UNLV director of athletics Erick Harper wants to keep the momentum within the department going after he signed a four-year contract extension.
Under Harper’s leadership that began in late 2021 as interim AD, and then as permanent AD on Jan. 1, 2022, UNLV has won 15 conference championships and netted 11 league coach of the year awards. UNLV has also beat UNR in the annual Silver State Series in each of the years under Harper.
The launch of the athletics-specific Rebel Up campaign occurred under Harper, which has raised $41 million. Ten head coaches have been hired by Harper in multiple sports. UNLV athletes have excelled in the classroom, with a record 102 graduating in Spring of 2025, with a cumulative GPA of 3.0 or higher for the 16th straight semester.
Harper is leading the department to success while dealing with a nearly $27 million budget shortfall and the ever-changing world of college athletics.
Here’s how Harper envisions the next four years of his career at UNLV will go, as he addresses the goals and challenges he anticipates facing.
RJ:
With the new four-year extension signed, what are your plans for the duration of that contract?
Harper:
Yeah, I mean pretty much no different than normal. Just continue focusing on winning championships at a high level. Continue to try to work different ways to enhance the fan experience and what that comes with.
Winning kind of drives that, but at the same time, be able to do some things in our facilities, in our venues that keeps the fan excited. Making sure we modernize and stay up with times as technology moves forward, making sure we’re making seamless entrances and seamless at the concession stands and those particular things to enhance the experience.
And then we have to continue to work to engage campus, in particular students, for attendance at games, both at Allegiant (Stadium) and Thomas & Mack and the Pavilion, and then continue driving forth with our community engagement to build on our donor base, to build on our season ticket base, to build on just the community support as we continue to grow through the ecosystem of sports and entertainment in this city of Las Vegas, but also globally.
RJ:
Over the last few years you got the football program rolling pretty good here. Trying to get the men’s basketball back up there, with a higher transfer rate and the continued turnover with the team. What’s the goal there with the Runnin’ Rebels?
Harper:
With Josh (Pastner), really excited about Josh moving forward. He’s had his feet on the ground here in Las Vegas for a full year now. He’s been recruiting for a full year and there were over 3,000 kids that got in the transfer portal this year. And I think he’s done a very good job of being strategic and how he’s looked at the young men that he’s brought into the program. And he’ll mold those young men to compete and play hard, just like he did the team last year. And hopefully we don’t have the rash of injuries we had this past year. But I think he signed some really good quality young men that will bring back UNLV basketball back to prominence.
RJ:
What is your take on the expanded NCAA field? Do you think that is a good opportunity for the student-athlete to have more opportunity to play in that tournament?
Harper:
It gives more people more opportunity to play in it. I think it’s a good way to expand on what is there for March Madness and March Madness is obviously one of the biggest months of the year in all of sports. I think it’s spectacular to have all the student-athletes have the opportunity, those that have the opportunity to play March Madness.
You can never take that away from them for the rest of their lives. They have that opportunity to say they had that opportunity to play March Madness. I think the expansion is good. As long as it doesn’t become a watered down, where you have the early-round games where there’s absolutely no competition. I think it has to be very competitive. If it’s not competitive, people aren’t going to watch it.
RJ:
Has there been any consideration to try to bring some of the first four games here with the West games being added with expansion?
Harper:
We would always welcome games in the city of Las Vegas. It helps our economy. The economic impact of sports in this city is phenomenal. I’m sure that everybody on the resort corridor and surrounding areas would love to have more sports coming through the city of Las Vegas from a national perspective, from an economic impact and also just branding the city in and of itself. It’s a great city.
RJ:
We have the College Football Playoff championship coming to Allegiant Stadium next year. If you look at a lot of these early predictions and you see a lot of them having UNLV in the playoff? What’s it like to have that recognition now with the football program after years of struggling, but now you’re seeing UNLV’s logo pop up in some of these predictions?
Harper:
It’s awesome. That just tells me that we’ve been doing a lot of really good things here in the last few years. And the eyeballs are on us. I told our student-athletes last week that people are recognizing the things that they’re doing. And I think it’s special to be able to have our brand out there amongst those iconic brands that predictions are there, but they’re just what they are predictions. Still got to go out there on Friday night or Saturday, whenever the game is played, line up, play ball and play the best we can and come out on the side of the W and move on. But I think it’s spectacular to be able to see the UNLV brand constantly on the national scene when it comes to UNLV football. I think it’s absolutely fantastic for the entire university.
