world to me. Because when you think of the NFR, you think of the Thomas & Mack. To me, it’s where this event is meant to be.”

Echoing that sentiment is the 2007 inductee into the Pro Rodeo Hall of Fame who has worked tirelessly to support and grow the NFR in Las Vegas for 40 years (and counting): “The NFR is probably the biggest single event our town hosts each year, and nobody believes me,” said Michael Gaughan. “If I had it my way, it would never leave UNLV.”