By ALAN SNEL
LVSportsBiz.com
Most days they’re busy building stadiums, collecting revenues from NHL Stanley Cup playoff games, launching new sports franchises or running a long-time minor league baseball team and NASCAR events at a massive speedway on the north side of the Las Vegas metro area.
But Friday at a Latin Chamber of Commerce lunch at Nevada State College in Henderson, there they were — six new and veteran faces in Las Vegas’ rapidly-growing sports industry representing very different teams and venues all assembled on a panel to share their thoughts on Las Vegas’ new and old sports teams.
There were no newsy bombshells. But with Vegas Golden Knights playoff mania spreading across southern Nevada and the hockey team blasting the San Jose Sharks, 7-0, the prior evening, the chamber’s lunch guests were especially happy to hear the words of Knights President Kerry Bubolz.
Bubolz explained the team’s strategy of selling big-league hockey in the desert. Bubolz said he and staff sat down with Golden Knights owner Bill Foley and explained to him the Knights game experience would have to be more than just a hockey game in a market with entertainment in its DNA.
“We needed to put on one helluva show,” Bubolz told the lunch crowd. “He had to make a significant investment that would match that entertainment experience this market is known for.”
At the Latin Chamber luncheon, Bubolz was joined by:
^Rushia Brown, WNBA Las Vegas Aces player programs and franchise development manager who is helping launch the Aces’ inaugural games in May.
^Jeff Motley, Las Vegas Motor Speedway VP for public relations at a race track that will stage not one but two monster NASCAR weekends this year.
^51s GM Chuck Johnson, who will be helping guide the Triple A ball team from downtown’s Cashman Field to a new $150 million ballpark in Downtown Summerlin in 2019.
^Las Vegas Lights FC owner Brett Lashbrook, a super-soccer ambassador who just launched his downtown soccer team a few months ago.
^Raiders President Marc Badain, spearheading the NFL franchise’s move from Oakland to Las Vegas and overseeing the construction of the team’s $1.8 billion, 65,000-seat stadium on 62 acres on the west side of I-15 across from Mandalay Bay.
Bringing them together were Nevada State College’s Edith Fernandez, associate VP for community engagement, and Latin Chamber of Commerce President Peter Guzman, the enthusiastic voice for Latin businesses who said the teams and venues are economic development opportunities for his members.
The Golden Knights’ unprecedented first-year success and their five straight wins to start the Stanley Cup playoffs made Friday’s luncheon quite topical.
ADVERTISEMENT
In fact, the Latin Chamber’s board chairman, Daniel Tafoya, gave the lunch prayer and quipped, “Lord, have mercy on the San Jose Sharks.
Bubolz said the team welcomed visiting team’s fans — and their commercial spending and their clubs’ two points in the standings when the Golden Knights defeated them at T-Mobile Arena. “It added to the fan experience to see passionate fan bases. In some ways, they were challenging our fans to be more loud and aggressive,” Bubolz said.
(Though Bubolz called out one specific visiting team’s fans — “Those Flyer fans were crazy. They were cocky of winning the Stanley Cup championship two weeks earlier.”)
But once the regular season ended, that strategy ended. He told the packed Latin Chamber crowd, “It’s the playoffs now. We’re playing for a different prize and it’s called the Stanley Cup.”
So, the Knights rolled out a new ticket-selling strategy for the playoffs. If fans took a “knight’s vow” to not re-sell their playoff tickets on the secondary market, the Golden Knights season ticket holders would get a price break on the postseason ticket. The Golden Knights have continued the vow program for the Round 2 series with the San Jose Sharks.
Badain, the Raiders president, sat next to Bubolz and joked, “It’s like I’m sitting next to a pitcher who just threw a no-hitter.”
Badain noted 85 Raiders workers have moved to the Las Vegas market and team employees are transferring to the Vegas market monthly.
The Aces’ Brown joked the WNBA team didn’t have a two-year headstart to plant roots in Las Vegas. “We got here in November and we have six months to figure it out.”
She did enjoy Thursday night’s Golden Knights game, too: “I was at the game last night and I lost my mind.”
The 51s’ Johnson is a baseball vet with the minor league club and said it was all about the fan experience since “you won’t know 16 of the 18 players.” That experience will certainly get more attention next year when the 51s inaugurate their new 10,000-seat ballpark in Summerlin. Johnson will be working on that transition.
Lashbrook wondered why it took so long for sports teams to sprout in Las Vegas. “There’s room for all of us,” he said. His Lights soccer club is playing at Cashman Friday night at 8 p.m.
And the Speedway’s Motley noted the track lets kids who are 12 and younger in for free, except for the NASCAR weekend Sundays, when it’s $10 per kid.
*
Follow LVSportsBiz.com on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Contact LVSportsBiz.com founder/writer Alan Snel at asnel@LVSportsBiz.com