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Bill Foley is passionate about the game of hockey and committed to bringing an NHL team to Las Vegas, a city that he says is ready to embrace a professional sports franchise beyond the Minor League Baseball 51s.
The billionaire businessman stands a better chance at landing an NHL expansion team to play in the new T-Mobile Arena than casino owner Sheldon Adelson has of relocating the NFL Oakland Raiders to an unfunded $1.4 billion stadium at UNLV.
Las Vegas’ expansion is rumored to be a “done deal” for 2017-18, which is the earliest season a new NHL team would play, and ESPN reported this week that the NHL has settled on Las Vegas, contingent upon the $500 million franchise fee.
Expansion is expected to be a hot topic when the NHL’s Board of Governors meets June 22 in Las Vegas, coinciding with the 2016 NHL awards. The board is considering three options: expansion for 2017-18; deferring expansion for another year; and no expansion at all. Also on the agenda is an update on business and player safety, early projection of the 2016-17 salary cap and the executive compensation policy.
NHL executives met June 7 in New York to discuss possible expansion, though no official statement from the meeting was released.
Foley’s Las Vegas-based Black Knight Sports and Entertainment presented its expansion plan to the NHL board last year. Quebec City also applied for expansion.
Las Vegas has a foot in the door with the recent completion of the $375 million, 20,000-seat T-Mobile Arena, tucked off the Strip between New York-New York and Monte Carlo. MGM Resorts International and AEG, financial partners in the arena, held off painting the locker room and haven’t booked any events from September 2017 through June 2018. There’s also a room designated for skates and sticks and the Zamboni ice-resurfacing machine.
Foley conducted research on the viability of an NHL team in Las Vegas and took 13,500 season-ticket deposits.
“We are dedicated to seeing more than 40 hockey games played in our hometown each season, sharing the excitement of having an NHL team in Las Vegas and showing the world that Las Vegas is a professional sports town,” Foley says on VegasWantsHockey.com.
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