Dana Mariotti — Elevating the Las Vegas Desert Dogs & Growing Lacrosse in Henderson

In this episode of the Henderson Voice Podcast, host Kyle Duthie sits down with Dana Mariotti, Vice President of Marketing & Communications for the Las Vegas Desert Dogs, one of the fastest‑growing professional sports brands in Southern Nevada.

Dana shares how the Desert Dogs are building a powerful presence in a competitive sports market, the strategy behind fan engagement, and the team’s commitment to community connection. From grassroots outreach to game‑day experience, she breaks down what it takes to grow a sport, a brand, and a loyal fan base in a city known for world‑class entertainment.

This conversation also explores the Desert Dogs’ expanding footprint in Henderson, including emerging partnerships, youth development opportunities, and the shared vision of bringing lacrosse deeper into local schools, families, and neighborhoods.

If you care about sports, community building, or the future of Henderson’s athletic landscape, this is a conversation you won’t want to miss.

Thanks for tuning in to The Henderson Voice Podcast! Produced by Black Dragonfly Productions, we’re proud to spotlight the voices shaping Henderson’s future. If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share it with your community.

🎧 Follow us for more inspiring stories from Henderson’s leaders, creators, and changemakers. 

Let’s keep Henderson talking.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Hi everyone, welcome to another episode of the Henderson Voice Podcast. I'm your host, Kyle Doothie, and we are the uh Henderson Voice Podcast, and we are sponsored and presented by Discover Henderson, and we are powered by Desert King Windows. Today our guest is Dana Mariotti.

SPEAKER_01 0:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:24

And she's with the Desert Dogs. And I will let you get into your title, introduce yourself, and I mean we all know what the Desert Dogs is, but we'll let you kind of explain, uh explain to people who may not know or just kind of knowing about it the first time. Welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_01 0:38

Thank you. I am the Vice President of Marketing and Communications for the Las Vegas Desert Dogs. We are a professional lacrosse team. We play at Lee's Family Forum, and we're part of the National Lacrosse League, the NLL. We have 18 games, nine at home and nine away. Half of our teams are U.S. based, and half of our teams are in Canada. So we have a big um half and half Canada U.S. contingent. A lot of our players, almost 99%, actually are from Canada.

SPEAKER_00 1:11

So there's not much of a transition between lacrosse and hockey. It's a lot of Canadians.

SPEAKER_01 1:17

Yeah, well, so in Canada, a lot of uh hockey players in the summertime, they play lacrosse. There's very much almost all of our players have played hockey. They played, you know, growing up, and but lacrosse became their number one sport. But they're like two sport athletes. And that's what we're hoping to do here in Las Vegas, actually growing the sport of lacrosse, getting more kids that make play hockey, also to play lacrosse.

SPEAKER_00 1:42

Yeah, it's it's definitely something that is growing. It's not something that, you know, I'm from Arizona. We didn't have any of that. You know, we got the coyotes when I was, you know, a teenager. And so it wasn't really anything we did growing up, and then, but I know my nephew, he plays up in Utah. Utah is is big on lacrosse and it's kind of expanding. I can see that um just in my little bubble of my family and stuff. And so um with it being a growing sport and maybe not getting all the attention that it deserves, because there's a lot of competition for sports now in Vegas, which is, you know, 10 years ago there wasn't. And so how are you attracting or finding new people? Is it is it tournaments, is it, is it training? Is it how are we getting activation in lacrosse here in Vegas?

SPEAKER_01 2:25

Absolutely. So we've worked really hard to get more kids to pick up sticks and learn the game and see how much fun it is. So we do free clinics and we also do paid camps and clinics. We actually have one coming up in the spring. Uh it's our spring break clinic, and then we'll do a series of camps over the summer. It's called Camp 99, after our owner, Wayne Gretzky, who's part owner, he was a lacrosse player. Um, and we'll do several weeks of camps at all levels, beginner, intermediate, advance. So we can get new kids and kids that are already playing to learn from the pros. So it's actually our players teaching these camps, which is a little different than you know, other camps that you might see in other sports, not always the professional athletes teaching the kids. But in Desert Dogs, we have a certain amount of players that live and market in Las Vegas, and they are the ones teaching the kids the camp. So I mean you can learn from the pros.

