Inside Las Vegas Sports Marketing: How Vegas Golden Knights and Vienna Capitals Formed a Hockey Marriage

By ALAN SNEL

LVSportsBiz.com

Vegas and Vienna.

An ocean apart, the Vegas Golden Knights and the Vienna Capitals are partners.

LVSportsBiz.com asked the Vienna Capitals a few questions about how this collaboration came about. Vienna’s general manager, Franz Kalla, offered these responses.

LVSB: How did the idea of the partnership between Vegas and Vienna come about?

FK: Members of the hockey operations staffs of both organizations have enjoyed a great relationship and the partnership has evolved over time. In autumn 2018 Nate Schmidt practiced for several weeks with the Vienna Capitals. The idea of the collaborative partnership and the relationship between the clubs will continue to grow steadily.

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LVSB: What are areas in the Vegas Golden Knights business operations that you think Vienna can learn from?

FK: Our goal is to learn from the best and the Vegas Golden Knights are an outstanding benchmark in the hockey world. The organization of the Vienna Capitals can learn from Vegas Golden Knights across all business units e.g marketing, entertainment, ticketing and sales as well as areas like press operations and social media campaigns.

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LVSB:  Why do you think the Vegas team has received so much attention around the world?

FK: It’s the cinderella story behind the club. They built up a new organization and almost clinched the Stanley Cup in their inaugural year. That’s a tremendous and unbelievable achievement in the best hockey league of the world.

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LVSB: Do people in Vienna wear the Golden Knights jerseys?

FK: The Vegas Golden Knights are becoming more and more popular in Austria and Vienna. You regularly see people in town wearing Vegas caps. Because of the collaborative partnership with the Vegas Golden Knights we are expecting that the fans of the Vienna Capitals will have even more interest in the VGK.

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