Vol. 5 No. 1, January 2008
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30 Years at Ringside
Halloran helped make Atlantic City a sports heavyweight
Bob Halloran helped sports change the face of gaming, and gaming change the face of sports. The Robert Redford look-alike, a one-time New York sportscaster, Miami Dolphins announcer and TV personality, used sports to create a gaming niche. Caesars hired him for its Nevada interests in 1978 and asked him to export its customer cultivation brand to Atlantic City. Halloran thrived as a sporting events specialist (to this day a rare commodity in the casino industry, where most companies don’t even have a sports department). He spiked business by tapping the lucrative New York market, where he was well-connected among network execs.
“We pretty much used the same formula in Atlantic City that we had in Las Vegas,” says Halloran, now director of sports for MGM Mirage, one of the world’s leading hotel and gaming companies. “We could build a customer base with sporting events. But we didn’t want to do it unless the event was televised. That’s a marketing tool for us. That’s why we brought in many nationally televised fights.”
Halloran recently helped deliver two blockbusters to the Strip: Oscar De La Hoya-Floyd Mayweather last May, and Ricky Hatton versus Mayweather in December. He reports to MGM chief executive Terry Lanni, another Atlantic City alumnus and a member of the Gaming Hall of Fame.
Halloran helped Atlantic City become a sports heavyweight without affecting Caesars in Las Vegas. He made sure Atlantic City did not overbid Las Vegas for major fights, and monitored the best interests of both cities. While Las Vegas boasted the Grand Prix, golf tournaments and basketball, Atlantic City focused on boxing. The New York networks were glad to get in on the Jersey Shore action.
“It was an easy run down to Atlantic City for them,” says Halloran. “We weren’t doing sellouts; the hope was just to break even, and anything more would be great. We did a lot of fights like Vinny Pazienza and Greg Haugen—guys with followings. We always found the events that would bring us a lot of exposure.”
One nationally televised event brought Halloran his best heavyweight “encounter.” Randall “Tex” Cobb was boxing’s lovable bad boy, famous for a fight that drove sportcaster Howard Cosell from ringside. Cobb’s 1982 bout with heavyweight champ Larry Holmes was so bloody, Cosell vowed he would never cover another fight. Cobb joked that he would gladly take another pummeling if Cosell would quit covering football.
At the peak of Cobb’s popularity, Halloran booked him in Atlantic City. Then things changed.
“Tex Cobb had a warm heart and he was funny, but he was the meanest-looking SOB you’d ever seen—his face looked like a train wreck,” says Halloran. “I get a call, quarter after 12 in the morning on the day he’s supposed to fight, and this guy says Cobb can’t do it, it’s a shoulder or something. I find out he’s in the coffee shop where he’s been for four days and confront him.
“I tell him he’s been eating our food, sleeping in our hotel and having a great time, and now he had no right to back out of a fight that’s on national television. We have customers here to see him, we’ve spent money advertising this event and we can’t just have him not fight. I screamed at him that I would get him suspended, never thinking of course that this guy could have knocked me right on my butt.
“Sure enough, he got suspended and a fighter named Pinklon Thomas showed up and saved the card. Years later I saw Tex and reminded him that he could have killed me that day. He smiled and said, ‘The only reason I didn’t was because I like you.’ “
The Massachusetts-born Halloran got a personal bonus during his Atlantic City days when he introduced his mother to gaming. “She flew from Massachusetts to LaGuardia, where I picked her up and drove her down here. It was her first time on a plane, in a limo, or at a casino. It was a great memory.
"At that time, maybe she’s 74 and I’m showing her how you put money in, how money comes out and what the slot machines were all about. We started sometime in the afternoon and didn’t go to bed until after 2 a.m.! She absolutely loved it. I think coming to Atlantic City kept my mother alive for the next 22 years. She looked forward to making those trips.”
These days, Halloran travels between several properties around the world. The growing reach of MGM Mirage creates more demand for major events, and the brisk pace keeps him happy. It’s been a satisfying ride for one of the industry’s first power brokers.
Did You Know?
• Bob Halloran interviewed fellow Massachusetts native President John F. Kennedy. He also sailed against Kennedy and played golf with him.
• Halloran gave Atlantic City its first fight under a tent. It was Thomas Hearns against Murray Sutherland, in 1983 at Caesars.
• He threw a roast for mercurial U.S. basketball coach Bob Knight after Knight was banned from Puerto Rico for throwing chairs and insulting officials. Halloran found a comedian to impersonate the officials and recreate the incident. Knight loved it.
• Halloran interviewed JFK at the Orange Bowl when tensions escalated between the United States and Fidel Castro. Kennedy offered Halloran a cigar and asked him not to tell anybody where he got it. “Why?” Halloran asked. “Because it’s a Cuban,” said Kennedy.
