Las Vegas Lights CEO Brett Lashbrook On What Sets The Club Apart

Fresh off our 'Residence' stop off at their home ground of Cashman Field, we continue our exploration of USL Championship side Las Vegas Lights following the recent reveal of their outstanding home and away shirts from MEYBA for the 2022 season, which put them on a lot of people’s radar. And to do so we caught up with CEO Brett Lashbrook to find out more about what makes this radical club tick.

Known for its $10,000 helicopter cash drop, world's largest water balloon fight, pitch-side pools, foam parties and much much more besides, its safe to say that The Lights are doing things their own way, carving out a reputation that lives up to the image of their home city. Sports Illustrated called them “Most Interesting Team in the World” for good reason, it would seem…

So to start off, how would you describe Las Vegas Lights?

Most interesting team in the world. That’s what Sports Illustrated called us. We’re the first to do a cannabis sponsor, the first to do in-game betting – I know you guys in the UK do that all the time, but five years ago that was still taboo here – we’re the team that drops money out of a helicopter, the team that has Llamas shitting on the field right before kick off, the team that had the smiley face on the inside of the jersey, the team that shoots more confetti when you score a goal than when a team wins the Super Bowl.

Are these all your ideas?

Collectively, yes.

How long have you been involved with the club?

So my family founded the team in 2017 and we started playing in February 2018, so we’re heading into our fifth season.

How would you describe the ride so far?

A rollercoaster, but all good. It sounds cliche, but the world’s most popular sport in the world’s most entertaining city is a perfect match. When you’re here, in downtown Vegas, you can question what this is, but when you say the words ‘Downtown Vegas’ anywhere in the world it immediately conjures an image. There are very few places in the world that you can say downtown of and there’s instantly an image. So I’ve always felt with sports teams, especially in the lower divisions, they can take on the personalities of their neighbourhoods. 

It’s an American way of looking at it, but the Green Bay Packers, right, to an American is still North Wisconsin, blue collar, lunch pail; the Yankees and that black hat and the Bronx; the Lakers, even when they weren’t good, it was still showtime. So OK, what do we have going for us? We’ve got the most recognisable, iconic city name that we don’t have to pay for, let’s lean into that and use it.

The world’s most popular sport in the world’s most entertaining city is a perfect match. I’ve always felt with sports teams, especially in the lower divisions, they can take on the personalities of their neighbourhoods. We’ve got the most recognisable, iconic city name that we don’t have to pay for, let’s lean into that and use it!"

It’s an incredible blank canvas. Do you see it as an opportunity to have fun?

Well yeah. I don’t see why the Las Vegas Golden Knights don’t lean into it. They lean into it in their show and in their presentation, but call yourself the Golden Knights and use this weird colour scheme? It’s like they’re embarrassed of where they’re at. It just doesn’t make sense to me.

So I would say we are unabashedly unashamed of who we are and what we represent, and no doubt that it gives fodder to our rivals, but…

You relish that?

I don’t know if I’d say I relish it, I don’t really think about it. But I say respectfully, in second division soccer in America, with all due respect to El Paso and Albuquerque, they ain’t Las Vegas, and we are, and that allows us a platform to do things that they can’t do. And when they see us doing things that they can’t do it automatically provides this knee jerk reaction of ‘You’re idiots, why are you doing that?’

How have you found your connection with the fanbase that’s here?

Listen, at the end of the day we’re still a soccer team and we’ve got to win and we’ve got to to x, y and z. I always say that I can’t guarantee goals and I can’t guarantee wins but I can guarantee that he beer’s cold and I’m gonna make you smile and laugh on a Saturday night in downtown Las Vegas – that’s what I can control. So you lean into that, and you’ll have people saying "oh, they’re not focussed on the soccer, they’re not doing x, y and z," but that’s an insult to our coaches and our players if you think that they’re not focussed on that.

Another thing that I think you’ll find interesting, talking about how we’re different, I don’t know if you know about our sideline baby pools? We used to share the stadium with a baseball team and the baseball team built a brand new stadium with all the public tax dollars out in Summerlin, and they put a swimming pool on their outfield, right? Said it was the greatest thing since sliced bread. So I got mad and I said "screw you and your one swimming pool. I’ve got 10 swimming pools!" So truth be told we do have an above ground pool, but you’ve got to have real health permits and a lifeguard and stuff.

So I thought could we get an above-ground jacuzzi? But it was all way more complicated than it was worth. So we went on Amazon and bought 10 little baby inflatable pools and we put them along the sidelines, 10 feet from the touchline. When we first did it people said what the hell is this, this is a joke. But it’s sold out every single game. There’s a waiting list for families and their kids. The only issue we’ve had was that in a game that we won, a four year old girl splashed a visiting player as he was walking by, and he acted like he’d been shot.