SPEAKER_00 3:23

That's awesome. Yeah. What what is the is there a nightly, like a what's the season one, first of all? And then within that season, is it every Friday there's a game, either at home or away? Is it Thursdays? Like, what's that schedule look like?

SPEAKER_01 3:37

So our season it starts in December. It goes through April with playoffs in early May. And most of our games are on either Friday or Saturday night at Lee's Family Forum. And so we have nine home games, so they're about every two weeks. So you can pretty much find a desert dog game here in town every two weeks. So it's really exciting.

SPEAKER_00 4:00

And it's tickets at LeesForum.com and all that kind of stuff. Yeah, Desert Dogs.com. Where are we doing?

SPEAKER_01 4:04

Las Vegas Desert Dogs.com. You can get the tickets. Um it's really, really fun. So our games are a lot different, I would say, than Silver Knights, VGK. Those are great teams and they're fun. But our games, we play music the whole time. We have a live DJ. Um, so that's a little different in our sport. In other sports, they kind of turn down the music and then turn it up again, you know, on quarter breaks. But our DJ is pumping the jams the whole time. Um, along with, you know, we have an announcer and MCs.

SPEAKER_00 4:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:35

Um we have the Vixens, which is our amazing dance team that performs throughout on the breaks. And then we have everything from $5 beers and seltzers to a tailgate party that, you know, as soon as you get out of your car, go to the front door, you can come to the tailgate, get two dollar beers and seltzers. We have live DJ. If there's other games on, we'll get a big screen out there out front. We have a kid zone for kids with inflatables and all kinds of fun stuff.

SPEAKER_00 5:07

That's so much fun. It's very similar. I love Lee's Family Forum, and I love going, I I've been to plenty of uh the Nighthawks games. Very similar. It's so much fun. Like there's just music playing, and and so I imagine that's kind of you guys are doing kind of the same thing there, which is which is great. And then this kind of leads me to how did you get into this? Like you're not you don't strike me as a lacrosse girl. Was it the marketing aspect or was it an opportunity? Where are you from? Are you from here? What brought you here, and then what led you to be with the desert dogs currently?

SPEAKER_01 5:38

Right. So I was an athlete growing up in sports for my life. I was I was a soccer player actually, uh, and along with a bunch of other sports. And so I always wanted to work in sports. So my career has always been in sports. Uh formerly worked with the National Hot Rod Association, NHRA.

SPEAKER_00 5:56

Oh, no way, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:57

So I traveled all around for many, many years with them, and then I transitioned as head of marketing for the Tiger Woods Foundation. So I was in PGA golf. We put on a big golf tournament called the Genesis Invitational in uh Los Angeles. And then I really wanted to work in team sports. So the opportunity came to me to really help build their brand in Las Vegas. They'd only been here, it was an expansion team, Las Vegas Desert Dogs, uh, with our owners, Dwayne Gretzky, Josai, uh Dustin Johnson, Steve Nash. And they were here for one year and they really needed to resurrect the brand to make it more of a Las Vegas um brand and not so much the glitzy strip um brand that they thought it was gonna be. So the first two years they were at McClobe Ultra on the strip, but we learned um very fast that our fans were the residents of Henderson and Las Vegas, that those are the real fans of the Desert Dogs. And so we wanted to be in an arena amongst the fans, and that's why we moved to Lee's Family Forum two years ago, and it's been awesome to be in Henderson, and we've really seen you know the Henderson residents show up and really support the Desert Dogs.

SPEAKER_00 7:16

I love hearing that. You know, I I love Henderson, and and one of the things about Henderson, and I think you know, the people in Clark County in general is the fact that you know, I I would say a large majority of people are from somewhere. Like there's you know, and we're seeing a growing trend of people that are born and raised here and stay here, but um when you get a team that comes from somewhere else, it's kind of hard to you probably maybe hated them before. I mean, I know lots of people love the Raiders, lots of people hate the Raiders, but the opportunity is great where you you have a team that's our own. I think that was part of the huge success for the Golden Knights, is they didn't belong to anybody and it, you know, they're born here and raised here, and so everybody kind of attaches to it. I think you guys did a great thing, and especially when we went out to Henderson, it gives the people of Henderson something to be really proud of, and right and we can call it our own, you know. So that's it's it it's really neat. It's really neat. And where are you from?

