Golden Knights Players Moonlight as Car Hawkers + Other LVSportsBiz News
By ALAN SNEL
LVSportsBiz.com
On a cold and cloudy day in Las Vegas in early December, let’s get down to sports bidness, as the late George H.W. Bush would say. Musings from an exit off the 215 in Summerlin . . .
Cars, pucks and hockey sticks
It took only a little more than a full NHL season for those nice-guy Golden Knights players to become the sports kings of Las Vegas. So, it comes to no surprise that businesses are taking notice and are hiring them as pitchmen.
Those car sales managers at the sports-friendly Findlay auto group in Las Vegas has lined up William (he should really be endorsing hair products) Karlsson and Max Pacioretty to help sell vehicles. The soft-spoken, but wise-cracking Karlsson is peddling Volvos, while fellow forward Pacioretty (a dad of three) is helping Findlay sell Chevrolets and driving a big, ol’ Suburban.
“A lot of hockey players are car people,” Pacioretty said, chatting at his City National Arena practice locker as he wiped his skate blade.
Meanwhile, hard-hitting forward Ryan Reaves told LVSportsBiz.com Friday that he’s hoping to score an Audi endorser job when he’s not laughing at his Washington Capitals buddy, Tom Wilson, getting rocked to the T-Mobile Arena ice by a Reaves hit.
Nate Schmidt, the constantly-smiling, fun-loving defenseman, said car dealers like to hire hockey players because “people see us in our cars” and it would be good advertising for the dealership. Schmidt said attorneys have also expressed interest in enlisting him to endorse their law firms.
LVSportsBiz.com then asked VGK coach Gerard Gallant if he has ever been approached by local companies to endorse their products.
He said no, but quipped, “Do you want to give me a free car?”
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The tickets are cheaper in LA
The Golden Knights’ ticket prices rank in the top half of the NHL team tix costs, so many VGK fans beat the higher prices by high-tailing it down I-15 to Staples Center in downtown Los Angeles to watch their Knights play the Kings in LA at much cheaper rates than the T-Mobile Arena seat prices. That’s the ticket for catching the Golden Knights Saturday at 1 p.m. when VGK take on the LA Kings in LALA Land.
Check out this beauty of a deal.
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Bye-Bye Interbike
There was a time when the bicycle industry in this country used to come to Las Vegas to celebrate the latest in bike technology and share their love for all things human-powered on wheels.
But trade show company Emerald Expositions moved the once-beloved Interbike trade show from Las Vegas to Reno in 2018 and now has scrubbed the 2019 Interbike show, though it may return in a much more smaller, low-key way in 2020. Who knows.
Emerald Expositions does put on Outdoor Retailer shows, so perhaps some bicycle exhibitors might go there. I know one exhibitor who plans to show his bike seat products at the CABDA show in San Diego in January, and he noted that’s the new “in” bike show.
It’s sad but not unexpected to hear the demise of the once mighty Interbike trade show, which was held in the Mandalay Bay Convention Center after it was staged at the Sands Expo convention center on the opposite end of the strip.
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More Baseball Chatter About the MLB in Las Vegas
Well, just in time for the baseball meetings that start Sunday night at Mandalay Bay, there’s more talk of an effort to bring Major League Baseball to Las Vegas.
Team owners have used Las Vegas as a negotiating tool for years to politically win and then build tax-subsidized ballparks for years and it’s no surprise that people are chatting about Major League Baseball in Sin City, which is one of the hottest sports markets in the country.
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But LVSportsBiz.com predicts that the NBA will come to Las Vegas before MLB because a world-class venue already exists for pro hoops — T-Mobile Arena. It’s well known that MGM Resorts International CEO Jim Murren has been cozying up to NBA Commish Adam Silver in hopes of getting an NBA franchise to generate millions of dollars in revenue streams at T-Mobile Arena to join the Golden Knights and UFC as tenants in the $375 million arena that opened 2 1/2 years ago.
Talk of demolishing the Rio to make way for a new baseball park is ludicrous and many sources scoff at it. With the Raiders receiving a $750 million public subsidy from Southern Nevada to build their domed stadium in Vegas (and Summerlin master developer Howard Hughes Corporation getting $80 million to build a new Triple A ballpark), the public’s money account is tapped out for sports venues.
There will always be talk of big league baseball in Las Vegas. But talk doesn’t build billion-dollar domed ballparks.
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