On Sports Execs: In Bread-and-Circus Town Of ‘Operators,’ Former VGK Prez Kerry Bubolz Was ‘Genuine Article’
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By Alan Snel, LVSportsBiz.com Publisher-Writer
LAS VEGAS, Nevada — Back in the good ol’ days when the Vegas Golden Knights started in 2017, the team headquarters were not at the current Summerlin training center and home base. The VGK business operations operated out of Bill Foley’s former corporate offices in a business building not too far from Summerlin Parkway and the fancy golf course where a PGA event used to be held.
In June 2017 when I launched LVSportsBiz.com, I had arranged to interview Golden Knights team president Kerry Bubolz at the temporary VGK business hub before the current training center/HQ opened a few months later in Downtown Summerlin.
I showed up and checked in with the woman at the front desk at Foley’s office operations.
“You’re not on the calendar. I don’t see an appointment,” she told me.
I was confused. I thought I had made a 4 PM appointment for that day.
The woman called Bubolz, who came down from his office to meet me in the lobby.
Most sports team execs would advise me to make another appointment for a different day.
But Bubolz was different.
“I’m tied up right now. But if you wait a short time, I’ll talk with you afterwards,” he said.
Bubolz was true to his word.
He came downstairs and we strolled up to his office. I interviewed Bubolz about how he planned to market big league hockey in Las Vegas. We chatted way past 5 PM.
Thanks to Bubolz sharing his time, this was the story that came from that interview.
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Las Vegas is an entertainment town of operators, a bread-and-circus market run by the big corporate hotel companies. When I say, “operators,” I mean BS artists out to sell you something or get something for free. I know operators when I see them. I’m from New York.
Bubolz, who told LVSportsBiz.com Tuesday he resigned from the Vegas Golden Knights, was the furthest personality from an operator. He was the opposite.
He was from Oklahoma and the genuine article, as they say.
Bubolz wore ties with his checkered blazers. He didn’t come off as a slick, razzle-dazzle Las Vegas operator. If I recall, the hipster folks at Zappos once cut Bubolz’s tie when he shared time with the Zappos bunch.
But Bubolz was a shrewd businessman who understood the value of pumping up the volume, glitz and lights at T-Mobile Arena for Vegas Golden Knights home games.
This was Las Vegas, he thought. Anything goes.
And it sure went.
Bubolz got VGK owner Bill Foley to invest in the castle stage and buy into the NHL game as entertainment on the Strip, not just a sports event. There were Cirque du Soleil performances between periods and elaborate pre-game shows that were high-powered theater on ice.
Jonny Greco, the Golden Knights’ first in-game entertainment chief who has worked in every sports league and the WWE, saw our LVSportsBiz.com story on Instagram Tuesday and responded with this post, calling Bubolz an, “Absolute culture king, creative person’s dream leader, and best human being you’ll ever find. His heart is imprinted forever with the Golden Knights. Forever thankful for KB’s friendship, vision and brotherhood.”
Under Bubolz’s leadership, the Vegas Golden Knights won many business and sports entertainment awards, drawing recognition from the Sports Business Journal, the granddaddy of today’s bunch of sports-business publications.
And NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman and the rest of the National Hockey League took notice. Las Vegas became an important member of the league, an association of teams known to be behind the times. Las Vegas helped the NHL catch up.
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In June 2019, LVSportsBiz.com celebrated its second anniversary, and the launch of the Vegas Golden Knights with the team’s miracle run to the NHL Stanley Cup Finals in the 2017-18 season was a major part of our website’s coverage.
During our Year 2 celebration at the Tenaya Creek Brewery in downtown Las Vegas, who walked into the place but Bubolz, joined by former VGK Chief Marketing Officer Brian Killingsworth and the team’s current ticket sales chief, Todd Pollock.
During this morning’s Red Rock hike, I churned memories of Bubolz and that appearance at the LVSB anniversary gathering was such a nice anecdote that it needed to be part of this column.
Bubolz was known to get around the community. He spoke at many business luncheons and community gatherings, always relaying his “contact sport” mantra of being in constant contact with local fans, business owners, community leaders and kids. It made for good business. Kids were the VGK’s future fans and he knew it was vital to start school hockey programs to lay the foundation.
The varied team sponsors under Bubolz’s management ran the gamut, from garage door installers and injury lawyers to a chocolate company and an ice cream maker. Naturally, the big boys of the Strip like MGM Resorts, Caesars Entertainment and Wynn Las Vegas were on board (literally the rink’s boards), but Bubolz found a way to include the small fries, too.
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The team doesn’t feel like an expansion team anymore.
The Knights are all grown up with a Stanley Cup title in its trophy case.
And without Bubolz and his humility around, a touch of arrogance has settled into the team’s culture.
In June 2017, the former team president, Bubolz, told me to wait around and that he would find time to talk with me after there was a mix-up on the time of that interview appointment.
In June 2025 when a new president of business operations was named, I asked to talk with John Penhollow and four months later an interview was never arranged. The VGK have their own roster of content creators to they tell their own narratives. So, who needs independent media?
That wasn’t Bubolz’s style, though, and he will be missed.
But I don’t think we have seen the last of Mr. Contact Sport.
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