Before Jansen Dell was steering the Reds’ creative design efforts, or spearheading the Cincinnati Open’s $260 million facilities makeover, his first job involved driving a Bobcat tractor for his father’s landscaping company, Dell’s Lawn Care.
The family business, based in Dell’s hometown of Wilmington, Ohio, had five employees: father Rex, mother Debbie and siblings Stephanie, Garrett and Jansen. It was hard work, as Jansen remembers.
“We joke all the time — we would get tired and [Rex] would say, ‘Machines don’t get tired!’” Dell recently reminisced. “That became the family mantra.”
It also laid the groundwork for a more than two-decade — and counting — sports business career defined by versatility, attention to detail and a complete-at-any-cost attitude.
Three questions with Jansen Dell
What advice would you give to young professionals in the sports industry about navigating career pivots? “Typically, as a member of a sports front office, you’re asked to wear a lot of hats. You’re asked to have a lot of different responsibilities that don’t normally fit into your straight-line job description. For me, it was about embracing all those different opportunities, because things that are seemingly unconnected, the longer you go creating all these unconnected experiences, they start to connect to each other in ways that you didn’t expect.”
As a Miami (Ohio) alum, what’s your favorite RedHawks sports memory? “My sophomore year, Miami football is hosting Akron. Akron had just kicked a field goal to go up 3 with nine seconds to go. It looks like the end of the game. And out marches Ben Roethlisberger, who ends up throwing a 70-yard Hail Mary pass that bounces off a defender and into the arms of Eddie Tillitz, who walks into the end zone to win the game. My now-wife and I jumped the fence and stormed the field with everybody else and celebrated with the team.”
What did you learn working for your father’s landscaping business that has translated to working in sports? “I was driving a tractor at 12 years old, mowing yards. The expectation was, you automatically got in and did what you had to do to make sure the job got done. From there, my dad, being a landscaper, I think I picked up on his design eye. The height differences of plants, the spacing of plants. When I would talk with our [Cincinnati Open] landscaping team, I spoke the same language.”
Starting as a graphic design intern in the mid-aughts, Dell rose to senior director of creative and brand strategy across 18 years with the Reds. He started out designing print collateral but grew to lead the concept and design of more than a dozen team projects, ranging from ballpark renovations to activations around the 2015 All-Star Game held at Great American Ball Park.
“He was learning the construction field, helping manage budgets, helping facilitate projects, sourcing furniture,” said Phil Castellini, Reds owner, president and chief executive officer. “When he left, I didn’t even bother trying to replace him, because I couldn’t have even written a job description of how many different things he was capable of doing.”
Explaining his ability to, as a creative director, also have his hands in areas like architecture and finance, Dell said the design process can be applied to any kind of problem solving: “You’re analyzing what the problem is, you’re researching it, you’re defining, you’re ideating from that — and ultimately coming up with a solution.”
The Western & Southern Open, as the Cincinnati Open was then branded, eventually enlisted Dell for help on a freelance basis, mostly around redesigning a handful of suites and the fan zone. But when the USTA sold the tournament’s sanction to billionaire businessman Ben Navarro in 2022, and it was evident a sizable facilities project was on the horizon — either in Cincinnati or in the event the tournament moved to Charlotte, as Navarro considered — Navarro’s family office, Beemok Capital, hired Dell as capital projects director for the event. (He was promoted to COO in early 2025.)
Katie Haas, then-CEO of the Western & Southern Open and now the Mets’ executive vice president and chief of ballpark operations, made the initial connection.
“We all had our job titles and specificity in terms of our roles. But we all still had a generalist mindset. That’s what attracted me to [Dell],” Haas said. “He could wear a hat of capital projects, or he could help us reimagine our brand and our marketing.”
Dell’s initial remit with the Cincinnati Open was dedicated to leading a campuswide upgrade of the Lindner Family Tennis Center (a nominee for Facility of the Year at SBJ’s 2026 Sports Business Awards). The $260 million project, completed between 2024 and 2025, required nine construction teams and resulted in a total transformation of the campus. Among the tenets were the construction of a 56,000-square-foot player center, 2,000-seat stadium, indoor tennis facility and 14 additional outdoor courts.
“He tackled an unbelievable project and managed it from start to finish and did an amazing job,” said Bob Moran, Beemok Sports & Entertainment president and Cincinnati Open tournament director, specifically lauding Dell’s management of hundreds of staff and the project’s budget. “From soup to nuts, we had many discussions going on, and my trust level just grew and grew and grew as we spent more time together.”
During the holidays, Dell also found time to put the finishing touches on a long-backburnered personal project: a more than 100-page book cataloging the Reds’ 150th anniversary brand campaign, for which he led design efforts, starting with a commemorative logo.
It shouldn’t be a surprise. Machines don’t get tired.
