Gladiators deny relocation rumors

Sam Jankovich wants Gladiators fans to be angry.

He wants them to pick up the phone or fire off an e-mail telling the club how upset they are about the season.

Anything but silence.

Welcome to Las Vegas. Fans here don't bombard radio talk show hosts once a season goes sour; they simply move on to something else.

"If I'm going to be perfectly candid, I wish there was more discussion," said Jankovich, the club's general manager. "Any time you're 1-7 anywhere, there are a lot of repercussions, a lot of phone calls, a lot of e-mails and letters, but we've not had much of anything."

Amid fan apathy and diminishing crowd sizes at the Orleans Arena, about the only buzz the Gladiators are generating involves rumors that the team might leave after this season.

Jankovich, owner Jim Ferraro and coach Danton Barto all said no way.

This team will be back next season, Ferraro said, fans can "etch it in stone."

Barto said he heard rumors about the team relocating to Boston or Miami. Las Vegas officials' ties to the area -- Ferraro lives in Miami, Jankovich is a former University of Miami athletic director and Barto is from north Florida -- might be fueling the Gladiators-to-Miami speculation.

Barto said he would not believe a word of the talk unless someone in the organization told him otherwise.

"I've not been notified or even let on we were leaving," Barto said. "I think Jim likes having a team here when I talk to him. I've been wrong before, obviously. Owners do whatever they want. They own the team. But that's never even been brought up to me."

This is the Gladiators' fifth season in Las Vegas and their first at the Orleans Arena. They moved to the cozier venue after drawing disappointing crowds in the Thomas & Mack Center.

Attendance has steadily decreased this season. The March 18 home opener against New Orleans drew 6,593, followed by attendances of 5,416 on April 1 against Utah and 4,838 on April 8 against Kansas City.

Jankovich said he expects a bump for today's game against the Orlando Predators (4-3) at the Orleans Arena, predicting a crowd of 5,500 to 6,000.

"We don't have the Masters, we don't have UNLV playing basketball, we don't have them on TV, we don't have Easter and we don't have NASCAR," Jankovich said. "You name it, we've fought it."

Of course, nothing draws fans like winning, and the Gladiators hope to get on a roll soon and bring back fans.

And their owner.

Ferraro said he was so disappointed with the team's play that he didn't fly in for the past two home games. He will not attend today's game, either, because of a scheduling conflict but plans to return for the May 6 game against Los Angeles.

"I'm disgusted by the performance we've had this year, and I truly believe if the team had performed well, attendance wouldn't be where it is right now," Ferraro said.

Regardless, he said he believed in the talent and in the people he hired.

"As weird as it may seem being 1-7, I think we've got a pretty good team to go forward," Ferraro said. "Danton's going to be a really good coach in this league. I haven't given up on him."

But Ferraro is sick of not presiding over a winner. The Gladiators went 8-8 in each of their first three regular seasons in Las Vegas before sinking to 5-11 last year.

"I'm very tired of it," Ferraro said. "Unless we have something of a miracle, I want to get next season started."