By Alan Snel, LVSportsBiz.com Publisher-Writer
LAS VEGAS, Nevada — It was more than 20 years ago when Nikki Fargas was an assistant basketball coach on legendary Tennessee coach Pat Summit’s staff.
The Lady Vols were a national college basketball power and Fargas sat in on Lady Vols hoops business meetings about marketing, ticket sales and budgets. She learned the power of the Lady Vols logo and brand and of having a nationally-known star like Candace Parker on the team.
Little did she know at the time that those business lessons would come in handy in May 2021 when Fargas began a new job as president of the WNBA Las Vegas Aces after working ten years as the LSU head coach from 2011 to 2021. And that Fargas, as the Aces president, would lure her old friend Parker to play for the Aces during their 2023 championship season.
But don’t be fooled by the term, “team president.”
Fargas, from the very start of her Aces’ tenure, has worked on everything from sponsorship and broadcast rights deals to buy-one, get-one ticket offers to player personnel decisions. She even does media commentary as part of her Aces job after team owner Mark Davis arrived in Baton Rouge, Louisiana “on a stormy Friday night” to offer her the job of running a franchise he purchased from MGM Resorts International in Jan. 2021.
“I did my due diligence on Mark,” said Fargas, recalling she even watched a special on Al Davis, Mark Davis’ father. “Kind of like doing due diligence when signing a player.”
Davis may be known for his visits to In-N-Out burger joints, but Fargas recalled that she and the Aces owner dined at Davis’ other favorite restaurant, P.F. Chang’s, to seal the deal to make her the team president.
“I talked with (my husband) Justin. I talked with my family about the job,” Fargas said. “Justin said, ‘When are we leaving?’ ”
On May 11, 2021 at Allegiant Stadium, Davis introduced the 54-year-old Fargas as the Aces president.
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Most major league sports franchises has a player operations side run by a general manager and a business operations side managed by a different executive who oversees money-making endeavors like media rights deals, sponsorships and ticket sales.
But at the Aces, Fargas did both jobs from Day 1 — and continues to do so.
As she put it for LVSportsBiz.com in an interview at team headquarters Wednesday, “I am position-less.”
She announced the hiring of Becky Hammon as head coach Dec. 31, 2021 and Natalie Williams as general manager in April 2022 to replace former GM Dan Padover, who took the GM’s job with Atlanta after working with the Aces from Dec. 2018 to Oct. 2021. Fargas also announced in Dec. 2021 that Jennifer Azzi was the Aces’ chief business development officer.
While Fargas knew players and Xs and Os, she quickly embraced the business side of the Aces because the team had relied on its previous owner, MGM Resorts International, for its business infrastructure. Fargas hit the Las Vegas organization and dinner circuit to recruit fans before making changes at the Aces arena like beefing up premium seating options.
Under Davis’ regime, the Aces also moved into a sparkling new HQ and training facility next-door to the Raiders training complex in Henderson.
And while many WNBA teams were administered by their NBA team business ops, the Aces developed their own independent operations that includes 15 full-time basketball ops staffers and another 35 business employees who work on marketing, ticket sales and activations, Fargas said. In all, there are more than 100 seasonal and event workers, she noted.
The Aces have sold out more than 60 consecutive dates at Mandalay Bay’s Michelob ULTRA Arena after winning three WNBA championships in four seasons (2022, 2023 and 2025) under Fargas.
But that was not the case when Fargas took over the team’s reins in 2021.
“We had to be old-fashion and get boots on the ground” to promote and sell the Aces brand, she recalled.
And Fargas said she distilled the marketing strategy at the start to three fundamental elements: “A’ja Wilson, basketball and the Aces logo and brand.”
Fargas hit every chamber and dinner event she could find in the Las Vegas market.
“I was doing bogo ticket offers,” Fargas recalled of her first year. “Buy one, get one free.”
Those Buy One, Get One days are long gone. Davis, Fargas and Chief Operating Officer/Chief Financial Officer Matt Delsen recently met with LVSportsBiz.com to discuss Aces ticket price increases for 2027. Matt Delsen is the son of Larry Delsen, the Aces’ CEO and Davis’ financial adviser for decades.
The Aces have about 8,300 active season ticket holder and another 5,000 on the wait list, Matt Delsen said.
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Fargas said she was born in Atlanta and moved to Oak Ridge, Tennessee when she was about five years old. She was a talented high school basketball player who played for Summit at Tennessee from 1990-1994, a gifted shooting guard who was a prolific three-point shooter.
I don’t want to go through life just existing. I’m aware of wanting to be impactful — Aces President Nikki Fargas
She was Nikki Caldwell back then and earned a public relations degree from Tennessee. It’s easily apparent that Fargas is a people person who enjoys talking with candor.
Fargas has a natural disarming style that came in handy with recruiting players as a college coach at UCLA (2008-2011) and at LSU (2011-2021). She also was an assistant coach at Virginia after her Tennessee college days from 1999-2002 before joining Summit’s staff from 2002-2008.
During her UCLA coaching days that began in 2008, there was another former Lady Vol who arrived the same year in LA — Parker, the WNBA’s first overall pick by the Los Angeles Sparks. “Candace is family,” Fargas said.
Job 1 at the Aces was instilling a championship culture.
“You win with people. I’m a people person,” Fargas said. She recalled closing an Aces business deal with Ally Financial over tequila for Ally to be the team’s jersey patch sponsor and retail banking partner in 2024.
Fargas is the mom of a 14-year-old daughter, though she says “my other child” is a mini dachshund by the name of Millie Jean.
Fargas is married to former Raiders player Justin Fargas, who played for both Michigan and USC before being drafted by the Raiders in the third round in 2003. He played seven seasons with the Silver & Black.
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When Davis and Larry Delsen visited Baton Rouge more than five years ago, Fargas was healing from a motorcycle crash.
She called her Harley-Davidson motorcycle, “her boy,” and was a motorcycle rider since her Tennessee college days.
In fact, Fargas and former Tennessee women’s basketball coach Holly Warlick rode their Harleys across the country in 2007 to raise awareness about breast cancer and money for breast cancer research.
Her lessons for her Tennessee days still guides Fargas, who said she’s still “constantly learning” as the Aces president.
“Don’t ever feel like you’ve arrived,” Fargas said.
The Aces (24-13) are back in action tonight with a home game against the Connecticut Sun. The Aces have the fourth best record in the 15-team league.
And if you’re at the game at Michelob ULTRA Arena, chances are Fargas will be easy to find. She will probably be chatting with Davis or Matt Delsen before the game in between giving high fives to fans and kids.
“I don’t want to go through life just existing,” she said. “I’m aware of wanting to be impactful . . . Yes, we want to win championships. But we want to win at life.”
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