Las Vegas is 80 percent of the way to hitting its goal.
On Monday, Bill Foley and his Hockey Vision Las Vegas group announced its season ticket campaign has secured more than 8,000 deposits since starting on Feb. 10.
“This announcement is great news,” Foley said in a statement. “The goal of the season ticket drive is to demonstrate the long-term viability of an NHL franchise in Las Vegas. Securing more than 8,000 season ticket deposits – in less than one month – helps demonstrate that Las Vegas wants hockey.
“There is significant momentum in this campaign and we are looking forward to the day we can announce that we have hit our goal of securing 10,000 season ticket deposits.”
Recently, Foley told ESPN he was optimistic Vegas would hit the 10K mark by the end of March; he also noted that number was independent of interest from the casino industry, because the group wanted to show there was “significant interest from the local fan base in Las Vegas, which would include individuals and those representing small businesses.”
Building a ticket base that’s not reliant on casinos was one of the NHL’s concerns, something deputy commissioner Bill Daly touched on last week in speaking with Sportsnet.
“I think there has been a surge of enthusiastic support for the effort,” Daly said. “They may have sold some big blocks that the parameters don’t really give them credit for. The thing that we’re most interested in, in terms of the whole ticket drive, is your average person who works and lives in Vegas. Are they willing to support a hockey team? Are they enthusiastic about doing it? Are they enthusiastic enough to part with real money with no commitment on a team?
“When you think about it, that’s a pretty tall order.”