Golden Knights Founding Partner Gavin Maloof Works With Two Others To Re-Brand Tech Company

By Alan Snel

LVSportsBiz.com

 

One of the founding partners of the Vegas Golden Knights and a key player in bringing the National Hockey League to Las Vegas is working with some old pals to re-brand a tech company designed to help the multiple technology needs of other businesses.

 

Former Sacramento Kings co-owner Gavin Maloof, who lobbied NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman to create a major league hockey franchise in Southern Nevada, has teamed up with two friends to re-brand a company now called STAXOS that is designed to consult in a one-stop-shopping way with businesses on their telecom, phone carrier, cloud and security technology needs.

 

Maloof began working with a Las Vegas friend, Robbie Vega, a pal for the past quarter-century, and partner Nick Wilson, who handles the expense management and mobility software side of the IT operation. The three re-branded a company called the Guerra Wilson Group to STAXOS in January and Maloof is using his vast network of contacts to “open doors” and “monetize the software” in his frontline efforts. You can find out more about STAXOS here.

 

Maloof, a Las Vegas resident, campaigned with brother Joe to lobby Bettman that Las Vegas was worthy of NHL expansion. The Maloofs, who included brothers George and Phil besides Gavin and Joe and sister Adrienne, owned the NBA Kings from 1998-2013. Before owning the Kings, the Maloofs owned the Houston Rockets.  In Las Vegas, the Maloofs worked with their sports marketing man, Kevin Kaplan, and created the “Founding 75” concept to generate 75 prominent season ticket holders to create a buzz around Foley’s season ticket deposit campaign in 2015 that would eventually lead to the birth of the Golden Knights.

 

The Founding 75 idea was even used as a sports marketing technique by Gavin’s dad, George Maloof, Sr., the Coors distributor for New Mexico, who had bought the NBA Houston Rockets for $9 million in 1979. But in 1980, the elder Maloof died of a heart attack — and his sons, including Gavin, became the young owners of the NBA Rockets.

 

These days, Gavin Maloof is using his vast networking and revenue-generating skills on the STAXOS front. Partners Vega is in Scottsdale, Arizona and Wilson is in the metro Dallas area. They came up with the new STAXOS brand name as a play on words for a business’s technology stack. Maloof said the STAXOS brand is all about creating order out of a company’s technology stack by managing and growing it.

 

Maloof is used to re-branding products. Only a year ago, he worked with Joe Maloof on re-branding their Never Too Hungover hydration drink into a newly-named brand called Drinkade. Joe Maloof has also been working on expanding Drinkade’s retail reach around the country.

 

Vega told LVSportsBiz.com that Gavin Maloof is an ideal partner because of his vast track record of being involved in running casinos and sports teams. “He’s seen the chaos a casino has about integrating all these technologies . . . Gavin is a huge asset. We get the knowledge from someone who knows how to create revenue.”

 

Maloof plans to be among the 18,500 or so Golden Knights fans expected to pour into T-Mobile Arena Sunday for Game Six between the Knights and San Jose Sharks. Leading the Stanley Cup Round 1 playoff series thr ee games to two, the VGK can clinch the Round 1 series if the beat their Pacific Division rivals in two days.

 

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