Introducing G1 Sports & Entertainment, the guys bringing an NHL hockey game to Wichita – Wichita Business Journal – The Business Journals

Wichita has a new organization working to bring major sporting events to the city.
It starts with a preseason NHL game at Intrust Bank Arena in September, but the promoters behind the event say more is to come.
“I want to … create what I call a sports movement,” said Tien Huynh, founder of G1 Sports & Entertainment.
G1 Sports & Entertainment, a division of local investment firm G1 Group, announced Monday that the St. Louis Blues and Arizona Coyotes will play a preseason game at 7 p.m. Sept. 24 at the downtown arena. The “Frozen Face Off” will be the first time the NHL has made an appearance in Wichita. Tickets go on sale at 10 a.m. Friday at selectaseat.com.
Getting to this point, though, has been a culmination of the right players coming together at the right time.
Huynh and two friends, Chanh Nguyen and Jason Bayless, have the G1 Group, which has an investment portfolio made up of primarily automotive and real estate businesses, including Elite Auto Sales in Wichita, Z Auto in Andover and Kia dealerships in Dodge City and Manhattan.
“We’re called G1 because we’re all first-generation guys,” Huynh said. “We all grew up in, like, trailer parks and government housing and welfare and all that stuff, and so we’re all blessed and grateful for the situation that we’re in today.”
Huynh was one of the co-founders of the AfterShocks alumni team in its inaugural year in 2019 in The Basketball Tournament.
From there, Huynh said he wanted to continue to explore the world of sports events, which he says can help boost the city’s profile on the national stage and even retain its young residents — including his young children and future grandchildren.
“What can we do to help our our community and its quality of life?” he asked. “I have a 6-, 4- and a 2-year old, and we obviously don’t have mountains, we don’t have beaches, and Wichita has still always been that little city that could, that little engine that could.”
Meanwhile, Brian Hargrove had been working solo trying to pull together a deal with the NHL.
Hargrove is no stranger to sports promotion in Wichita. After graduating from Wichita State University with a degree in sports management, he spent six years working for USA Basketball in Colorado Springs before coming back to Wichita for a job at the Greater Wichita Area Sports Commission. From there, Hargrove spent about two years as general manager of the Wichita Sports Forum, and another two years as executive director of sports development at Visit Wichita until 2020.
“I went about 15 months unemployed when I started looking into… starting my own sports event promotion company, just with the contacts that I had made over the past 15, 20 years, and a lot of people I knew across the country in professional sports,” he said.
Hargrove said he was having conversations with the St. Louis Blues about doing a preseason game in Wichita in 2021, but realized he needed help.
“Once we got down to the nuts and bolts and I saw everything that went into putting on an event of that magnitude, as far as guarantees go and just all the expenses with the arena and the teams and the travel and so forth, that’s when I was like, ‘I don’t think I can do this on my own,’ at least not right now,” he said.
That’s where the two joined forces.
Hargrove was hired in October to serve as president of a new G1 division, called G1 Sports & Entertainment. Together, Huynh and Hargrove have ambitious goals for sports events in Wichita.
“Literally we have talked to every single major league that you can think of… to try to bring something, whether it be a team or an event here to the greater Wichita area,” Huynh said.
Wichita can be an easy sell. Hargrove says fans in Wichita have broken attendance records for TBT games at Koch Arena, and exceeded expectations during practice days during the NCAA men’s basketball tournament in 2018.
“Nobody turns out better across the country than they do here in Wichita,” Hargrove said. “People show up, and that’s what we’re very excited about moving G1 Sports & Entertainment forward and the type of events that we’re looking to go after. It’s going to be these special type of events that the public can get excited about, they want to be a part of, whether they are a hockey fan, a sports fan or not.”
Huynh’s ultimate goal? To bring a professional sports team to Wichita.
“I mean the major top tier, that’s the goal,” he said. “I’m 41 now and if I don’t accomplish that goal by the time I’m 60, then I would have failed. That’s what I’m working toward.”
Corporate business professionals in Wichita should pay attention, Huynh said.
“If they come on board and continue to sponsor these events, then we can continue to bring these types of events and next thing you know, we no longer have a workforce recruitment and retention issue. It solves itself because everyone’s chipping in,” he said. “The lifting isn’t heavy when everyone’s lifting.”
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