From Preseason Confetti to Pregame Llamas, Lights Soccer Club Carves Its Own Sports Marketing Path
By ALAN SNEL
LVSportsBiz.com
Las Vegas is a market where the local MMA fight show producer/promoter sold for more than $4 billion (UFC), an NFL team is re-locating to play in a subsidized $1.8 billion stadium (Raiders) and the second-year NHL team is treated as kings of the sports pyramid (Golden Knights).
But Las Vegas is also the market where the owner of the second-year professional soccer team can hang out with the team llamas before his Las Vegas Lights FC played a preseason match with a club from one tier above the Lights at Cashman Field. Cashman is the downtown venue with metal bleachers for seats that the former 51s baseball team fled to be re-branded into the Aviators, a Triple A team that will christen a new $150 million ballpark in upscale Summerlin in April.
Even with miserable, cloudy weather Saturday afternoon, several thousand soccer fans found their way to Cashman Field to watch many new Lights players defeat Major League Soccer’s Toronto, 5-1. (Announced attendance was 5,232.) Toronto had only half of its squad for the preseason match, but the Lights will enjoy any victory they can garner after the USL club won only eight of 34 games during their inaugural season in 2018.
In a market where the Golden Knights’ average game ticket cost recently hit triple figures, the Lights are offering a distinctly different sports option where the ticket costs can be as low as 10 bucks a game if it’s bought as part of a season ticket deal.
But there’s a lot more that sets the Lights apart from the rest of the Las Vegas sports scene. It’s true the Golden Knights celebrate Las Vegas’ anything goes entertainment quality, the second-tier Lights take that to a different wacky and unconventional level, like having a gambling table on the field between the two teams’ benches not too far from a sponsor’s sign promoting a local Indian tribe’s dispensary.
Lights fans with The Electric Company and Luz Y Fuerza supporter groups were banging their drums and making lots of noise during the game and the folks from main sponsor Zappos the big downtown online retailer were doling out hot chocolate and cookies before the game. But the team rolled out a new feature by blasting yellow and blue confetti into the air after two goals in the first half.
It’s not a common sight to see grounds crew guys armed with leaf blowers at halftime of a soccer or football game. But a couple workers at Cashman Field did the best they could to blow confetti off the pitch at the half.
I mean, it’s a preseason game and the team is blasting confetti into the air to celebrate goals. They’re the Lights.
On the pitch, the team looked improved under its new coach, American soccer icon Eric Wynalda, a soccer TV commentator and former national team player. Wynalda is looking to stabilize a roster that stretched to 39 players in year one.
The next Lights preseason game is in two weeks when the MLS Colorado Rapids visit Cashman to take on the Lights at 2 p.m. Then, the regular season home-opener is March 9 when the Austin, Texas club visits Cashman.
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