Thomas & Mack Center The Thomas & Mack Center is an arena , located on the campus of the University of Nevada , Las Vegas , in Paradise , Nevada , USA . For ring events , the capacity is 19 , 522 ; for basketball , the capacity is 18 , 776 . History . The facility was first opened in the summer of 1983 and underwent a major interior and exterior renovation in 1999 . 2008 saw the installation of all new visual equipment , which included a 4 - sided new center - hung LED widescreen scoreboard , which includes four LED advertising / scoring boards above it and a LED advertising ring below it to replace the one installed in 1995 , a partial LED ring beam display covering 80 % of the balcony ' s rim , a new 50 ' LED scorer ' s table display , a new shot clock system for the backboards , six wall - mounted locker room game clocks , two new custom scoreboards with fixed digital scoring and complete player stats and a new outdoor marquee LED video billboard . The facility is named after two prominent Nevada bankers , E . Parry Thomas and Jerome Mack , who donated the original funds for the feasibility and land studies . In 2001 , a smaller arena , Cox Pavilion , was added to the complex ; the two arenas are directly connected . Cox Pavilion is used for smaller events ; its main tenants are the UNLV women ' s basketball and volleyball programs . Its primary tenant is the UNLV men ' s basketball team . The arena was nicknamed " the Shark Tank " after Jerry Tarkanian , the UNLV coach when it opened , who won a national championship in 1990 and took the team to three other Final Four s . It also hosts the National Finals Rodeo annually . Since 1999 , it also hosts the PBR World Finals . The facility also hosted the Las Vegas Thunder of the now defunct International Hockey League . It also hosts the Los Angeles Lakers pre - season games annually in October . Arena Football . It was the former home of the Arena Football League ' s Las Vegas Sting and Las Vegas Gladiators . In 2005 and 2006 , the arena hosted the Arena Football League ' s ArenaBowl . ArenaBowl XIX and ArenaBowl XX were the first two ArenaBowls to be held at a neutral site arena . In the past , the games had been played at the sight of the highest seed in the playoffs . In ArenaBowl XIX in 2005 , the Colorado Crush , owned by John Elway defeated the Georgia Force on a field goal on the final play of the game . The game was ranked as one of the AFL ' s 20 best games ever in league history . The following year , 2006 , the Chicago Rush , owned by Mike Ditka defeated the Orlando Predators 69 - 61 for the Rush ' s first championship in franchise history . Basketball . The venue hosted the 2007 NBA All - Star Game , marking the first time that this game was held in a city without a National Basketball Association ( NBA ) franchise . For the first time in NBA history , an on - campus college sports arena served as venue of an NBA All - Star Game . However , the arena had previously hosted home games for two NBA teams , the Utah Jazz and Los Angeles Lakers . Utah used the arena in the mid - 1980s , and was where Kareem Abdul - Jabbar broke Wilt Chamberlain ' s record for points in a career in 1984 . The Lakers used the arena in 1992 for Game 4 of their first round playoff series against the Portland Trail Blazers , which Portland won 102 – 76 . The NBA moved the game as a result of the Los Angeles riots . The 1994 - 95 Big West Conference , 1997 – 99 Western Athletic Conference and 2000 - 03 Mountain West Conference men ' s basketball tournaments were held there as well . The Mountain West Conference basketball tournament returned in 2007 and will stay until 2013 . In late 2007 , CBS filmed part of the " " episode , " Bull " , at the Thomas & Mack Center , which was hosting the PBR World Finals . The FIBA Americas Championship 2007 was held at Thomas & Mack Center from August 22 to September 2 . Other . The facility also hosts numerous other events , such as concerts , music festivals , conventions , boxing cards , MMA cards such as UFC 43 and Pride Fighting Championships 32 & 33 and professional wrestling shows , including WWF No Way Out 2001 , WWE Vengeance 2005 , No Way Out ( 2008 ) , Money in the Bank ( 2012 ) and on January 28 , 2007 High School Musical performed . It has then hosted 2 consecutive weeks of Monday Night RAW on June 27 , 2011 and July 4 , 2011 ( the former featured C . M . Punk ' s infamous shoot promo , and the latter which had the show celebrating the United States Independence Day ) . On September 12 , 1992 , Mexican boxing legend Julio César Chávez faced Hector " Macho " Camacho , and on September 15 , 2012 , his son Julio César Chávez , Jr . fought against Sergio Gabriel Martínez for the WBC Middleweight Belt . Phish performed and recorded their Halloween show , on October 31 , 1998 , which was later released as a live album , entitled " Live Phish Volume 16 " . The arena has also hosted lectures by Bill Clinton and Mikhail Gorbachev as part of various UNLV - affiliated lecture series . Pearl Jam performed at the arena on July 11 , 1998 . The arena was the host to one of the six U . S performances of the industrial metal band Rammstein on their first North American tour in over ten years on May 21 , 2011 .