Tickets at premium for Rebels-Wisconsin game

UNLV might set a season attendance record, but the single-game mark won't fall.

The school will not bring in temporary bleachers for the Sept. 8 football game against Wisconsin at Sam Boyd Stadium. This is the Badgers' first visit since 2002, which was played in front of a UNLV home-record crowd of 42,075.

UNLV athletic director Mike Hamrick said adding the 3,300 temporary seats would have cost $100,000. He also said the school had to decide by July 1, too early to know with certainty whether the game would sell out and justify the extra expenditure.

"Financially it just didn't make sense," Hamrick said Monday. "Plus, I think it makes it a big premium ticket."

Hamrick said the Wisconsin game is close to a sellout through season tickets and other early sales and that individual tickets might not become available. Demand for the game has helped account for the roughly 9,300 season tickets UNLV has sold, which Hamrick said he believes is the most ever for the Rebels.

Also, Las Vegas Bowl executive director Tina Kunzer-Murphy said her game is weighing whether to bring back the bleachers. The bowl brought in 4,600 extra seats last year at a price of $101,200, and a record crowd of 44,615 watched Brigham Young and Oregon.

• GOING LIVE -- The Rebels will go into full pads this morning, but junior quarterback Rocky Hinds won't have to worry about being roughed up.

Hinds, who underwent anterior cruciate ligament surgery in January, is still off limits to take hits in practice. Coach Mike Sanford said Hinds probably won't be "live" until later this week or perhaps next week in Ely.

"We've got to kind of work into that rather than the first day we go in full pads," Sanford said.