SPEAKER_01 8:10

I'm originally from New York, but I um I grew up in uh Orange County, California.

SPEAKER_00 8:16

Okay, so you're kind of used to the to the west coast, you know, yeah attitude. Yeah, it's it's that cold weather. I that's why I live here. I moved I'm from Arizona, went from hot to a little less hot, and I'm I'm happy. So I love it here. Do you live in Henderson or are you in Vegas?

SPEAKER_01 8:34

Uh I'm in Vegas. Um do not live in Henderson, but I love it. What I love about Henderson, it reminds me a lot, a little bit of California, where the the older trees and like the the streets and the sidewalks. I'm a runner, so every time I'm out here, I'm always like wanting to go for a walk or or run because it's so beautiful out here.

SPEAKER_00 8:53

Yeah, are you working every day at Lee's Family Forum? Where's your headquarters at?

SPEAKER_01 8:57

Our headquarters is actually off Lake Mead in the 95 in a different area.

SPEAKER_00 9:02

Oh wow, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:03

But you know, we're at Lee's Family Forum a lot, you know, going back and forth on different things.

SPEAKER_00 9:09

Is that a practice facility for the team as well, or where do they practice at?

SPEAKER_01 9:13

No, so uh we actually don't practice that much. I wish we could practice more. We practice uh the night before the game. And so most of the time we're able to practice on the turf at Lee's on Pentafield, um, at Lee's Family Forum. But if they're having an event, uh then we get booted out of there and we have to look for a practice facility outside. So we we actually want to, you know, in the future build our own practice of facility and offices so that we really cement ourselves and we're able to do not only our practices there, but also camps and clinics and other things for kids.

SPEAKER_00 9:51

So you could call your own.

SPEAKER_01 9:53

So we're looking to do that and hopefully, you know, even partner with the city of Henderson in some way.

SPEAKER_00 9:58

And I was about to say Henderson would be a great place to do that.

SPEAKER_01 10:01

Yeah, so we are we are looking and we're hoping to do that in the next few years for sure.

SPEAKER_00 10:06

That's awesome. With so you kind of mentioned that the practice doesn't happen a lot. Are s you know, with lacrosse growing as a sport, what are the players are they full-time or these guys that are working and then playing when when they can, or how is that?

SPEAKER_01 10:19

Yeah, some of the guys are full-time. Um, they actually do extra work for us. They're they're on like what they call player contracts. Um, but most of the guys also have a secondary job. Um and some of the guys actually play, they'll play the NLL in the wintertime and and the PLL in the summertime. So some of those guys are like playing lacrosse all year long. PLL is the Premier League lacrosse, which is outdoor.

SPEAKER_00 10:45

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 10:45

Um we're the indoor version. And so it's just a mix of, you know, it depends on the on the individual.

SPEAKER_00 10:53

And are these games like televised on local working people? Are they streamed? Where can people watch if they're not able to come down and get a ticket if they're still working or doing something else? Where do they where do they stream this from?

SPEAKER_01 11:04

Absolutely. We have a really, really great um partnership with Fox Five. So all of our games are either on Fox Five or Triple S E N. And then they're also streamed on ESPN Plus and YouTube TV. So all our games are, if you have ESPN Plus, you can watch there, or if you have Fox Five or Triple S E N or YouTube TV.

SPEAKER_00 11:24

That's awesome. And do you work with with private businesses and and and kind of in partnership? Are you guys always looking for sponsorship or or different ways to kind of get the name out, get grow the sport? I know that Discover Henderson doing a lot of big things, and I know that that's what brought us here today. And so, how are ways like Discover Henderson and other businesses able to get involved and get connected and and kind of you know get their name out there, but also help grow the sport and grow the name for the desert dogs too?

