Black Knights Sports & Entertainment owns the Las Vegas Golden Knights of the NHL. Bill Foley is the chairman and CEO of the company.
Vegas Golden Knights debuted in the league during the 2018-19 season and reached the Stanley Cup in their inaugural season. The team has reached the finale in the 2022-23 season.
They are facing off against Florida Panthers as this season is the team's second finals appearance. Both will be playing the Best of seven formats, the same as other major sports leagues, including the NBA.
Led by Bruce Cassidy, Vegas Golden Knights is back in the Stanley Cup rink for the second time. Apart from its prepared players and team personnel, the Golden Knights are the 16th most valuable team at $965 million.
The Las Vegas Golden Knights stock is rising with a $64 million operating income.
Meanwhile, with the Knights playing four games against the Panthers, the two teams are ready to go at it again on June 13 at T-Mobile Arena.
Las Vegas Golden Knights Ownership Hierarchy
Black Knight Sports & Entertainment LLC jointly owns the Las Vegas Golden Knights' ownership rights in 2023. Two parties make up the firm, and they are:
- Bill Foley
- The Maloof Family
Bill Foley
A former financial services attorney, Bill Foley, leads the NHL Vegas Golden Knights' proprietorship by 70%.
He had secured more than 13,200 season ticket deposits in June 2015 to gauge interest in a Las Vegas team, per the conditions by the NHL board to start a Las Vegas expansion team.
Business Insider reported that Foley's bid for a Las Vegas team got approved in June 2016 and got permission to begin play from the 2017–18 NHL season. Meanwhile, he had paid a whopping $500 million expansion fee to the league to start the operations.
After a time of finalizing the team name, logo, brand image, recruiting players, and management manpower for the team, the Vegas Golden Knights debuted in the NHL 2018-19 season.
While the team has seen significant growth in skills and players, Foley continues to push them to greater success, that is, to lift the Stanley Cup this season.
Foley is credited with naming the team after his alma mater, the United States Military Academy, and after the gold that he considers to be the "No. 1 precious metal."
The Maloof Family
Bill leads the team with a majority stake, while the business family, The Maloofs, share the other 30%. The league board selected both Bill and the Maloofs in 2014 to lead the ownership group for a Las Vegas expansion team.
During the long four years till the Knights' debut, Foley and the Maloofs agreed on the 70-30 ratio of the team's stake rights. The Maloof family is a prominent business family from America, and they have roots in Lebanon.
They started out as the distributors of Coors Brewing Company. However, their business reach has broadened towards the sports and entertainment industry since their success in the late 1930s.
The following names make up the Maloof family:
- George J. Maloof Sr.
- Colleen Maloof
- Joe Maloof
- Gavin Maloof
- Adrienne Maloof
- George J. Maloof Jr.
- Phillip Maloof
- Albert Maloof Sr.
Before the NHL Knights, the family previously owned NBA's Houston Rockets from 1979 to 1982, Sacramento Kings from 1998 until 2013, and WNBA's Sacramento Monarchs from 1998 to 2009.
The family also founded Palms Casino Resort but now holds only 2% ownership as of today, per Las Vegas Review-Journal. Similarly, they also run Maloof Productions, which has produced several reality shows and movies.
Meanwhile, the Knights remain a prominent part of their business portfolio.
Where Do The Vegas Golden Knights Play?
The Vegas Golden Knights play their home games at T-Mobile Arena located in Paradise, Nevada. It is a multi-purpose indoor arena, mainly situated on the Las Vegas Strip behind the New York-New York and Park MGM casino hotels.
T-Mobile Arena was opened up on April 6, 2016, while the broken ground started on May 1, 2014. The arena was built upon a total construction cost of $375 million on 16 acres of land by the joint venture of MGM Resorts International and Anschutz Entertainment Group (AEG).
Both MGM and AEG share an equal footing on the arena's ownership rights at 42.5%, while Foley takes the other 15%. The global architectural firm, Populous looked after T-Mobile's architecture.
MGM Resorts International currently functions as the arena's operator. The arena has an overall capacity of 20, 000 seats. While Foley's NHL team was announced to be the main tenants of the arena during its construction, UFC signed the papers first.
The arena hosted UFC 200: Tate vs. Nunes on July 9, 2016, and signed a seven-year agreement to become an official tenant of T-Mobile Arena in March 2017.
Meanwhile, the Foley-led team has been a regular tenant of the space since the 2017-18 NHL season.
Likewise, when the Golden Knights won the 2017-18 Western Conference finals, the team hosted three 2018 Stanley Cup Finals games there.
Besides NHL and UFC games, T-Mobile Arena has hosted boxing matches, concerts, WWE, and AEW events.
Similarly, they also gave space to the Academy of Country Music Awards, the Billboard Music Awards, the iHeartRadio Music Festival, the Latin Grammy Awards, and the Miss USA beauty pageant.
Bill Foley Net Worth 2023
Bill Foley has a net worth of $1.6 billion, per Forbes. He stands at the 1804th position in the Forbes list of world billionaires.
The source confirms him to be a self-made billionaire whose primary source of income is from his financial services and his sports business ventures.
As a financial attorney, he founded Fidelity National Financial, an insurance company, in 1984. He has continued serving as the company's chairman.
Bill lives happily with his wife Carol Johnson Foley in Las Vegas with three children Lindsay, Robert and Courtney. Bill Foley son William Patrick Foley III passed away in 2018.
Similarly, he also served as the chairman of Black Knight, a software and data provider for the mortgage industry later in life. Likewise, he is the current vice chairman of Fidelity National Information Services.
Furthermore, his financial success made him sponsor six blank-check companies. With him starting the Golden Knights with a $500 million expansion fee, his financial status secured the team's footing in the league.
Regarding his company, Black Knight Sports & Entertainment purchased an expansion team, Vegas Knight Hawks, in 2021. They play in the Indoor Football League.
He also leads the Premier League football club AFC Bournemouth. Likewise, he has a minority stake in the French Ligue 1 club FC Lorient as of 2023.
