Houston-based consultancy Deutser is formalizing its growing work in sports by launching Deutser Sports, a dedicated division that goes inside franchises and athletic departments to rebuild culture, leadership systems and physical spaces, often in tandem with Excel Search and Advisory group.
The move follows years of assignments with teams like the Texans, Arizona Cardinals, University of Washington and SMU, where Deutser has been hired to reset or reimagine how organizations operate internally. The new division will package that work into a sports-specific practice led by Dr. Kara Allen, the former Chief People, Impact and Belonging Officer at Spurs Sports & Entertainment, and supported by an integrated team of social scientists, data specialists, management consultants and designers.
Deutser works as the embedded consulting, culture and design partner to Excel Search and Advisory, the executive search arm of Excel Sports Management. Excel handles identifying and placing leaders for teams and leagues, while Deutser comes in alongside those hires to diagnose organizational issues, rebuild culture and redesign facilities and leadership programs to support the new leadership’s vision over the long term.
As the company approaches its 25th anniversary and works across multiple industries, sports have become a bigger piece of the portfolio over time. The company’s strategy is, when organizations face internal cultural issues, to interview and survey people across the team, codify a clear culture and people strategy, redesign facilities to match that story, install leadership and learning programs, and track retention, engagement and performance over time.
Part of the rationale for a dedicated sports division comes from Deutser’s own research. In a white paper on MLB, the firm studied every team over several years to quantify the impact of what Deutser calls “high performing culture.” The work found that clubs with strong cultures gained the equivalent of 7.1 wins per season on average, and that three of the four teams in last season’s championships round fell into their high-culture group.
“That’s another kind of push to us to say people are beginning to recognize that there’s value that’s gained by what they already have, and that’s the human beings in their space,” said Brad Deutser, president and CEO of the firm.
Inside Deutser’s roughly 35-person firm, the team consists of Ph.D.-level social scientists, data experts, management consultants, graphic and environmental designers and an experiential group that focuses on spaces. Deutser estimated that “probably more than half” of those employees are now actively involved in sports work.
