As it turns out, lavishing billionaire sports moguls with tens or hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars isn't the only way to ensure locals can enjoy the thrill of professional sports. 

Just look at Bill Foley's Vegas Golden Knights as a shining example of privately funded sports success.

And what a success it has been — even beyond Tuesday's stunning sweep of the Colorado Avalanche in Game 4 of the NHL Western Conference Final. In many ways, Tuesday's victory epitomizes what has made the Knights such a force in professional hockey since the team showed up on this little patch of the Mojave nearly a decade ago. 

There's a reason the Knights were labeled "misfits" in their inaugural season. Few hockey experts believed a ragtag collection of players recruited during an expansion draft would amount to much. At most, the team was considered a tepid test of whether our tourist-centric town was capable of hosting a major league franchise with its limited market of homegrown fans and local media. 

That first year, however, marked the beginning of something amazing. 

With the communal pain of a mass shooting still burning in the minds of Las Vegans, the Knights represented something more than an upstart hockey team composed of spare players from around the league. They represented a declaration to the world that we wouldn't be defined by recent tragedies. 

With a chip on its shoulder and a fanbase eager for something positive to rally behind, the team managed to claw its way into the Stanley Cup Final that first season — an accomplishment made all the more impressive by just how fanatically enthused locals became about the Knights' meteoric rise. 

Nine years later, the moniker "misfits" still applies. 

Despite a season plagued by uncomfortable losses, goaltending difficulties and a late-season coaching change, the Knights managed to not only extend their season deep into the playoffs, they've also managed to dominate the league's best regular season team with a clean 4-0 sweep against all odds. 

That's a hell of an underdog success story, regardless of what happens in the Stanley Cup Final. And the Knights and the fans seem to know it. 

Indeed, the unlikely success of the Vegas Golden Knights mirrors the resilience and determination of Las Vegas itself. Outside the corridor of megaresorts and opulent excess, this town has always persevered in the face of adversity — as if we're determined to prove that we're greater than the mere sum of a few dominant economic components. 

As the state's license plate reminds us, "Home Means Nevada" — a place that is more authentic than our sprawling suburban rooftops and towering hotel resorts suggest. Nevada has always been far more than just a neon skyline or the Fountains of Bellagio, and it took a world-class hockey team repeatedly exceeding expectations to remind people of that. In many ways, the Knights are a bludgeon that forces the rest of the nation to recognize we're a city with our own identity that's not defined solely by poker tables, nightclubs and endless rows of slot machines.  

With the Knights' arrival in 2017, our era of pro sports began — not because we figured that fans from other states might be eager to visit, but because, as the team's founder believed, Las Vegas locals were just as excited and engaged as fans in any major market.

The story of the Knights continues to be something larger than a single game upset or odds-shifting playoff series. The team's initial success was responsible for making us a hub for professional sports. Our fans proved that Vegas isn't a shallow tourist destination with no culture. And the excitement of another playoff season has given the disparate, unique, varied and diverse people of Southern Nevada yet one more reason to rally and celebrate what makes our oasis in the desert such an incredible place to live and work.

And somehow, the team managed to accomplish all of this without raiding the public treasury, begging for corporate handouts or leaning on public funds to build some "state-of-the-art" stadium at the expense of taxpayers. 

It didn't require a truckload of corporate welfare to turn Vegas into a sports town, nor did it require massive public handouts to turn Foley's expansion team into a championship-winning franchise. 

Politicians, take note: It can be done. Just ask the 2026 NHL Western Conference champions. 

Michael Schaus is a communications and branding expert based in Las Vegas and founder of Schaus Creative LLC, an agency dedicated to helping organizations, businesses and activists tell their story and motivate change. He has more than a decade of experience in public affairs commentary, having worked as a news director, columnist, political humorist and most recently as the director of communications for a public policy think tank. Follow him on Twitter @schausmichael or on Substack @creativediscourse.