Golden Knights president talks LeBron James, more
Golden Knights president Kerry Bubolz joined the Review-Journal’s Golden Edge podcast on Tuesday to discuss his background, the team’s plans for the third season and many other topics with Ben Gotz and David Schoen.
Check out a few highlights of their conversation below and listen to the full interview on this page or on podcast platforms that include iTunes and Stitcher.
(Answers have been edited for length and clarity)
RJ: You were with the Cleveland Cavaliers for 13 years before joining the Knights. Do you have any good LeBron James stories?
Bubolz: When he came to our organization he was 18-years-old. And so you kind of get that in your mind.
Early on, people knew he was going to be a special player but there was one point in time three or four months into the season, someone from our finance group said “We’ve paid out a certain amount of money to LeBron but none of the checks have been cashed.” And we’re like “That’s kind of weird, maybe we should go ask him.” Turns out he still had all the checks just in his glove box. He didn’t even think to go take them to the bank, he’d just put them in his glove box. There were three or four months of NBA checks sitting in his glove box.
We’re like “LeBron, you have to put those in the bank.” It didn’t even cross his mind. But that’s an 18-year-old kid, right?
RJ: We’ve heard rumors of a third jersey. What can you tell us about that?
Bubolz: Third jerseys are important. As much as we love our home jersey and our road jersey, the popularity of the sales for that have just been incredible and again, we’re so thankful for the way that this market has supported the team, we want to continue, much like a lot of teams, to evolve that. Our history is much shorter than theirs but we do think there’s a unique opportunity to introduce a third jersey. Not saying exactly when we’d be able to do this but over the next couple of years we’ll be introducing that third jersey and then who knows what happens beyond that?
RJ: Knights owner Bill Foley has expressed interest in having a Major League Soccer team play in Las Vegas. Do you know where you stack up in the expansion pecking order?
Bubolz: We’re not exactly sure where we would stack up in terms of the pecking order itself. I do know that we’re confident in our group and how we could impact that league. Much like Bill had said, we’re going through a process and we’re continuing that process. We’re probably not going to spend a lot of time talking about publicly because we want to lay the groundwork the right way. And then when we have our bid together, we’ll sit with the folks at Major League Soccer and we’ll talk about why we believe we’d be the right choice for an ownership group in Las Vegas and see where it takes us. We’re in the mix. We know that and we’re going to continue that effort. Once we have something more formal to announce, we’ll announce it and then, like I said, we’ll talk with the folks at Major League Soccer and see where it takes us. Even at that point, that doesn’t guarantee that Las Vegas would be selected. We just have to see where it goes.
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Contact Ben Gotz at bgotz@reviewjournal.com. Follow @BenSGotz on Twitter.
