Fyre Festival CEO Billy McFarland is a self-admitted “huge Islanders fan”, used to take clients to games
5 years ago
Like all of you, I enjoy messing around on the internet.
Last night, I came across THIS podcast from May 2016. Guest and former Fyre Festival CEO Billy McFarland talked his previous business experience with Magnises, the credit card company for millenials where you could get cool perks and event access and… everyone ended up pissed off and there were multiple, confusing lawsuits.
(For all the info you could ever want on Fyre Festival, the infamous failed luxury music event in spring 2017, two documentaries dropped in January. If you haven’t seen them: Netflix here, Fyre Fraud on Hulu here. You can also check out the Wikipedia here)
Around the 13:25 mark of the podcast, McFarland began talking about… the New York Islanders.
“They just advanced to the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs Sunday night. So, pumped for them.”
They, of course, advanced due to this goal scored by current Toronto Maple Leafs forward… John Tavares.
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Now, the podcast was posted likely a few weeks after recording, as McFarland said the team advanced “Sunday night” (April 24th, the night of Tavares’ goal) and the interview was posted May 7, when the Islanders were already down 3-1 to Tampa Bay in the second round, which they ended up losing in five games.
Regardless, McFarland had a longstanding partnership with the Islanders.
From this Forbes article on Magnises:
During New York Islanders games at the shiny Barclays Center, hundreds of seats in the front rows are not filled by rich businessmen in suits or dolled-up celebrities or even die-hard, season ticket holder hockey fans. They are occupied by millennials living well beyond their means and loving every minute of it.
Some McFarland quotes from this 2016 release on SportsPass, a Magnises subscription service:
The feedback we kept hearing was that members wanted access to a wider variety of sports and far more control over the experience. That resonated with me.I am a huge Islanders fan and season ticket holder.
Some company tweets:
Some membership pics from the games:
https://www.instagram.com/p/-4_AddC-c8/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet
And hey, there’s this little tidbit: once he got charged for, you know, wire fraud and all that other stuff, McFarland used… the same lawyer as former Islanders owner John Spano, who owned the Islanders for about one season before being kicked out of the NHL for fraud reasons.
Was there much point to this post? Not really. It’s just an intriguing tidbit that happens to have a very distant connection to the Leafs.
If you’re looking for another, more tangible connection, there’s this.
But I would be curious to see how Billy feels about the Leafs, and this year’s Islanders. As he’s currently… in jail, you wonder if he’s able to watch them at all.
Can we say for certain this is why John Tavares signed in Toronto for a seven-year deal? No. Can we say it’s not?
We’ll leave that one up for your judgment.
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