LAS VEGAS (KTNV) — After a major announcement on Thursday, Scripps Sports will televise all non-nationally exclusive Vegas Golden Knights games on cable, satellite, and over-the-air television.
Channel 13's sports reporter, Tina Nguyen, caught up with the owner of the Vegas Golden Knights, Bill Foley, to discuss the historic announcement.
Tina Nguyen: A pretty big announcement here today, as the Vegas Golden Knights will be partnering with Scripps Sports long term to spruce up. Talk about the significance of this partnership.
Bill Foley: This is terrific for us. We were previously reaching about 35% of the households in Las Vegas, 9% in Salt Lake City, and 9% in Montana. Now we're going to be 100% of the households over the air — in one fashion or another — and it's free! Now, our fan base is going to expand exponentially because everyone can now watch the games and see the games. Thanks to you guys at Scripps.
Nguyen: You talk about this being free over the air. Can you touch on what this does for the game, as well?
Foley: It expands our fan base terrifically. It allows us to broaden our brand and make our brand more ubiquitous within the community. We do a pretty good job of getting out in the community and being part of the community, I would say. I always like to say that we're embedded in the community — and the communities embedded with us. Now, we have a chance to really follow through on that. So this is a great opportunity that came our way, and we're the first NHL team that has this kind of relationship. It's great that Scripps did it, and I'm happy we're going to be on Channel 13.
Nguyen: Can you give us just some insights on what it took to get this deal done, just maybe the hurdles that you guys had to jump through as well?
Foley: It's a complicated transaction because first, we had to get out of our other situation, which happily happens fairly, fairly quickly. Then, Kerry had to work with Scripps Sports and really develop the framework of how we were going to do this and ensure that we could have access to the other market. We had to go to the NHL and get expand our primary sphere of influence to include Salt Lake and Reno. It became economically viable to be in those markets, so it was a big job. It took about three months of hard work, but they did it. We were thankful to Scripps Sports for being our partner.