Amid the bright lights and face-paced nightlife of downtown Las Vegas emerged a new soccer team that aims to mimic the non-stop, high-octane personality of its city: Las Vegas Lights FC.
Las Vegas Lights is one of six new additions to the United Soccer League in 2018.
Only two of the incoming teams to USL were built from scratch. Indy Eleven and North Carolina FC made the switch from the now defunct NASL, Atlanta United 2 is a feeder team to MLS franchise Atlanta United, and Nashville SC already has been admitted as a future MLS expansion franchise. Only Fresno FC and Lights FC were starting completely from scratch.
The two new teams faced off in the first match of the season on March 17, 2018. That match fulfilled the promises of high-scoring games made by Las Vegas Lights Owner and CEO, Brett Lashbrook, when Lights FC won 3-2.
Lashbrook started with a very specific plan on how his team would look, and assigned himself the onerous task of building his franchise from nothing.
While his team started from the ground up, Lashbrook has experience in soccer: he worked almost 20 years on the business side of MLS. Lashbrook served in the Commissioner’s Office under Don Garber as legal counsel and special assistant, and oversaw Orlando City SC’s rise from USL obscurity to MLS stardom as its Chief Operating Officer.
“When we got there, it was 3,000 fans a game,” Lashbrook says of his time in Orlando. “When we left it was 20,000 season ticket holders.”
He has no doubt that his team in Las Vegas will pull in crowds similar to Orlando.
“It will work because it’s a proven model,” Lashbrook says. “The demographics of soccer in America in 2018 are no longer questioned. Major League Soccer has a higher per-game attendance than NBA or NHL. There is not a doubt of whether Americans like soccer.”
The question, however, isn’t if Americans like soccer. The real question facing most USL teams is whether the fans like their team enough to attend games. USL has the distinct challenge of having to compete with MLS, since USL is a separate entity. USL has affiliate teams – usually that end with “2” or “B” to signify a second team – but, the majority of the franchises are privately owned and operated.
Some USL teams are reeling in fans game after game. FC Cincinnati and Sacramento Republic FC boasted the highest attendance numbers in USL in 2018. However, that success isn’t felt league wide. Of the 30 teams in the league, just over half can average 3,000 fans a game and only the top two average over 10,000.
The Rochester Rhinos, Vancouver Whitecaps 2 and Orlando City B announced they would go on hiatus in 2018, four more teams will leave USL – now the USL Championship – in 2019.
The Rhinos, a privately owned franchise, has been one of the most successful USL teams in history, notably the only non-MLS team to win the Lamar Hunt US Open Cup. Unfortunately for Rochester, its future isn’t as bright as its past.
“There were signs of trouble early on that indicated the decline of the Rhinos,” says Jeff DiVeronica, a sports writer in Rochester. “The fans were somewhat apathetic and disenfranchised with the team.”
DiVeronica notes that the atmosphere was perhaps the most important aspect of the Rhino’s appeal to fans.
“It’s like when you go to a restaurant, it’s not a great restaurant, but you keep coming back because its loud and always full,” he explains. “If suddenly that restaurant is a ghost town, you won’t want to come back, because the food isn’t that good. It was the atmosphere that brought you back.”
The atmosphere was special when the Rhinos played at Frontier Field from 1996 to 2005. Rochester averaged over ten thousand fans a game in that period. After moving to Capelli Sport Stadium that number dropped significantly. In its final year, it averaged just over 2,000 a game.
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USL franchises need the entrepreneurial spirit to remain successful. Experience on how to run both a soccer team, and business is critical, Brett Lashbrook has both. He knows how to connect with fans at the USL level. While COO at Orlando City SC, he oversaw the team’s entrance into MLS as well as the construction of Orlando City Stadium in downtown Orlando.
Lashbrook’s MLS experience taught him how to make Lights FC successful. For him, the most important part of the team’s success is creating a unique identity.
