A billionaire businessman who brought Las Vegas its first ever Major League pro sports team and its first ever Stanley Cup, Bill Foley, owner of the Vegas Golden Knights, is our guest this week on Nevada Week In Person.

♪♪♪ Support for Nevada Week In Person is provided by Senator William H. Hernstadt.

-Welcome to Nevada Week In Person.

I'm Amber Renee Dixon.

A self-described military brat, he learned to play hockey in Canada and says the U.S. Military Academy at West Point changed him.

In the U.S. Air Force, he'd reach the rank of Captain and get an MBA from Seattle University and a law degree at the University of Washington.

Described as a serial deal maker by Forbes, he founded title insurance company Fidelity National Financial well before paying $500 million for an NHL expansion team.

He's also a vintner, a hotel and ranch owner, and philanthropist.

Bill Foley, owner of the Vegas Golden Knights, thank you for joining Nevada Week In Person.

(Bill Foley) Great to be here, Amber.

-I told you ahead of this, this is a challenge, because you've done so much.

How do I collect it all into one interview?

But you brought up being left-handed and dyslexic, why?

-It gives me a little different way to think, I believe.

I don't think in terms of horizontal and vertical.

I usually think in terms of, it's almost like a cube.

And so I'm planning an acquisition.

I kind of pull something up here, pull something down here, put them together, and I just think it gives me a little advantage in terms of negotiating.

-When did you realize that you were dyslexic?

-I actually didn't know until my son, youngest son, was being tested.

And he was having problems, reversing things, and I was in with the doctor, and the doctor said, Well, Patrick, do you think-- do you do this?

Do you do this?

Do you do this?

And I said, I do all those things.

I was never tested or anything, but I was in that doctor's office, and I said, Well, Doc, you mean that's-- if I do all those things, am I dyslexic?

And he said, Yeah, you are.

You're not severe.

I mean, I can still function.

But so it was just, it was by chance.

-You certainly got through school well enough.

All those degrees I just mentioned and the Military Academy at West Point, how did that change you?

-It really-- I was a single, an only child.

I wasn't spoiled, but I got everything I needed.

We were a middle-class family.

My dad was in the service, and I didn't want to go there.

I had some other aspirations, and the school I really wanted to go to was about 60% female, 40% male, and I had a football alternative there.

And I said, Well, Dad, I got this scholarship.

-What, you wanted to play football?

-Yeah.

I was playing football in high school.

-Okay.

-I said, Well, I got-- -What position?

-Defensive end.

-Got it.

Okay.

-We were little guys in those days.

I said, I got a scholarship, but I need help.

He said, What are you going to do?

I said, Well, I thought maybe you'd help me.

He said, No, you have to do it on your own.

He said, Would you go to a military academy?

I said, Well, I would never go to the Air Force Academy, because he's in the Air Force.

Punish him.

Don't punish myself, punish him.

I'll go to Army, because that's where the tough guys are.

And we go to Army, and they take everything away from you, and you get it back over the next four years.

So I learned to be in a different situation, doing things I didn't want to do for a long period of time.

But it taught me perseverance.

It taught me respect, taught me organization, taught me how to multitask.

So I learned a lot at West Point, and my classmates learned a lot.

We're all kind of the same.

-Granted, you had experience in going places you didn't want to go and doing things you didn't want to do, because you had traveled so much as a military brat.

I mean, you lived in Canada?

-Lived in Canada.

-And Venezuela?

-Lived in Canada, Venezuela.

We traveled throughout South America.

I learned how to speak Spanish back in those days, when I was in 7th, 8th, 9th, and I think 10th grade.

Had a great experience.

All I wanted was come back to the States, because I was in a foreign country.

I should have appreciated it more.

-Don't you think that some of what you learned there, though, has stuck with you?

I mean, the importance of travel, the value of travel, how has that impacted you?

-I think-- as I said, we weren't wealthy, and so we we didn't stay in, when we went somewhere, first-class hotels and five-star hotels.

I just, I think it helped me learn how to relate to people and understand that we're all the same and there's no need to have ego and there's no need to be arrogant.

So I try and be transparent and listen, and it's worked for me over the years.

-That low-ego characteristic, I have heard you say so many times.

And so you relate that to your childhood, then?

-I do.

-Okay.

-Yeah, I do.

-And it makes me think about your wineries, your hotels, your restaurants, and the first-class experience that you want people to have yet low ego.

How does that combine?

When did you have your first high-class experience that stood out to you?

-Boy, that's-- it wasn't that long ago, really.

-Okay.

-Yeah, probably-- I've spent a lot of time in Hawaii, and we bought a series of condos over on Maui.

And we kind of kept on upgrading, and that was, that was a different experience.

And that's some years ago.

That's in the mid '90s.

It was a while ago.

-So that was after you started Fidelity National Financial-- -Yeah.

- --the title insurance company?

Yet your bachelor's degree was in engineering.

-Yeah, I was an engineer, yep.

-So help me explain how you got into title insurance.

-I was always-- I was fascinated by business and by running a business and figuring things out.

I was pretty good as an engineer at Boeing, and I did a lot of work on a lot of different programs, short-range attack missile and [indistint] program, lots of different programs, but I was always drawn to business.

I don't know why.

Maybe it's just innate.

-At what point did you start working with Paris Hilton on commercials for Carl's Jr.?

-We acquired Carl's Jr. back in the mid '90s, and it was in trouble.

