Golden Knights Steamrolling Toward Season Opener During Busy Summer

For a while there the duck was soaring and diving and quacking and doing all sorts of business for everyone to see. While, it's back to smooth gliding on the pond, underneath those duck feet are still furiously paddling.
No internationally televised awards shows are emanating from Vegas crowing about every move made by the Golden Knights and the media buzz has softened for the moment but work and progress is still being made.
Hockey operations continue to move forward in preparation for training camp and the coming season. The training facility is close to completion and ice is expected to go in any day.
On the business side sponsorships and tickets are being sold. It's not as public as it once was but it's full speed ahead for the Golden Knights.

"Yeah, obviously, we're fast and furious. Once the schedule came out, that really is an important trigger point for the business operations of the team, because not only do we have the 41 regular season and the 3 preseason games now out publicly, but as we look at managing the business within that, so just this past Monday, we put all of our single event suites on sale," said Golden Knights president Kerry Bubolz.

"So, we've got a limited number of those suites, and when you put it out over the course of the entire season, there's a couple hundred of those opportunities. So, those are right now out in the market and available for the public to purchase. Today, we've put group tickets on sale. It's kind of the same process, we've taken about 1,200 tickets for each of those 41 regular season games and we've put them out in market.
"So, just a lot of work that's going on from the ticket sales perspective and really across the entire business. We've grown from a handful of people to close to 60 people when you include some of the interns that are helping support the business operations, so it's a pretty crowded environment for our business.
For Andrew Lugerner, director of hockey legal affairs, the last little while has been a whirlwind as he's negotiated contracts with a number of players and draft picks.
Currently he's building the team's arbitration case in the event a deal can't be worked out with defenseman Nate Schmidt prior to the hearing date.

"It's actually my busy season. Right now, with the past couple of weeks, I've been working on signing our restricted free agents as well as our first-round draft picks. So, we had a very busy Saturda last week," said Lugerner. "We signed all three of our first-round picks and we also signed two of our restricted free agents. So, right now, we only have one player left to go and after we have him under contract, we'll have everyone we need under contract for the 2017-18 season.
"We have one player left unsigned right now, Nate Schmidt, and if we don't settle beforehand, there would be an arbitration hearing August 3. So, right now, we're working through it and hopefully we can get a deal done beforehand. But, we'll see. Time will tell."

Director of hockey operations Misha Donskov is focused on making sure everything is in place for the beginning of training camp.

"Well, from an organization standpoint, a big focus is on our practice facility, making sure that we've got that up and running and Murray Craven has done a heck of a job with that, and that's something that he's focused on day to day," said Donskov. "Chris Davidson-Adams, who's our equipment manager, is in the process of ordering equipment, talking with the players that we've signed, making sure that all those players have what they need in preparation for training camp.

"We've reached out to the individuals that we want to bring to training camp and that we want to be a part of this process moving forward. And then, just organize and be prepared, so that when they do arrive, we're ready to go."

Bubolz and his business team started selling tickets and sponsorships without a player or a coach or a jersey or a schedule. Now with all those things in place, the marketplace is responding with added vigor.
"Yeah, there was a lot of farming, as I like to call it, that was going on," he said. "So, we were planting a lot of seeds along the way, talking about what we thought the vision and the opportunity would be. Now that we're 83 days out, those conversations have matured.

"We've announced some of those major partnerships, like Toyota and the D Hotel, but just within the gaming category alone, we've got four or five major new partnerships that we'll be announcing here shortly, within the banking category, we've got some significant partnerships that we'll be announcing, within the hospital category, we've got some significant partnerships that we'll be announcing, and it's really going to be a very busy next 30 days within our sponsorship group."
For many the success of the Golden Knights will be judged on the ice but that product can't be properly funded if the business side doesn't click.
Bubolz and his team have been tasked with making the Golden Knights a financially viable entity which can become entrenched in Vegas.
"I think it's trending fantastic. We set out early on, there were some things that were really important to us, and we knew that as it related to ticket sales that there was already a strong foundation laid with the season ticket drive that Mr. Foley and his group had started going back two and a half plus years ago," said Bubolz. "That's gone incredibly well and we're expecting that every Vegas Golden Knights game is going to be at capacity and it's just going to be a lively environment. From a sponsorship perspective, we knew what we had to do in terms of getting those foundational relationships together, and I feel like we're moving in the right direction. And then, as we went back to June, when we announced our TV partnership with AT&T SportsNet, those are foundational business components and we feel like a lot of those are in place and now we're just executing again as we get to 83 days now till the home opener."
It's not all selling tickets and signing deals, however, as the Golden Knights are also preparing to put on a show each and every game.
"The last piece, which is a big focus, which I'm really excited about, Mr. Foley has made a large investment in the event presentation side of our organization," said Bubolz. "We're in Las Vegas, this is the entertainment capital of the world, and so as much as I love the NHL and think it's a great game, we have to be beyond that with our event presentation. The show that we're going to put on when the puck is no longer in play during an evening out is really going to be spectacular. We've got a terrific group that's working on a lot of different ideas, and so things like that you may have seen at other NHL venues like on-ice projection, which will be just outstanding, literally video quality projection actually on the ice that will be a part of our event presentation. Of course, we've got to figure out what's going to happen when we score a goal. We've got it down to three or four key sounds that represent that moment and how exciting it is when we score a goal, and so we're moving that process along. We've also made some other investments in ideas that are really along the theme and the brand of the Knight itself, and one that I'm really excited about, you've probably been to a lot of NHL or NBA games where you see the mascots and the interactive squads and they're shooting T-Shirts into the crowd. We're going to do something a little bit different. We're going to have a giant catapult that we're building out right now and that catapult will actually shoot about 50 T-shirts at one time. But, it will be made in the spirit of the Medieval time frame when the Knight really became known, and so, there's a lot of ideas that kind of fit within that Knight theme that will be a part of our event presentation and ultimately trying to create an environment where the visiting teams really don't like coming here. We want them to come to Las Vegas and have a great time, but that's outside of their experience playing the games at T-Mobile."