SPEAKER_01 11:52

Absolutely. We're always looking to partner with local businesses. Um, we have all kinds of levels of partnerships. Some are, you know, purely from a sports standpoint. That's part of how we make our revenue is through sponsorships, but we like to build partnerships that align with, you know, the local business that makes them grow along with us. So at the same time, we're helping them grow and they help us grow. So we're looking at all kinds of partnerships, whether it's marketing and something that we trade, you know, through marketing and helping each other promote each other, or at another level, you coming in as a bigger partner and really wanting to get involved with desert dogs on a much bigger level, you know, with partnering, you know, sponsoring a whole game. You know, we have partners that like Penta, I mentioned, is one of our big ones. They like sponsor the turf and it's like Penta Turf, you know, Pentafield. Um, and so, and then we have other partnerships that are more community-based, like Cure for the Kids is a great um partnership that we'll we have um with them, which um one of our missions is to help kids uh going through cancer and oncology research. So we have a really special program where it we bring in uh a special kid or our honorary captain each game, and they get to come to practice and they get to be a part of the part of the team for the weekend and we honor them at the game. So that's all really key.

SPEAKER_00 13:19

Those special things when you can give back to the community, those are things that that get remembered, make it unique experiences. And I think when you're able to do stuff like that, like you know, those those kids will forever be fans, they'll watch every game, and then the family starts to do that. What's what's like the current uh turnout, the occupancy at some of the games?

SPEAKER_01 13:37

We have a really, really good fan base. Our season ticket members are so passionate and so loud. Um, you know, we're we had one sellout game this year. It was our Gretzky night game, which we give away 4,000 Gretzky jerseys. Oh, wow. Um, which is we've been doing that, you know, four years in a row. Um that was a big game for us. Another annual game for us is our Rock the Box Night. This year, we where we have a live band play on like the end zone. And so we brought back uh Minikiss, which is the mini form of Kiss. And they were awesome and so much fun. And so we're trying to build that equity um with our theme nights and our special promotions, that it becomes like you know, something that we do every year and people look forward to. So we also do a heroes night where we honor, you know, everything from the first responders to military, and we have a a dodgeball game at halftime where they all get to throw balls at each other, Metro. So we work with Henderson Fire and you know, Metro and military and firefighter versus cop events are always so much fun.

SPEAKER_00 14:45

Yeah, they get all dressed up and like they say it's friendly, and I know it doesn't always end up that way, but it's great to watch. So it from an entertainment standpoint, that's that's awesome.

SPEAKER_01 14:55

And we want to support, you know, obviously the local heroes of our community.

SPEAKER_00 14:59

So what are some of the uh you mentioned Penta, but what are some of the other current like sponsors and partnerships that you have?

SPEAKER_01 15:06

Um some of our other sponsors we have uh Sunshine Minting, uh Rady Children's Hospital, um Rio. Rio Hotel is a big one for us. Uh it's our hotel sponsor, so a lot of the our players will stay there, and we use the hotel for uh watch parties, and and our after party is always at the Rio at the Voodoo Lounge. Um, so that's one of our big ones. And other sponsors, we have CCCU and CCCSD, um, which is a really great partnership because we do a program called Sticks for Success. And what that is, is our players go into middle and elementary schools and they teach lacrosse uh to the PE classes all day long, and we donate equipment to that school. So this year we went to 15 schools, or we're going to 15 schools, and uh hopefully we'll expand that every year.

SPEAKER_00 16:04

Yeah, that's amazing.

SPEAKER_01 16:05

Getting, you know, more schools to have lacrosse equipment, learn how to teach lacrosse to their kids and really grow the sport.

SPEAKER_00 16:12

And how like on a smaller scale, like if it's a school that's starting a program or uh, you know, I know you're trying to to grow the sport, like you just mentioned about the schools, is what do they base that off of? Is it the same length as like a soccer field? Is it what are the dimensions of the don't have to be specific, but uh like is it something that can easily be started?