And there was a board involved, and they were trying to fire Carl, who owned 40% of the company.

But they were trying to fire him.

-Oh, "the" Carl of Carl's Jr.?

-The Carl, old Carl.

And one of his lawyers came to me and said, Why don't you help him out?

So I started buying some stock and got involved.

And eventually, I owned almost majority of the company, but I always took care of Carl.

And those people that were so small minded that were trying to get him off, get the founder off, we eventually got rid of all of them.

-And the idea to have Paris Hilton eating a hamburger on a car that she's washing, was that your idea?

-No, I have to give credit to the Mendelsohn/Zien, which was the ad agency.

And what they were doing is they were transforming Carl's Jr. from being a place where a middle-aged man went in to get a salad or a potato or a hamburger to the place where a kid goes when he's 13 to 17 years old, and his mom says, Let's go to McDonald's.

And he says, No, I want to go to my place.

I want to go to Carl's Jr. And it worked because we took the average unit volumes from about 900,000 to 1.4 million, and it's almost all profit.

-Wow!

Take me back to when you were a kid playing hockey in Canada.

How old were you?

-2nd, 3rd, and 4th grades.

-Okay, so you only played three years?

-About 3 1/2, and we left.

-What do you remember about it?

-I remember the first year when I was-- we skated on ponds.

And then we lived close to this canal where the Prime Minister lived.

And the first time I went out and I had my outfit and so on, and I was skating, but when you start out, you're really skating on your ankles if you're a kid.

And these guys looked at me and said, No, you're not ready.

Go learn how to skate.

So the first year, I didn't really play much hockey, not until the end of the season, because they wouldn't play with me, said I wasn't good enough.

-Okay.

-Then I kind of learned how to skate.

-Good for you.

That makes me think of the program that you have, the Learn to Skate program with the Golden Knights.

-Which is fantastic, isn't it?

-It really is.

-I mean, we are exposing so many people, so many kids, to hockey.

I'm very proud of it.

When we got here, only about 500 kids were playing hockey in the valley, and they had to travel somewhere.

They went to the Ice Center, just two sheets of ice.

Now just in our system, we have, I think, 7,500, which is an amazing achievement.

-Of all the philanthropy that you've done, what are you most proud of?

-I'm really most proud of trying to help veterans.

You know, we have a foundation that we formed called the Folded Flag Foundation.

And when, when an individual, man or woman, is killed in combat or has an accident in combat, then we kind of, we take care of them.

And if it's-- the typical person is a 22-year-old female with two kids, who was a high school sweetheart of a staff sergeant, who has passed away, got shot in Iraq or Afghanistan, and we give her stipends to survive, and then we put her kids into schools and give them scholarships.

And I believe we have about 800 scholarships out right now, and it's a small charity.

But the one thing we did do is that it's 100% funded by some of the companies I'm involved with.

So every dollar that goes to the Folded Flag goes to the Folded Flag, and it goes to the Gold Star families.

So we're very careful about that.

-That business acumen of yours, I mean, it's tremendous.

-You have to give back.

I give back to West Point, especially the veterans.

Now, did your business experience prepare you for owning this Golden Knights team and its inaugural season?

You have a tragedy like One October.

How did you go about responding to that?

What was going through your mind at the time?

-Well, it was a terrible tragedy.

And we just did a complete U-turn, because we had a big event planned and so on, and we just changed it.

At that point, that was our first year, so we had just, we were just finishing preseason.

No one knew about us yet.

We'd sold a lot of tickets, but no one really knew about the Golden Knights.

So we actually put the Knights out, and they went to hospitals, they went to police stations, fire stations, they met with the victims, they did everything.

And I remember I went with a group of them to Joe Lombardo's office.

And he, he was in there saying, What are you guys doing here?

And Carly or Engel said, You know, we're just here to help.

We're here to be part of-- here to help you and help everyone, help everyone get through this.

From then on, I think we became-- I know we became part of the community, and we accomplished our mission.

And we still are.

We're Vegas Born, we're here.

-What else are you most proud of accomplishing here in Vegas?

I mean, you have two other teams.

You have the Silver Knights as well.

You've got the indoor football team as well.

-They're all fun.

-Yeah?

-They're fun.

Probably Premier League Soccer is the most, is the other one that we got involved in about almost two years ago now.

-Bournemouth.

-Bournemouth, A.F.C.

Bournemouth.

-What a beautiful area, too.

-It does rain a lot.

-I am curious when your passion for wine-- when did you have your first glass of wine, and did it stick out to you then?

-I got interested in wine in the '80s.

And I particularly got interested in burgundies, white and red burgundies, which are really just Pinot Noirs and Chardonnays.

And I started going to France and going to Burgundy and staying there and going to domains, and just really walking up to a domain and saying, I'm just an American, can I taste wine?

A lot of times they'd slam the door in your face.

They don't let you taste anything.

And then other times they'll bring you in.

I've tasted some great wines.

And so I really understand Burgundy, and I love the wines.

And so our, one of our focuses is different types of Chardonnays and different types of Pinot Noirs.

-Your favorite wine is?

-White wine, Founder's Block Chardonnay made at Chalk Hill on our own clone, and we have about 12 acres of it.

It's really good.

-Got to stop you there.

We're out of time.

But Bill Foley, owner of the Vegas Golden Knights, thank you for joining Nevada Week In Person.

-My pleasure.

Thanks a lot.

Thanks for the time.

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