Shawn McIntosh is Leading a New Era of Success at Las Vegas Lights

“I say this all the time: that role of Chief Fan Officer really laid the groundwork for me as a CEO, overseeing the entirety of the business,” said McIntosh in an exclusive interview with Urban Pitch. “Every organization knows and understands that fans are the lifeblood of a club. Without fans, there is no football. Without fans, your football club can’t survive. Everybody understands that.

“That is why you have roles, and quite often the largest departments in a club are those that are focused on driving ticket sales and putting those fans in seats. But what often gets forgotten about in meetings is the extent that that fan experience encompasses, right? It’s not just the game in of itself, it’s everything from the moment you buy a ticket, to the way that you consume your marketing and social media, all the way through your experience at a game, and then beyond that. Everybody says they care about the fan experience, and I believe that they do. But departments can be very siloed as you’re so focused on achieving your departmental goals.”

As Chief Fan Officer, McIntosh worked across different departments to ensure that the fan experience was top of mind. Whether it was ticket pricing strategies, social media marketing, or even jersey designs, McIntosh brought the often overlooked fans’ perspective to the executive boardroom.

McIntosh enjoyed plenty of success with Charlotte, who consistently ranked amongst the top two teams in terms of MLS attendance and set a single-match attendance record of 74,479 in their opener in 2022. But pretty soon, he realized he needed a change of pace. On August 20, 2024, McIntosh was announced as the Chief Executive Officer of United Soccer League club Las Vegas Lights FC, reporting directly to team chairman and former MLB All-Star José Bautista.

“We’ve shown no hesitation about wanting to be competitive on the football pitch…that has been a change in the José Bautista era,” stated McIntosh to R.Org. “We want to be a competitive football club, and that is a priority. This city is a city that demands winners: you’ve got the Las Vegas Aces, who have won multiple championships, and the Vegas Golden Knights, who have won a Stanley Cup. It is an incredibly competitive market, and so we understand that we need to be competitive in terms of results.”

Having finished fourth and reached the Western Conference Finals in 2024, Las Vegas regressed to a 12th-place finish (24th overall) and missed out on the 2025 USL Championship Playoffs. With eight points through nine matches in 2026, it’s been another slow start for the Lights, who will look to turn things around in the remaining two-thirds of the season.

We sat down with McIntosh for a Q&A session, covering everything from his transition to the Lights’ CEO to his vast football kit collection.

Urban Pitch: What was your reaction when you found out that you’d be going from Charlotte’s Chief Fan Officer role to Las Vegas’ CEO? That must be quite a huge jump, how did you handle it?

Shawn McIntosh: To be honest, I was pretty confident. I think I’ve been doing this in some shape or form across a number of different roles, working with every department at a club, for over 15 years. I felt pretty confident, particularly because my role in Charlotte prepared me for this, where I reported directly to the president. It’s my responsibility to work collaboratively with all of the departments, and I got a real good insight and education into how some of the departments that maybe I hadn’t worked with as closely during my career operated.

I think that laid the foundation: we operated at such a high level. I got to work with really brilliant people in Charlotte, so it gave me confidence. I understood that people were the most important thing, so the first thing I did here was hire and build out a staff that was really talented and that could help support me. I felt really good about my role and how I was going to execute against it.

It’s clear that you’re not just a big sports guy, but you’re also a big fashion guy. What are your thoughts on USL’s non-single brand kit sponsorship compared to MLS’ adidas partnership? Do you think that’s made USL have more unique, dynamic kits than MLS?

I think that’s probably a little unfair to say. I think both work, having been on both sides. I’m completely biased here as I thought the kits that we were able to produce in Charlotte were incredibly unique with their thoughtful storytelling. Each year, we really focused on telling a story above everything, but of course, we wanted them to look great. adidas always allowed that to be driven by the clubs, and then you’re working collaboratively. Every brand is going to be a little bit different in how they work. Of course, there are certainly a lot of positives here in the USL in that we get to ensure that those brands are aligned with what’s important to us as a club versus the league making that decision.

But there’s been some tremendous kits. I’ve got a couple hundred kits in my personal collection, a ton of which are MLS shirts, so I think adidas has done a really nice job by leaning into cultural identity of each club versus just copying and pasting from a template.

And then certainly here at the USL level, we all have a ton of different brands. We’re excited here in Las Vegas — we had announced this season our partnership with Joma. We’re the only club in the United States that uses Joma, and so that gives an added layer of uniqueness, because the template that we’re able to work off of is going to be entirely different from anybody else. But overall, I think both work.

Do you have an all-time favorite jersey or sneaker? Is there anyone in particular item that you’re still searching for, that you’re still looking to add to your huge collection?

Aw, man, that’s such a good question. There are three kits that are all-time favorites, and for three very different reasons. The first kit I ever received was the 1994 Italy home shirt with Roberto Baggio on it. I was living in Italy at the time, and that magical run by Baggio to carry Italy to the finals only to be left standing after he missed his penalty was something that just left an imprint on me as a fan of the sport, of him, and the Italian national team. That shirt, aesthetically, I think is gorgeous, but because of its impact on me personally, it’s up there.

The first Lazio kit I ever got was a gift from my father. It was the 2000-01 Lazio home shirt, the year after they won the Scudetto, so the shirt came with the Scudetto patch, and the Coppa Italia ‘coccarda,’ and my dad hand-sewed those onto the shirt, and I still have that. That has a ton of meaning for me.

I’m biased, but I think if you see a lot of different rankings, La Maglia Bandiera is up there. It’s the Lazio shirt with the eagle spread across the chest, I believe it was 2014-15, if I’m not mistaken, but they reissued that shirt. It’s a shirt from the ’70s-80s, and it’s just a gorgeous shirt.

It’s probably the most rare shirt in my collection — the 1999-00 Champions League shirt that Lazio wore. It’s the striped Biancocelesti kit with Del Monte on the front. I have a match worn Dejan Stanković kit with the Champions League patch, as Lazio sent all of these kits with a faulty patch that was missing the infamous white Champions League ball, which is up there in my collection.

As far as holy grail kits that I’m chasing, there’s Paul Gascoigne, absolute legend…either one of his England shirts from his first run, or one of his Lazio kits from those first two seasons, would be two that I don’t have that I’d like to add to the collection.

Lastly, when your time with Las Vegas is up, what do you hope your legacy will be? What exactly do you want the Las Vegas fans to remember you for?

Man, it’s a good question, a legacy question. You always want to leave something better than when you started, and so, I think if I can leave the club, having now been viewed locally, nationally, globally, as a respected club that is focused on doing things the right way. I want to be known as a club that is very accessible, that is one of our pillars here in Las Vegas. We have maintained three pillars for us that are really, really important. First and foremost, being a club that is Vegas-first: we are a community club, and when I leave here, I want to be known as somebody that cared about the community.

Two, it’s accessible. We want to be the most accessible football club in the world. That goes down to how we price our tickets. In a world where football pricing and pricing in general continues to scale up, we know that it becomes increasingly more difficult for families and community to attend football matches. We want to make sure that we’re holding ourselves accountable, and that football is accessible here. And that’s not just the pricing, that’s in our staff, our players, they are accessible.

We make sure that when fans come to a match, that our players are sticking around and signing autographs and taking pictures, and our players are going out and doing hospital visits and doing community appearances. And then, our third pillar is one that I mentioned as a priority for this club, that we are competitive, and that we are a club that’s striving to succeed, both on and off the pitch.