Golden Knights Using Humor In Homemade Videos to Help New Mascot, Promote Goal Horn

By ALAN SNEL

 

The Golden Knights team is off to a hot start — and so are the franchise’s business and video teams that are using a special sauce to get some marketing attention.

 

It’s humor.

 

The Golden Knights video production team has already created at least three funny videos that have been well received.

 

The team used Jimmy Kimmel’s “Mean Tweets” shtick to respond to fans who expressed mixed reviews to the rollout of the team’s mascot called, “Chance,” a gila monster played by mascot character performer Clint McComb. LVSportsBiz.com reported on Chance’s debut last month with a story Oct. 13.

 

The spot consisted of players such as Colin Miller, staff and even owner Bill Foley reading tweets that hammered the mascot, with Chance absorbing the social media shots in humorous settings. Foley was the closer in the self-deprecating Chance video.

 

 

One of the staffers in the mean tweets bit was Jim Frevola, the Golden Knights chief sales officer who assumed the role of “Phil” in the tweets video with such acting nimbleness that the cameo sparked his second VGK video appearance. He teamed with VGK President Kerry Bubolz and Chief Marketing Officer Brian Killingsworth to promote the team’s purchase of a powerful new goal horn that cost in the high five figures.

 

In fact, the quasi-inside joke is that Frevola appears with Bubolz and Killingsworth wearing the same “Phil” name tag first unveiled in the Chance mean tweet video.

 

Frevola took advantage of his extended camera time in the goal horn video when he did an imitation of Mr. T when Bubolz asked Frevola and Killingsworth during a “secret” meeting for big-name A-lister suggestions of celebrities to sound the horn.

 

(In a fitting move of Golden Knights video synergy, Chance the mascot ends up hitting the goal horn, with the blaring sounds blowing over everything in its audio path.)

 

 

The Golden Knights even enlisted their TV broadcasters, play-by-play man Dave Goucher, and analyst Shane Hnidy, for a funny video that focused on Goucher and Hnidy calling the play-by-play of team accountants going through paperwork. It was reminiscent of play-by-play sports broadcaster Marv Albert doing a play-by-play schpiel of a character involved in relationship issues in the movie, “Train Wreck.”

 

Hnidy told LVSportsBiz.co, between periods two and three of today’s Golden Knights-Kings game that the team has stressed video production creativity from the start. “Dave and I were very open to the skit,” Hnidy said. “I don’t know how far my acting career is going to go, but it’s about having fun.”

 

Bubolz said not only are the inside-created videos funny content, it allows the staff to not take itself too seriously.

 

“Once you take yourself too seriously, then you lose the ability to be creative,” Bubolz told LVSportsBiz.com before the Golden Knights-Kings 5 p.m. game at T-Mobile Arena. “If we’re not having fun, then there’s no way we can see fun.”

 

 

Bubolz said the highlight of the videos was team owner Foley being used as the closer for the Chance mean tweets video.

 

And the business team’s most underrated comic in the videos was Frevola, the chief sales officer who delivered his lines with impeccable timing and even provided some celebrity imitations that were not too shabby for a sales guy.

 

“I was surprised,” Bubolz said,

 

 

Bubolz said the key in doing humor in the videos is deploying good taste in the jokes, Bubolz said.

 

“When in doubt, don’t do it,” he said.

 

The man at the controls of the team’s Twitter controls, Dan Marrazza, has also used humor as his social media tactic in cheering on the Golden Knights and goofing on opponents.

 

He mocked the San Jose Sharks with a crunching hip check of a tweet back in September after the Sharks tweeted that the temperature in San Jose was hotter than the temp in Las Vegas, saying the Sharks were already up on the Golden Knights.

 

Marrazza used the Golden Knights twitter account to fire back, “Because everybody knows how good @SanJoseSharks  are at holding leads.” Ouch!

 

Marrazza did draw some criticism when he tweeted the Boston Bruins lineup with female names in a nod to the Boston-based movie, “Ted.” Some sports journalists didn’t appreciate the tweet’s humor and criticized it as sexist. The Golden Knights ended up apologizing.

 

But overall, the Golden Knights tweets have been well-received, with even Channel 13 showing some team tweets on its early-morning news shows.

 

And Bubolz is a fan of the Golden Knights Twitter posts.

 

“Look at the engagement numbers. It’s spectacular.”

 

Contact LVSportsBiz.com founder/writer Alan Snel at asnel@LVSportsBiz.com