By ALAN SNEL
LVSportsBiz.com
Before Golden Knights owner Bill Foley went to hit golf balls Tuesday afternoon, he chatted with LVSportsBiz.com about everything from soaring playoff game day revenues to taking steps next season to limit the number of visiting team fans in T-Mobile Arena.
Foley, dressed in white shorts and a white top, was relaxed and all smiles a day after his first-year Golden Knights defeated the Washington Capitals, 6-4, in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Finals at T-Mobile Arena.
The Golden Knights also scored big in the financial scoreboard.
Game 1 ticket revenue was a gusher, generating 300 percent more income than a regular season game, Foley said.
Keep in mind the home team does not keep all playoff game gate revenues. Foley said 35 percent of gross ticket revenues go to the players, while the home team pays $500,000 per playoff game to the NHL. But even after paying the players and the league, the Golden Knights will still walk away with a postseason ticket sale windfall of millions of dollars.
And Monday night’s merchandise sales were also stunning. Foley said the per capita spending on merchandise in the arena was $33 a person, which translates into $612,975 based on an announced attendance of 18,575. Explained another way, the merchandise sales from Game 1 could cover the $500,000 league fee for the home playoff game.
Overall, postseason game day revenues are running a whopping 350 percent higher over regular season game revenues, Foley said.
“It’s fantastic,” Foley said simply.
Foley also said he has advised staff that he does not want so many fans in opposition team jerseys filling seats at T-Mobile Arena like they did during this past regular season and was concerned that there were blocks of red-clad Washington Capitals fans in the venue for Game 1 Monday.
“I don’t like it,” Foley said.
Foley wants blocks of tickets for Caps people to be split up.
“I can move around the ticket locations,” Foley said. “I don’t want to see them together.”
He estimated about 2,000 fans in T-Mobile Arena Monday were Capitals fans, perhaps 12 percent or so.
Foley also said the players are on a mission to win the Stanley Cup for Las Vegas, which suffered mightily from the Oct. 1 mass shooting on the Strip.
And while the players are relaxed, joking around and having a good time when they hang out in the facility’s medical room, “they’re very focused” on the mission to win the Cup, Foley said.
“They believe they can win. They know they deserve to be here,” Foley said.
On building and extending the Golden Knights brand, Foley also said the Golden Knights can be “North America’s team” because of the strength of the brand.
“If the Golden Knights are not your favorite team, I want it to be your second favorite hockey team.” Foley said.
Foley said he was confident Las Vegas would get a NHL team back in 2015 and 2016 and said NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman was advising him that he was doing the right things when he was organizing the season ticket deposit campaign in early 2015.
“We knew we had the team when the league gave an explanation of the draft rules (to the teams) in March 2016,” Foley said. “They wouldn’t have handed out the rules if it wasn’t going to happen.”
Before the league approved Las Vegas’ expansion bid in June 2016, it was just Foley and his sidekick, Todd Pollock, who managed the season ticket deposits and now is team VP for ticket sales and suites.
“We had nobody. It was just Todd and I. It was hilarious,” Foley said.
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Foley said it took him 15 to 20 minutes of interviewing George McPhee to realize he was the man for the general manager job. Foley said he interviewed seven GM candidates, including four in person near his Montana home.
Then, Foley said he needed a search firm to line up the team president. He said the firm came up with 100 candidates before the number of prospects was dropped to six.
He picked former Cleveland Cavaliers business executive Kerry Bubolz as the Golden Knights president in October 2016.
Foley doesn’t associate much with his other team owners because he’s so strapped for time running his wineries in California.
I also talked with Foley about bicycling. He rides a hybrid bike in his Ridges neighborhood in Summerlin.
But he lamented the fact that three members of his 1967 West Point class have been killed by motorists while riding their bicycles.
That’s a topic for another day.
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