SPEAKER_01 16:30

I mean it is Yeah, so it's similar to a soccer field. Yeah, and the goals are just smaller, they're like smaller goals. Um, so part of I think you know, soccer is such a big part of Las Vegas, and a lot of the fields get taken up by by soccer, you know. And so our goal is to hopefully get more time on some of those fields so that we can have more leagues and like pick up leagues in adult leagues, kids' leagues for lacrosse. But yeah, they just similar to soccer fields. You can easily play on the outdoor, but in the summertime we like to have more indoor facilities where kids can play indoor.

SPEAKER_00 17:10

Where nobody's passing on the turf. Yeah. It's a little that's that's the tough part about living here, yeah. Yeah. It's like nine months of great weather, and then we're just hot for about 120 days, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:22

And I feel bad for the kids too, to be inside, you know, and not be able to play their sports in the summer.

SPEAKER_00 17:28

That's and how long have you been out here?

SPEAKER_01 17:31

Uh almost three years now.

SPEAKER_00 17:33

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 17:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:34

And you were what were you doing when you were in California?

SPEAKER_01 17:38

So I was at that's when I was at the Tiger Woods Foundation in Orange County. Um and I I worked a lot with them. They have a a big youth center in uh Orange County where they do after school programming. And all the money that uh Tiger raises through his events, which is the PGA tour events he runs and other fundraising, goes to their afterschool programming.

SPEAKER_00 17:59

With it being like Tiger, and you mentioned Wayne Gretzky and Steve Nash and some of those other people, are they all in collaboration with each other and athletes kind of really getting involved in the teams and the communities? Is this is this something that is sort of picking up? Are they are these guys all talking to each other and and kind of working together? Is it not really that I just imagine they're all just texting? I mean, they don't all know each other. Well, you're supposed to introduce them, that's the way you're supposed to make that happen.

SPEAKER_01 18:27

Right. I mean, it's it's interesting. Uh, I think that, you know, it's funny, like, I think Tiger really started his his legacy, his foundation has been around for 25 years and he's really built something really special. Yes, now he's on his fourth location. He built uh in Augusta in Philly now, they're building something in LA. So his model, a lot of other athletes look up to Tiger and what he's done on the philanthropic side. Um and then you're seeing now, I don't know if you saw, but Shaq is involved with uh I think it's the YMCA and is building something. Yeah, something similar. Um so I think they all s you know see what each other are doing and you know get ideas from each other. Um but it's great to see that, you know, the celebrities that do support their community at the local level, it it really helps. So I you know, I like to see that.

SPEAKER_00 19:25

Specific to the desert dogs, how involved are the owners? Like is it weighed in on the calls? Are they are they pretty involved in all of it?

SPEAKER_01 19:33

Or I would say uh uh Josy, he's our he is very passionate about lacrosse. He played lacrosse growing up. It it really helped him, you know, become who he is today and like learn English because he came uh to America when he was I think it was in high school. And this is his passion. So he's very involved. He wants to see lacrosse grow, not only in Las Vegas, but across the United States. So he's very much involved in USA Lacrosse and World Lacrosse, and he helped get it into the Olympics. Um it's gonna be in LA 28, which is amazing for the sport at lacrosse. And so he's very involved. Um, Wayne, you know, he's we we lean on him here and there to help us promote things, and um, he loves the sport, he played lacrosse.

SPEAKER_00 20:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:26

So he's much involved as well.

SPEAKER_00 20:29

That's awesome. So a big topic for us, you know, out here in Henderson is the the the West Henderson field house. We recently on a on a podcast with uh Kemper Sports, he's putting on the field house out there, and so one of the big topics that we were speaking about was tournaments, and it's gonna be a great place for tournaments, and so um, you know, we'll have to keep that in mind, keep you connected because you know, lacrosse tournaments would be a great place to uh host some of like the uh the camps and things like that. I think that'd be really great. Um tons of space. I think they're projected open sometime this year. You know, they're kind of it's a it's uh I don't want to say a rushed project, but they have an aggressive timeline and and we'll have to get you connected there because if we can keep some things in Henderson, especially close to the to where you guys play, that's that's the best, you know, the best thing for all, especially with the residents being so uh attracted to. We have so many people that live here and and you know we we had uh with the the trending in sports is you know kids are getting dedicated much younger, and so if we can get them started when they're young, we'll you know could change the whole future of the sport, which be a really good thing.