It gets cool here in the spring and fall, so we couldn’t do the pools until around May, but we’ve built something with these pools. There’s a space for them. So starting last fall we partnered with a mattress firm, and we did our Best Sleep In The House, and we put out ten mattresses. We had kids jumping on the mattresses, and the whole family could sit out on the mattress and rent it out right next to the field. So again, you talk about doing things differently, and it’s just being unashamed to try new things.

Another one that you guys will either laugh at or roll your eyes at, one or the other, we’ve got this big old baseball outfield, so during Covid, everyone wants to be compliant so I said screw it, we’ll make the most Covid-compliant seat in all of professional sports. So Toyota was our visiting sponsor last year, so anyone that was driving a Toyota was allowed to drive on to the field and watch the game on the field behind the pitch. You could park up in your Toyota and turn your lights on and off or honk your horn.

You’re a pioneer in this space!

I don’t know about that, but I’m trying to do things. Our fourth official’s table is a black jack table. The first time they came and saw it they were like "what the fuck is this?" It lights up and everything. But now, today, they don’t think twice about it.

What about the opportunity to work with a brand like Meyba?

So I’ve always felt – and I said this to Mark Underwood (managing director at MEYBA) when we first started speaking – was that there was a boringness among the “big brands” and there’s a lack of creativity and a lack of, even on the business side of how you order it – these are the colours, these are the templates, hope you get it right and if not, you know. And you come out looking like a youth team. I worked at Major League Soccer for an number of years and I saw that everyone had to wear adidas.

So when we started this I knew we wanted to try to do something different, right. At that point we wanted something very bespoke, we wanted the smiley face on the inside of the jersey so that when they score a goal – funny story there about getting yellow cards. So when Meyba approached I realised that they were a really real company with a whole machine already behind it. You realise that they’ve got the factory, they’ve got the staff, they’ve got everything, and they have the ability with their own manufacturing to go do some really cool bespoke stuff.

To me I loved being the first in America to work with a brand like that, especially when I knew that they had the experience to go fulfil it in the backend. I’m happy to be part of that Meyba/North America launch.

Today in 2022 everyone in Las Vegas, I am convinced, is one degree of separation away from the football. That said we haven’t even touched the tip of the iceberg of what it can become, and I don’t mean we’re going to challenge the NBA or the NFL tomorrow, but this is a big country with a very large market and incredible diversity."

It’s a mutually beneficial relationship though…

There’s something about Las Vegas. They want to use the words ‘Las Vegas’ as well, right? There’s a built in, iconic cool factor with those words.

What’s the process been like getting to the finished jerseys?

Relatively quick and seamless. They have their machine going, they gave us a bunch of designs and we picked a couple, tweaked a little then it was off to the races.

Do you like the process of creating a kit?

I’m probably not creative enough when it comes to that if that makes sense. I’ll leave that to the Neal Heard’s of the world. But I knew when they gave us the 20 examples that they were different from anyone else. So at that point it was just finding out what works best.

What about the future then?

I think you just continue to grow. The sport of soccer has grown by leaps and bounds in the last five, 10, 20 years in this country. The World Cup coming in five years is only going to make it grow further. The growth of first division soccer, the growth of second division soccer, the growth of the Premier League and the number of games that are on TV in my home here in Las Vegas. It’s a joke, because I have access to more games than you do, without the blackouts and restrictions. The national team’s success, the women’s national team success – it is a… with all due respect, I wouldn’t want to own a baseball team right now. This is it. You see the ship coming.

When I started in the sport as an intern with the Kansas City Wiz in 1996 it was still known as a European sport, a Mexican sport, a Hispanic sport. Today in 2022 everyone in Las Vegas, I am convinced, is one degree of separation away from the sport. One, they grew up with it, two, they’re now seeing it on TV on a regular basis, three, their grandkids play it, four, they support the women’s national team or something. I don’t have to explain what the sport is and what it means. It has become more and more mainstream. That said we haven’t even touched the tip of the iceberg of what it can become, and I don’t mean we’re going to challenge the NBA or the NFL tomorrow, but this is a big country with a very large market and incredible diversity and there’s room for continued growth in this sport.

How do you build it in to people’s mindsets when they’re visiting Vegas?

So we are very hyper-local in that sense. Our fanbase are overwhelmingly people that are born, raising their families here, living here. I always say that I don’t take any offence that people come to Las Vegas to live out some other personalities and on a Saturday night in Vegas, if you’re only here for the one, second division soccer may not be your cup of tea, so I always say we love it when the Brits want to come over and experience it, but I also understand that there’s a lot of options for them on a Saturday night. So we are way more focused on the people that live here.

Pick up the La Vegas Lights 2022 jerseys at prodirectsoccer.com and meyba.com