Poker star going all-in on bringing NHL to Vegas
Canadian poker star Daniel Negreanu knows a thing or two about odds. The Toronto native and lifelong hockey fan thinks Las Vegas has a 92.4-per-cent chance of getting an NHL team.
Prospective owner Bill Foley and his company, Hockey Vision Las Vegas LLC, get to prove it beginning Tuesday when the Vegas-Wants-Hockey season-ticket drive gets under way. The goal is to get at least 10,000 full-season deposits to show there’s significant fan interest in an NHL expansion team beginning play in the desert for the 2016-17 season.
Negreanu is part of the “Founding 75,” a group of locals helping sell NHL hockey to the people of Las Vegas and surrounding areas in Nevada. He’s got his four season tickets reserved and has already sold plenty of others.
Convincing people to ante up hasn’t required a hard sales pitch.
“The town’s starving, absolutely starving, for a professional sports franchise,” Negreanu said in a recent phone interview from Las Vegas. “I’ve found the support to be overwhelming. People that live here, they’re dying for this.”
If fans show the kind of commitment Foley and Negreanu expect during the ticket drive, it would answer the biggest question the league had about what commissioner Gary Bettman has called a “unique market.” Las Vegas runs on tourism and has a transient population. There is no long-term hockey tradition to speak of and no track record of supporting a professional sports team.
With a well-funded and strong ownership group in place led by Foley and brothers Joe and Gavin Maloof and an arena that will seat17,500 for hockey due to be completed by the spring of 2016, those issues are taken care of. The next step is to gauge fan interest.
“The rubber’s got to hit the road,” Foley said in a wide-ranging December interview. “We’ve got to prove what we can do.”
Bettman is expected to be in Las Vegas on Tuesday as Hockey Vision Las Vegas kicks off the ticket drive.
Ticket prices are expected to be on par with the NHL average in two seasons. Several types are available, with deposits available at prices of $150 (U.S.), $300, $500 and $900 and with commitments of one, three, five or 10 years.
The 10-per-cent deposits are binding but refundable if Las Vegas isn’t awarded a team that begins play in 2016. Negreanu isn’t too worried about that and believes the seasonticket drive could turn up 12,500 to 13,000 deposits.
“This is really what it’s missing is something to cheer for as a group,” Negreanu said. “Even those that are not hockey fans, Las Vegas, they know how to put on a show. They’re going to make it a spectacle. It’ll be more than just coming to a hockey game. It’ll attract all kinds of different fans that maybe don’t even really get the game yet.”