“You have to have an authentic fan experience,” he says. “That’s the singing, the dancing, the smoke, the banners, the tifos and the streamers. From the fan’s perspective, you can see very clearly what the ownership’s level of commitment is to creating something unique and different that embraces the internationalism of soccer.”
Lashbrook’s plan is to mirror Las Vegas’s personality in his team team. After obtaining the rights to join USL, which includes minimum ownership standards (basically, a “you have to be this rich to ride the USL”), Lashbrook sealed a long-term stadium lease with the city of Las Vegas. Lights FC play at Cashman field, located in downtown Las Vegas and at the time was used by the Las Vegas 51s, a triple A affiliate of the New York Mets. Seeing some reactions to NYCFC’s games at Yankee Stadium, Lashbrook looked to fix some of the glaring issues of playing in a baseball stadium
“We have to create an authentic soccer experience, and that is moving the fans close to the game,” Lashbrook says. “That means our costs will include moving the pitcher’s mound – we’ll rebuild it – take out the infield dirt and put in grass. If you’ve never been there, you wouldn’t know it was a soccer stadium.”
After the 2018 season, the Las Vegas 51s will move out of the stadium, leaving the Lights as the lone occupants, and giving ownership the ability to make soccer-specific renovations to the stadium.
“We don’t know to what extent we’ll change the stadium,” Lashbrook says. “Ideally, we would take out the center and right field walls and build stands, concessions, bathrooms, suites, a beer garden or whatever you want in the outfield and make it into a horseshoe stadium. [We] could do this very easily.”
Cashman Field was just the first concrete step in creating the Lights.
The team quickly partnered with Zappo’s, an eccentric company that prefers not to give its employees job titles, the headquarters of which is located conveniently up the road from Cashman Field.
That eccentric personality is exactly what the club wants for its own identity.
“What we have is different and we need to embrace that,” Lashbrook says. “It’s two hours on Saturday night near the bars, the casinos, the restaurants, the night-life and the music. It’s a two-hour party in the middle of big party zone with a sport you can fully participate in and you can afford to sit right behind the goal and sing and chant and go ‘ole, ole, ole’.”
Accessibility is the appeal that Lashbrook thinks will bring in fans. Not only is the stadium in the “party zone” but it’s also a cheap alternative to the other options that Las Vegas offers.
“When I see the community’s absolute support for the Golden Knights, and they have done such a wonderful job in their inaugural season, it just makes me smile,” Lashbrook says. “I know we can be just as successful. Hockey versus soccer, the strip versus downtown, $100 ticket versus a $20 ticket, a $15-dollar beer versus a $5-dollar beer.”
The emphasis here is a cheap entertainment alternative in an otherwise expensive city.
Lashbrook emphasizes that Lights FC will be an authentic and affordable fan experience. From loud singing to cheap tickets and a downtown location, he wants the game to be about the fans. He first made this commitment apparent when he unveiled a “name the team” contest, in which fans can submit ideas for what their team should be called.
The decision to create fan equity in the team paid off when the team received over 1,000 name suggestions. Lashbrook and his team eventually narrowed that list down to six.
“Some were great, some were awful, some were humorously awful, and some were inappropriate,” Lashbrook says, laughing as he remembers some of the unique submissions.
The idea was to find something that resonated with the city and its fans. Lashbrook wanted to avoid something more classic sounding or even cliché like Las Vegas FC or Las Vegas United. The more interesting but perhaps more unusable were what stuck with Lashbrook as he recalled some of the memorable choices: The Vegas OJ’s, The Vegas Sinners, The Vegas Buffets, or The Vegas Blackjacks. He ended up merging the classic “FC” name with a standout finalist, Lights. Thus, the name Las Vegas Lights FC was born.
Shortly thereafter, the newly named Lights FC held a design contest to follow up the naming contest. 400 designs were submitted for the team’s logo.