SPEAKER_01 21:37

Absolutely. We actually we recently last year um went to BAT, you know, uh to get lacrosse sanctioned at the high school level and did everything we went up to Sacramento or uh Sacramento, uh to Reno on several occasions to plead our case and we were able to get it sanctioned and so next year it should be sanctioned in the high school level, which means that um the kids that play at high school can also because right now there's stipulations with the club sport. They can't necessarily play against other states and go out of state. So there's a lot of like but once you become sanctioned uh a lot of those things go away and you can have more tournaments in your state and bring in California teams and Utah teams uh to come. So recently lacrosse has been growing because in California, Utah it just got sanctioned within the last five to eight years. And so I I think Las Vegas could be Henderson could be a great spot to be a hub for lacrosse and hold definitely hold more to be a little bit more than that.

SPEAKER_00 22:47

Yeah my my nephew he's playing up in Utah for the high school team and so what was the hurdle here? I mean is it is it a fear of kids getting injured because it looks scary when in reality it's it's not. You know I think there's other sports that are a lot more damage prone.

SPEAKER_01 23:03

It's really hard there's a lot of you know politics involved and it's hard to get new sports to be passed because of budget reasons because of you know they have to be increased travel time and increased overtime and things like that. So and then there's girls and boys that play lacrosse so it's you know it's not just adding another boys team it's a girls team too and field space they're worried about that like there's not enough because they have to do a certain amount of games and when are they going to play them? Uh right now they do play in the spring they play like club uh and you have to have a championship a state championship so you know it's also the northern Nevada or you know division arena versus yeah southern Nevada.

SPEAKER_00 23:49

Well that's exciting I mean that that's you know you're on the the I guess you would call the the starting point for bringing a high school sport to Nevada. That's like a really it's exciting yeah cool thing on your resume forever you know that's really exciting you know 10 years from now you can watch the championships and all this kind of stuff it's it's something that you were involved in. So I I'm really excited about it. We definitely want to I gotta come out and you already promised me maybe a bobblehead or a shirt or something. So I'm looking forward to it. I got the whole we'll come out I'll bring the kids I got I got the boys are how old are they? Um 13 and 12.

SPEAKER_01 24:24

Oh my gosh perfect perfect for desert dogs.

SPEAKER_00 24:27

Yep I'll bring them out and then uh even my little girl she's six but she's she's tougher than the boys.

SPEAKER_01 24:34

She likes yeah a lot of yelling and a lot of like there's a lot of goals so we have a 30 second shot clock so it goes back and forth and back and forth and and so there's action like all game long and they love it. I they whack each other with the sticks.

SPEAKER_00 24:49

I'm super excited about it especially like the the very entertaining because it's tough when you're at like some games and if it's not done for entertainment pers purposes like things you know can slow down the kids kind of get bored but they won't get bored. Yeah definitely not yeah I'm really looking forward to it I'm it's been a pleasure having you to here today and then um where can people website where can people follow the team maybe get a hold of you if they want to especially the businesses or people trying to maybe do some partnerships or some sponsorship and we'll get it all listed underneath the videos and all that so people can reach out but if you want to put it out on air we can.

SPEAKER_01 25:25

Yeah so you can always go to our website for all information desert dogs lasvegas desert dogs dot com our social media platforms are Vegas Desert Dogs and Instagram all the things and you can always reach me on LinkedIn I'm always on LinkedIn Dana Mariotti just message me on LinkedIn I'll message you back.

SPEAKER_00 25:46

Good that's your preferred method is LinkedIn perfect well thank you again uh Go Desert Dogs can't wait to get a nice shirt I think medium or large might work or something but yeah thanks again for being here and we have a cool march I I've seen some of it so I am expecting something good but I wanted to thank you again for being here and and this is the Henderson Voice Podcast and again we are brought to you by Discover Henderson and we are powered by Desert King Windows make sure to click and follow and keep updated on all things Henderson and and we'll I'll grow as a city love it. See you later. Thank you Dana thank you