By Alan Snel of LVSportsBiz.com
Wayne Gretzky can still handle a lacrosse stick.
He played lacrosse as a kid in Canada before everyone started calling him, “The Great One,” for his exquisite, world-class ice hockey skills of scoring goals and also setting up his teammates for scores with wizard-like passes while winning NHL Stanley Cup championships along the way.
But on Monday on a stage at one end of an arena at the Mandalay Bay hotel-casino, there was the 60-year-old Gretzky tossing a lacrosse ball with billionaire Joe Tsai, 57, the NBA Brooklyn Nets owner who now owns a new professional arena lacrosse team in the Las Vegas market. Tsai recalled playing lacrosse in college and even brought his kid to Henderson for a lacrosse tourney.
It seems Las Vegas is the golden child of the country’s sports industry as Tsai, Gretzky along with fellow co-owners/investors Steve Nash and Dustin Johnson are launching the 15th franchise of the National Lacrosse League in Vegas.
To generate a buzz around the new lacrosse team that starts league play in 2022-23 at Mandalay Bay’s venue called the Michelob Ultra Arena under a recent naming rights deal, Gretzky and Tsai chatted about starting their lacrosse team during a 30-minute session on the stage and post-session interviews with media Monday. On stage with Gretzky and Tsai were National Lacrosse League Commissioner Nick Sakiewicz and Chuck Bowling, president of Mandalay Bay and Luxor.
Las Vegas is the hot market for sports in this country. In 2017, the NHL Vegas Golden Knights, the WNBA Las Vegas Aces and the Las Vegas Lights FC of the United Soccer League all launched franchises. In 2020, the NFL Las Vegas Raiders began playing at Allegiant Stadium, while VGK owner Bill Foley announced recently that he is a co-owner in an indoor football league team that will share a new 6,000-seat arena with the new Henderson Silver Knights of the American Hockey League. The Silver Knights began in 2019. Even MLB Oakland Athletics executives are sniffing around Las Vegas looking for a baseball park site, though there is no ballpark funding source identified.
Gretzky, who helped grow the NHL in the sunbelt markets after he was traded to the Los Angeles Kings in August 1988, said he does not expect this lacrosse team to be another Vegas Golden Knights. He said it’s up for the indoor lacrosse team to create its own brand and niche in a market that’s growing more competitive. The lacrosse team will create its own name, colors and logo in the months down the road.
Tsai, who also owns the WNBA New York Liberty and another National Lacrosse League franchise in San Diego, reached out to Nash to see if he’d like to invest in the team, too. A former NBA star and two-time MVP, Nash is the Brooklyn Nets coach and a Canadian who used to play lacrosse.
“I wish he was still coaching. We had a close game seven,” Tsai said of his Brooklyn Nets losing to the Milwaukee Bucks in seven games in a recent playoff series
The team was using a “Coming In Hot,” slogan to welcome the guests at Monday’s launch announcement. Tsai’s workers, local lacrosse parents and some MGM Resorts International employees were on hand, along with the pint-sized kiddie lacrosse players who posed with The Great One for photos after the session.
Mark Fine, who works with Tsai’s sports operations, was installed as the lacrosse team’s chief executive. Fine also used to work marketing for the New York Mets.
Fine said he wants to include analytics in ticket sales.
Both Nash and Johnson, the other co-owners, appeared via videos on the arena center scoreboard.
The indoor version of lacrosse originated in Canada in the 1930s. Five of the 15 National Lacrosse League teams are in Canada.