“If we had done this with an agency,” Lashbrook says, “we wouldn’t have gotten as good a logo because we wouldn’t have the diversity.”
In the end, three fans submitted a design using the “Welcome to Las Vegas” sign rotated 180 degrees. After some fine-tuning, the team settled on this layout, one that is ubiquitous in Las Vegas. Another submission used neon tubes in its display, something that fit the team’s name, and was integrated into the crest.
The kit in the end, mimicked the logo. On a black background, the jersey features florescent blue, yellow and pink highlights that resemble neon tubes.
Every aspect of the club’s appearance, from logo, to kit to coach and play style was meant to be exciting and vibrant. Lashbrook, when looking for his manager, knew he wanted the same exciting and vibrant attitude from his coach, who also had to be bilingual and would attack rather than defend.
“Zero-zero soccer is boring,” Lashbrok says. “Teams should reflect their community. Las Vegas is fast, 24-7, glitzy, sexy, and we are all that. There are a lot of coaches that will shy away from that. I wanted a soccer coach that would embrace being in Las Vegas.”
With that in mind over the course of his four-month search, choosing Jose Luis Sanchez Sola – also known as “el Chelis” – was an easy one for Lashbrook. El Chelis is the first manager to coach in both the first and second divisions in the U.S. and Mexico. Chelis was also appointed sporting director in addition to head coach.
“Chelis is a showman and he is an entertainer,” Lashbrook says. “He wants the fans to go home with a smile on their face, But plays as authentic soccer as it comes. With his pedigree, he goes to the top of the list of all-time USL coaches.”
El Chelis sums up everything that Lashbrook has created in Las Vegas. He personifies the identity of the city and the team. However, he went a little too far on April 27th, when “El Chelis” received a seven game ban for “referee assault” after “addressing” the head official after a match.
With a coach, a stadium and a certified team, it just became a matter of filling out the roster.
“It’s an international world marketplace,” Lashbrook says. “There isn’t a lack of talent world-wide that can play at a high level at USL.”
It didn’t take long for Lashbrook and his staff to find the type of players who embraced his team’s philosophy, especially given that El Chelis could motivate both Spanish and English speakers.
All that remains for Las Vegas is a real supporters section to create the atmosphere. A card-carrying fan base is the final, most important step in any team’s success.
Even with the struggles that various USL and NASL soccer teams have faced when trying to fill a stadium, Lashbrook is confident of his team’s chances to draw in supporters.
“If this is working around the world, it will work here,” Lashbrook says. “If it is working in markets across US and Canada that are smaller, that are less diverse, that have stadiums that are out in the suburbs and not in the city’s core, then this will work. It’s working in Orlando, Kansas City, New York, Toronto, Portland, and Seattle. It will work because it’s a proven model.”
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With its inaugural season in the books, Las Vegas Lights FC finished 8-7-19 in 15th place out of 17 teams in USL’s western conference. Despite the poor record, Lashbrook’s promises have been mostly upheld. Chelis was perhaps too much of a showman, and was replaced in March. Currently, USMNT legend Eric Wynalda is heading the team as it prepares for the 2019 season.
The Lights first began to make news after announcing a pair of baby llamas as the team mascots at first home match against Montreal Impact in a preseason game. Off the field, things are no different. The team even has partnered with a marijuana dispensary, the first professional sports team to do so.
The mania in Las Vegas hasn’t gone unnoticed to its residents either. Cashman Field averaged just over 7,000 fans a match, well over the league average.
The last business decision – one that is always ongoing for privately owned USL teams – for Lashbrook was deciding whether or not to affiliate with an MLS team. He decided it was best to stay unaffiliated, and remain a private team.
This decision points to big aspirations for the Lights, potentially even MLS, as more and more USL teams vie for a spot in the ever expanding league.
While it may be too soon to join MLS, it isn’t out of the question in the future. Until then the fans will have to buy into what Lashbrook has created for the time being.
