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By Alan Snel, LVSportsBiz.com Publisher-Writer
LAS VEGAS — Kerry Bubolz, the man who guided the Vegas Golden Knights’ business operations and VGK owner Bill Foley’s diverse sports portfolio for nine years, says he has resigned his executive position with the Golden Knights.
Bubolz was Foley’s team president when the Golden Knights began their inaugural season in 2017 and he went on to oversee Foley’s varied sports interests, from building a new 6,000-seat arena in Henderson and launching broadcast rights deals for the Knights to selling out VGK games and enlisting many team sponsors.
Bubolz was a common sight in the T-Mobile Arena main lobby before Golden Knights home games, schmoozing with fans and hanging with VGK staffers.
Bubolz told LVSportsBiz.com Tuesday, “I resigned my position with the Vegas Golden Knights. I am working remotely for the next few weeks as part of my transition. It was an amazing nine-year run with the organization.
“When I am back in Vegas in a few weeks I am going to focus on the next chapter in my career in a similar capacity to my role with the Knights,” Bubolz said.
Here in Las Vegas, Nikki Fargas at the WNBA Aces, Sandra Douglass Morgan at the NFL Raiders, Marc Badain at the MLB A’s and Emily Prazer at F1 Las Vegas Grand Prix appear entrenched in their organizations’ president roles. But if there is an NBA team in Las Vegas, Bubolz could be a team president candidate given his past executive role with the NBA Cleveland Cavaliers.
Bubolz began in minor league baseball in Oklahoma and Iowa before he landed a business executive job with the Cleveland Cavaliers before accepting the top business position with the Vegas Golden Knights in 2016.
Bubolz has roots in Oklahoma. Bubolz is a Tulsa native and 1989 Oklahoma State University graduate who began his sports marketing and business work where so many do — minor league baseball in the heartland of America for the Tulsa Drillers and Quad Cities River Bandits in Davenport, Iowa.
Football may be king in Oklahoma. But Bubolz got hooked on hockey as a kid watching the local Tulsa minor league hockey club.
That attachment to watching the game in an ice house was clearly apparent when you saw the former Golden Knights president roaming T-Mobile Arena in his signature checked blazers before VGK home games.
Bubolz was also a familiar sight at community events and business luncheons around Las Vegas, often telling people that running a sports organization’s business operations was a contact sport of constantly being in touch with local business and community leaders and the market’s many hockey fans.
Under Bubolz, the Golden Knights piled up dozens and dozens of varied team sponsors, ranging from the Strip’s big hotel property owners to little guys like a small business owner who sold his craft ice cream in convenience stores and was allowed to show his product on the main concourse before VGK home games.
In June, the Golden Knights hired John Penhollow, the former NFL Minnesota Vikings chief revenue officer, to become president of business operations.
Bubolz was given a new job title at the time: “Chief Civic Affairs and Government Relations Officer.”
In October, Bubolz resigned.
In response to an LVSportsBiz.com request for a statement on Bubolz’s resignation, Golden Knights PR issued this statement, attributing it to Foley: “Kerry Bubolz had a tremendous impact on the Vegas Golden Knights organization since he joined the club back in 2016. He was instrumental in the launch and buildout of the business. Under his leadership, we delivered terrific results across ticketing, sponsorship and fan experience while setting and raising the bar for in-game entertainment. We are grateful for all his contributions and wish him well in his future pursuits.”
LVSportsBiz.com has asked the VGK PR staff for an interview with Penhollow for months and we never got the interview with Penhollow.
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