Knights owner Foley plans Las Vegas Summer League visit amid NBA expansion bid

Golden Knights owner Bill Foley will take time away from his vacation to return to Las Vegas to attend portions of NBA Summer League.

Foley, who has been in wine country in Northern California escaping the triple-digit Southern Nevada heat since the Knights were beaten by the Carolina Hurricanes in the Stanley Cup Final, will be in Las Vegas this week as he and his group are in the midst of a bid to land an NBA expansions team.

“I’m planning on coming back when they do the summer league and seeing if I can connect with a few people within the NBA,” Foley told the Review-Journal last week. “I was going to run back down to Vegas. I’m out of town right now. I try and get out when the temperature hits 100.”

NBA Summer League runs from Thursday through July 19, and aside from the action on the court of the top rookies, up-and-comers and league vets trying to make NBA squads, will see big name players, executives and team owners hanging around Southern Nevada for most of the 11-day stretch.

The NBA’s board of governors will also meet in Las Vegas during the Summer League, where league Commissioner Adam Silver will address the media following the meetings to update the latest happenings in the NBA, including expansion.

Las Vegas NBA Summer League co-founder Albert Hall said aside from the action on the court, the over weeklong event has become a centralized place for the meeting of the basketball minds.

“It is important for somebody like Mr. Foley to come in and meet the people,” Hall said. “He probably knows a lot of them anyway, but those things are taking place in Vegas and they’ve grown as Summer League has grown. That always didn’t take place. But you get all 30 teams; you get all 30 owners out here.”

Foley and his ownership group announced their bid for a Las Vegas NBA franchise in June, on the 10th anniversary of the NHL awarding the billionaire business owner an expansion team that became the Knights.

An NBA franchise is more of an international asset, compared to an NHL franchise, and the bid process for a pro basketball team is a more competitive one, with multiple groups featuring notable names also showing interest in netting a franchise in Las Vegas, Foley said. Foley noted that he’s had contact with at least five different groups who are interested in bidding on a Las Vegas NBA expansion team.

“An NBA franchise is an international franchise from the Far East to all the way through Eastern Europe, and that’s what I think is really intriguing,” Foley said. “It’s (NBA) got such a broad base that the sponsorship opportunities are much different than they are with the NHL, and really, in some ways, easier than the NHL in terms of developing the sponsorship base and the ticketing base and so on.”