By ALAN SNEL
LVSportsBiz.com
LVSportsBiz.com Photos by J. Tyge O’Donnell
The Vegas Golden Knights are selling tickets at a rather impressive rate, but the second-year NHL expansion is rolling out a New Year’s Day ticket deal that involves an “anti-resolution” theme, VGK-branded cigars and some dude named “Phil.”
The ticket promotion for the Jan. 1 VGK-Kings game has been dubbed, the “Anti New Year’s Resolution Bundle.”
The New Year’s Day deal is quite a ticket bargain when you consider the hefty cost of typical Golden Knights tickets. The deal calls for a game ticket, hot dog and soda voucher starting at just $65 per ticket for the Golden Knights-Los Angeles Kings game. No minimum ticket purchase is required, but fans who purchase at least four tickets will receive a five-pack of Vegas Golden Knights-branded cigars. (Keep in the mind the tickets start at $65 each and go up from there.)
To pitch the ticket deal, the Golden Knights rolled out their in-house pitchman ringer — a guy named “Phil” played by team corporate sales chief Jim Frevola. That’s Golden Knights President Kerry Bubolz in the video spot advertising the ticket deal.
Frevola, who has held corporate sales jobs for Las Vegas-based UFC and the NFL Tampa Bay Buccaneers, has played the “Phil” character in other VGK-produced videos such as the “mean tweets” bit that was made after the team mascot, Chance the gila monster, was introduced in season one.
LVSportsBiz.com caught up with Bubolz to chat about the New Year’s Day ticket special — you can watch our Facebook Live interview here.
The interview was before the Golden Knights lost to the Kings in overtime, 4-3, before an announced crowd of 18,225 Sunday. It was the second consecutive OT loss in two nights and the Golden Knights were outplayed in each game (LA on Sunday and Montreal on Saturday afternoon.)
We also chatted with Frevola during this Facebook Live segment of “Top of the Escalator.”
For the VGK-LAK ticket deal, only fans who purchase at least four tickets will receive a five-pack of Vegas Golden Knights-branded cigars for pick up at The Arsenal team store at the Golden Knights training center in Summerlin. Fans must be 18 years or older to pick up the cigars.
The Golden Knights showed the Anti-Resolution ticket deal with Jim “Phil” Frevola in the promo video during Sunday’s game, and T-Mobile Arena PA announcer Bruce Cusick also told fans about the ticket promotion during a break in the action on Sunday, too. (Frevola keeps the “Phil” nametag in his notes at home VGK games because some fans want photos with Frevola donning the “Phil” nametag.)
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Entering the Sunday game with the Los Angeles Kings, the Golden Knights were averaging attendance of 18,283 a game after 16 home dates — filling T-Mobile Arena to 105.3 percent of capacity.
Here’s VGK forward Reilly Smith after the OT loss.
And here’s Golden Knights coach Gerard Gallant’s quotes after the game.
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