RJ:
Looking at the next four years, what do you think the biggest challenge is going to be for the department?
Harper:
Like every department in the country, it’s going to be sustaining financial stability is going to be the challenge for all of us as we move forward is the cost of elite competition and the cost of doing business and the cost of championships continues to rise. It’s just the cost of doing business these days.
RJ:
Right the athletic department has a $27 million shortfall. What’s the latest on that and the way you are going to try and tackle that and start trimming that down?
Harper: Yeah, it’s working with our president and our campus CFO on the things that we can do to reduce that. It’s across the country right now; we’re all having those challenges. But we got to do the best we can to generate additional revenues and also do the best we can to manage our expenses in a way that provides us an opportunity to continue to do the things we need to do for our student athletes so that their experience is spectacular. And we’ll continue to work with our campus community and then also our Board of Regents to make sure that we’re doing the things from a financial perspective that’s right for our university.
RJ:
With the Mountain West, they’re going to open their new headquarters in Las Vegas on July 1. What kind of dynamic does that create, having the conference office here in Las Vegas where UNLV is based out of?
Harper:
It’s great. I have a great relationship with everybody in the conference, and their office being here also provides an opportunity for the city of Las Vegas to host some Mountain West conference championships. So that helps the economic impact of the city. We could have all the championships coming through here and lock in the football championship game at Allegiant or in the city somewhere, we can lock that in. That’s a great economic impact right around the time right before the rodeo rolls in. So, I think it would be spectacular to be able to host more Mountain West championship competition here in Las Vegas.
RJ:
We’ve talked a lot about NIL and the revenue share over the last few months. So as far as that, I know you want to stay top of the Mountain West? What kind of work has went on the recently as far as those efforts go?
Harper:
We released the deal a few weeks ago in Championship Resources. That’s been one of our deals that we’ve done and that’s overseen by Joe Moeller, who’s my deputy AD for championship resources. We’re just working to find different ways to generate revenues in that space to support our student-athletes that are wearing the scarlet and gray every day. And we’ll continue to push forth on that to make sure that we work ourselves to reach the maximum allowable.
RJ:
On that, we recently got the announcements with men’s basketball returning to the Players Era tournament and now the volleyball team as well. Talk about having those opportunities for the student-athletes here with some of these big events that come to Vegas.
Harper:
It’s great. To be able to play in front of your home fans in this state, whether it’s in our venues or a different venue, but all of those venues and all of those games, those big tournaments like that, come here, that’s national TV exposure. So, it’s absolutely phenomenal for our university and for the athletic department and our student-athletes as well. To be on a national stage and play in big time tournaments like that and big time events like that, heck, that’s special.
RJ:
Would you say having those opportunities available when you’re recruiting, especially basketball, that you think it plays at least a small role as far as recruiting talent?
Harper:
Absolutely. Anytime you can talk about being on national TV, it’s going to help you in recruiting. I mean, you take our football, the last three years we’ve been on national TV, 83 percent of our games have been on national TV. Prior to that, I think we were down around 37 or 40 percent of our games were on national TV. So, I think when you can tell student-athletes that you’re going to be on national TV on a regular basis, that definitely perks up their interest because that helps them in the space of NIL.
RJ:
Over the course of your new four-year deal, I’m sure you have many, but what would you say is the biggest goal for you and the athletic department?
Harper:
Generating revenue. That’s going to be number one because when you can generate the revenue at a very, very high level, you can expand upon the experience for the student-athletes in all areas, academically, athletically, socially, because obviously everyone’s not going to go pro, so we have to be prepared for life after sport and so our career development.
But the more we can generate in revenue, the more that we can provide opportunities for our student-athletes on the field, on the court, in the water, on the course over the next four years. And we’re going to take it year by year, but our plan is to increase revenues, you know, five to 10 percent on an annual basis. There’s going to be some years that we increase by more than that and we’re going to be excited about that and continue to push forward.
Contact Mick Akers at makers@reviewjournal.com or 702-387-2920. Follow @mickakers on X.
