LVSportsBiz Podcast 2 Preview: Las Vegas Lights FC Owner Brett Lashbrook (Monday, 7-8 PM)

By Alan Snel

LVSportsBiz.com

 

Meet Brett Lashbrook, Las Vegas’ Johnny Applesoccer who sprinkled, “Viva Lights,!” soccer quips throughout the Las Vegas Valley in 2017 and grew the Las Vegas market’s first professional soccer team in 2018.

A mere year later in 2019 Lashbrook wants to flip the soccer team property — the Las Vegas Lights FC — to a construction management firm and its investment partner with Las Vegas Mayor Carolyn Goodman’s goal of graduating the minor league club to the Major League Soccer (MLS) tier to play at a new downtown 25,000-seat covered stadium that has neither a public price nor an identified funding source.

The Renaissance Companies, the construction management firm, won approval from city council Wednesday to exclusively negotiate with the city on the stadium proposal and redevelopment project during the next 180 days.  The Renaissance Cos Chairman Floyd Kephart and Managing Partner Candice Rauter revealed possible land uses here. A rendering of the Renaissance stadium and redevelopment concept:

 

Klephart told LVSportsBiz.com last week he began talking a year ago with Lashbrook about trying for a downtown MLS stadium and sale of the Lights — interesting timing when you consider Lashbrook in June 2018 was privately discussing selling a team that was just playing three months into its maiden season.

 

 

There’s been lots of chatter lately about the prospect of an MLS team in Las Vegas. Let’s pump the brakes here. These soccer stadium and theoretical MLS bids ares high in drama and low in details.

While the Las Vegas public does not know the public subsidy ask for the downtown soccer stadium and redevelopment proposal, the drama part is rich because Golden Knights owner Bill Foley is also looking at bringing an MLS team to the Las Vegas market.

Foley’s exact stadium location is less known, though. Even though the Raiders stadium has been mentioned as a potential Foley soccer team site, Major League Soccer typically allows MLS teams to play in NFL stadiums when the NFL team owner also owns the MLS team, which allows a single owner to receive stadium-related revenues from both football and soccer games. MLS likes stadiums designed for soccer.

Raiders owner Mark Davis has not mentioned his interest in owning an MLS team in Las Vegas. Publicly, anyway.

Also, like the downtown city soccer stadium concept, the Foley soccer plan lacks public details.

Would Foley be willing to partner with Davis on an MLS team playing at Raiders stadium? Would Foley find another partner and build a separate soccer stadium? We don’t know.

In the downtown Las Vegas soccer stadium scenario, The Renaissance Companies’ investment partner, The Baupost Group, would own the MLS team. The Baupost Group is headed by hedge fund manager billionaire Seth Klarman. Foley has money, too. He’s a billionaire just like Klarman.

So, in a market that didn’t even have a minor league soccer team two years ago now there are two groups looking at trying to bring a Major League Soccer expansion franchise to Las Vegas: the Goodman/Lashbrook/Kephart/Klarman team and Foley, who has been lionized in this market for the rise of the NHL Golden Knights.

 

It’s unclear whether the Las Vegas market could sustain a MLS team, especially when you consider there was not even a soccer team here as recent at 2017. With the Golden Knights’ presence, Raiders arriving in 2020, the Triple A baseball Aviators opening a new ballpark in Summerlin in April and the WNBA Aces in their second season on the Strip, there’s talk of pro team saturation in a market of 2.2 million residents.

 

Both the Goodman and Foley sides have given the public hardly any stadium funding/public subsidy details, so there’s nothing to weigh against each other. And the Lights soccer team is hardly a juggernaut on the field, with four wins, six losses and four ties in 2019, good for 14th place out of 18 teams in the United Soccer League’s western conference after Saturday night’s 1-1 draw with Orange County FC at Cashman Field. Lights’ attendance is solid with about 7,000 a game at home.

LVSportsBiz.com will be chatting with Lashbrook Monday from 7-8 p.m. during the second of four podcasts being held to celebrate LVSportsBiz.com’s second anniversary. Tune in. Maybe we will all learn something new on the Great MLS Stadium Drama. LVSportsBiz’s four-podcast series is brought to you by AdoreOil.

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