Story by Alan Snel Photos by J. Tyge O’Donnell
Think Las Vegas is in the running for a Major League Soccer team?
Well, Vegas Golden Knights owner and global businessman Bill Foley checked it out.
Foley’s soccer move?
He bought a Premier League team in England, a share of a soccer team in France and another soccer team in New Zealand where he owns a winery and lodge.
But he didn’t start a soccer team in Las Vegas.
If Foley didn’t want to start a MLS team in Las Vegas, it’s highly probable a MLS team wouldn’t work in this explosive sports market.
Foley was not at tonight’s Golden Knights vs Florida Panthers game at T-Mobile Arena. But he was at Monday’s New Year’s Day Winter Classic game in Seattle where the Knights lost to the Kraken, 3-0, at the Seattle Mariners ballpark.
Foley received lots of publicity for his “Cup in 6” seasons prediction.
But his business portfolio is a lot more than the NHL team he started with the Maloof family.
He augmented his wineries and restaurants with the purchase of the AFC Bournemouth soccer team of the Premier League 15 months ago before buying a stake in the FC Lorient club in a league in France about a year ago.
Then there was Foley getting awarded with a second expansion team — a new soccer club in Auckland, New Zealand a mere six weeks ago.
Foley likes to cross-promote his wine products and sports properties by selling his wines at two points of sale, the Foley Food & Wine Society wine bar, at the Golden Knights’ arena.
In another sign of mixing the Golden Knights with a Foley liquid product, his new whiskey, Charles Goodnight, is promoted during a Foley-narrated video on the center ice jumbotron between the first and second periods of VGK home games.
Foley, 79, is a native of Austin, Texas and the whiskey video has a Texas theme. From the whiskey’s website:
The whiskey is manufactured in Texas and its name, Charles Goodnight, is the same as Foley’s new steak restaurant in Healdsburg, California just north of Santa Rosa. Goodnight was a Texas Ranger and cowboy-entrepreneur in the Texas panhandle who helped create the chuckwagon, a portable field kitchen that fed ranchers in the panhandle.
Foley owns wineries in the area and also Hotel Les Mars, a boutique hotel that includes another Foley-owned restaurant, Chalkboard, in downtown Healdsburg.
Foley even invested in the arena used by his Golden Knights just off the Strip. T-Mobile Arena was built in 2016 in a 50-50 partnership by MGM Resorts International and Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG owns the NHL Los Angeles Kings and LA Live).
Foley then bought a 15 percent share of the arena, which has 17,367 fixed seats for Golden Knights home games and typically sells enough standing room only tickets to increase average attendance in the 18,115 range in 2023-24.
The Golden Knights announced attendance at 18,044 Thursday for the Stanley Cup rematch game between Vegas and the Florida Panthers.
The Knights scored first on a goal by Pavel Dorofeyev when he fired home a goal off a rebound shot by Mark Stone.
But Florida rebounded with a tying goal by Sam Bennett in the first and a go-ahead goal by Matthew Tkachuk in the second period. Panthers winger Carter Verhaeghe scored Florida’s third goal and the Stanley Cup runnerup took a 3-1 lead into the second intermission.
It’s a good thing Foley wasn’t around tonight to see the Golden Knights play.
Florida scored its third power play goal of the night in the third period thanks to precision passing that resulted in Sam Reinhart putting the puck past VGK goalie Logan Thompson for a 4-1 Panthers lead.
With play like this tonight, it doesn’t look the Golden Knights will be celebrating a second consecutive Stanley Cup championship at Foley’s ranch in Montana.
The Knights lost their sixth of seven games as the Panthers won, 4-1, and swept the two games against the VGK this season.
The empty seats in the VGK arena spoke volumes about the team’s underwhelming play.
After the game, VGK’s Mark Stone said the game pivoted after Vegas failed to score on a five-on-three advantage and he added everyone has to play better.
VGK coach Bruce Cassidy said the Knights’ power play, especially on the two-man advantage, was “off script” with the team guilty of “poor shot selection.
Defenseman Brayden McNabb put it simply, “We haven’t played for a while.”