The NHL team, the Vegas Golden Knights, was the canary in the pro sports coal mine before the arrival on the Las Vegas Strip of a Super Bowl that is sure to bring hundreds of media members and tens of thousands of fans to a place they once were not welcome.
The puck dropped at T-Mobile Arena 15 months after Texas billionaire Bill Foley’s team was awarded, earning an NHL expansion fee that at the time was a record $500 million. In between, Knights president and CEO Kerry Bubolz answered some thought-provoking questions from North American sports executives.
“I received calls asking me, ‘Where are you guys going to live on this Strip?'” Tells Front Office Sports, Bubolz. They actually believed that I would move to the [Las Vegas] Strip. Since they assumed they would have to concentrate on them, the remaining questions revolved around our strategy for drawing in out-of-town supporters. Indeed, the market is smaller, ranking 40th in terms of the size of the television market. However, the biggest market without a major professional sports team was Las Vegas.
