Bill Foley working in concert with NHL
Owner of potential Las Vegas team taking opposite approach to Balsillie
Bill Foley is not Jim Balsillie, and the prospective owner of a Las Vegas expansion franchise isn’t following the same path that got the former BlackBerry mogul blacklisted by the NHL.
Several years ago Balsillie tried ( and failed) to move the Nashville Predators to Hamilton and even went so far as to list season tickets for sale against the league’s wishes. When he wanted to buy the Phoenix Coyotes, the NHL preferred bankruptcy to his ownership and went to court to keep him out.
Foley doesn’t have a long history with the NHL, but his efforts to deliver hockey to Las Vegas have been in lock step with what commissioner Gary Bettman wants. So far, the millionaire businessman has asked for and received permission to run a season- ticket drive and isn’t pressuring for anything more.
“I’m an ex- Army guy. I follow orders,” Foley said in a phone interview over the weekend from his home in Northern California.
Foley is trying to go about this the right way as the league and owners have many questions about the unique nature of the tourism- heavy Las Vegas market. But don’t mistake that for the 70- year- old believing the city can’t handle a pro team.
To the contrary: Foley is in this to win it because he sees the growing business community in Las Vegas and its employees as the perfect audience for the NHL.
“Nevada and Las Vegas in particular are no longer what they were 50 years ago or 40 years ago: a gambling city, kind of a weigh station in the desert,” Foley said. “A number of software companies, development companies have located in Las Vegas. ... Those companies and those people who work for those companies, that’s our target. Those are the people that we want to have come to these games.”
A schedule of NHL games in Las Vegas is at least 22 months and many steps away, including the completion of an arena being built by AEG and MGM on the strip and eventual approval by the board of governors.
The first step is a season- ticket drive that is expected to measure the level of interest Las Vegas locals have in supporting a professional hockey team. The league is eager to see the results.
“I think what the ownership group is looking for, and ultimately what I think what would be important to the board, is that local people in Las Vegas are going to support this franchise, not just the local businesses,” deputy commissioner Bill Daly said last week in Boca Raton, Fla. “Because I’m not sure it’s the same thing.”
It won’t get going in earnest until early 2015, but Foley said as of Saturday and through only two days of the initial website launching that 1,500 people had already given their name, phone number and email address to express interest in buying season tickets.
That’s without any advertising beyond Bettman announcing Foley had been given the go- ahead to launch the ticket drive and the ensuing buzz from it. In hockey circles the idea of going to Las Vegas is glamorous, and locally the notion of finally attracting a team in one of North America’s major four sports leagues is enticing. Being the first of those leagues to break into Las Vegas is also intriguing.
“If the theory is that a market can support a professional sports franchise, by being first you know when there’s only so many dollars in a market, you’re getting those dollars committed to you as opposed to having to compete with somebody else for those dollars,” Daly said.