SBJ Football: Texans already close to announcing new president

Multiple sources say Texans Chair and CEO Cal McNair, along with a search firm, have already conducted a search and tentatively identified a replacement for team President Greg Grissom, whose departure was announced via press release earlier today.

The hush-hush search and selection, which was conducted without Grissom’s knowledge, first came to SBJ’s attention more than a week ago, but I was unable to confirm the details prior to today’s announcement. The hiring is not fully complete, but industry sources have called it a high-profile selection from outside the organization, and expect an announcement to come as soon as Monday. 

McNair declined to comment beyond what he said in the statement: “We will provide updates regarding the team's next president in the coming days." Grissom also declined to elaborate on his prepared statement, which read in part: “Over the past four years, I am incredibly proud of what we accomplished for our fans and for our business.”

Grissom had been with the club since its 2002 founding, but took over the presidency at a tumultuous time in Houston -- one month after troubled team President Jamey Rootes resigned and nine days after the first of dozens of women accused then-franchise QB Deshaun Watson of sexual assault.

Grissom, who had been SVP/corporate development, had a four-year tenure that included two more losing seasons, but following the hire of DeMeco Ryans as head coach and drafting QB C.J. Stroud, attendance improved, with big gains in local TV viewership as the team won the last two AFC South titles, along with a major rebranding and uniform change. 

It’s a coincidence that three of the most famous Bengals of this century -- QB Joe Burrow, WR Ja'Marr Chase and former OT Andrew Whitworth -- all attended LSU, but those ties are a good jumping off point for the team’s first Super Bowl hospitality house in New Orleans next month. With some help from LSU, the Bengals will open the “Bengals Bayou House” to industry professionals and fans on Feb. 7-8 (Friday and Saturday) in the Big Easy.

It’s the latest step for a franchise trying to shed its traditional reputation and leverage its high-octane offense (led by Burrow) to become a top-tier commercial player. “We continue to strive to make the Bengals' brand a national and international focus, and this is a really big growth opportunity to bring everyone together to do that,” said Chief Partnership Officer Lacy Ekert.

Featured programming includes two VIP dinners from 7-9pm each night, Ekert said, with Friday night hosted by Louis XIII cognac and Saturday hosted by Sazerac, a team sponsor. In the early afternoon each day, the house will feature panel discussions moderated by Kay Adams, with Bengals Director of Strategy and Engagement Elizabeth Blackburn slated to participate. 

The Bengals have also enlisted Cincinnati chef Jeff Harris to handle food. Harris, a New Orleans native who runs the Nolia Kitchen in Cincinnati’s Over-the-Rhine neighborhood, will be cooking publicly in his hometown for the first time since he left after Hurricane Katrina. The two-home estate the Bengals are renting, which can hold a few hundred guests, will also include an espresso and beignet bar, live jazz music, and -- in a nod to LSU’s 2020 National Championship celebration -- a cigar room.

All told, 21 Bengals players over the years came from LSU, and all of them have been invited to appear at the house, though specific appearances are not yet being promoted. While brands and media outlets routinely create hospitality houses at the Super Bowl, it’s rare for a team to do it.

That’s the point, Ekert said. “We want people to think of us as a differentiated brand,” she said.

Anyone interested in attending the house should register here (and in case you were wondering, this is not an incursion into the Saints’ protected HMA, because the Bengals are not promoting or marketing the house commercially; private hospitality is fine).

The NFL’s media business development division has been stacking up deals with a common theme recently, striking off-the-field content relationships with several important social/digital production brands. Last week’s deal with Bleacher Report was the latest, following December’s deal with Betches Media, October’s deal with Remezcla Media Group and August’s renewal with Overtime.

TNT Sports’ B/R deal is something of an outlier because it includes valuable access to the game highlights, but all of them are aimed at specific demographics and are about mindshare as much viewership. All four brands get special access for their creators to talent and locations at “tentpole” events such as the Super Bowl, Pro Bowl and draft.

Of course, any journalist, influencer or producer is free to create content about the NFL without a commercial relationship -- SBJ Football is exhibit A -- but the NFL loves to monetize its capability to be a kingmaker. So the league looks for brands with outsized followings already in key groups (young women with Betches, or the Hispanic market with Remezcla) and gives them tools to make their NFL content especially valuable. 

“The idea is these platforms, they’re telling stories about the NFL already, let’s enhance that storytelling ability for them with access, the ability to tell differentiated stories,” said NFL VP/Media Strategy and Business Development Brent Lawton. “For us, Bleacher [Report] is a little bit different; it’s a bigger relationship. But for the others, it’s a targeted audience we’re trying to reach.”

These are not about driving live game viewership -- not directly, anyhow. It’s probably better appreciated in the context of Super Bowl week. Picture it: It’s two weeks from now, Thursday evening in Louisiana, and everyone with an Instagram account is trying to go viral from the Super Bowl. With official NFL cooperation, these brands will have a big leg up on the competition, and from the NFL’s perspective, hopefully create a few more fans. 

The Broncos didn’t match their 2015 Super Bowl championship this season, but their customer satisfaction scores from fans at Empower Field at Mile High did.

As rookie QB Bo Nix led the team to their first playoff appearance in nine years, the team posted scores in every category in the NFL’s Voice of the Fan survey that met or exceeded levels from the 2015 title run, team President Damani Leech said.

“I’m really proud of the work that our team has been able to do, not just this season, but really some of the investment we’ve made thanks to our ownership group over the last two years,” Leech said. “We put a $100 million investment into the stadium, and basically have been able to leverage the on-field success for our business success, and have seen that in a number of ways this year.”

The Broncos are fifth in the NFL in overall game-day experience satisfaction, Leech noted, and finished in the top quarter of the league in eight of the 10 categories.

Along with the nine figures spent on renovations under the Walton-Penner ownership group, the Broncos have hired their first CMO, Hailey Sullivan. Around the same time, they hired Jesse Nading, their first SVP/strategy and business intelligence. Those two have led a renewed focus on the stadium experience, working with concessionaire to Aramark to diversify and expand food options.

Also, Leech said, the Broncos tapped the Vikings for ideas on game presentation and crowd traditions (the Vikes are known around the league for being especially strong on that sort of thing). One recurring feature that benefitted from the Vikings' input was the Denver practice of the crowds shouting “incomplete” in unison after opponents’ failed pass attempts. The Broncos plussed up that tradition with lights and scoreboard graphics this year, a benefit of the new video board. 

Maybe the best business indicator of a good year? An NFL database indicates there was a 30% drop in the number of ticketholders at Empower Field who do not identify as Broncos fans, Leech said.

• Last week, I wrote the Bills’ new Highmark Stadium now costs $2.2 billion, $100 million higher than most previous reports on the overruns had indicated. My source for that figure was New York state, which used that number on their own website. However, Empire State Development Corp. now says their website was incorrect and has changed it to $2.1 billion. SBJ has edited the previous report to reflect the state’s adjustment.

• The Commanders and Ravens are battling for marketing rights in Maryland suburbs. 

• The four games during NFL Divisional weekend averaged 37.1 million viewers, down 7% from just over 40 million viewers last year, which was a Divisional round record for the NFL, reports SBJ's Austin Karp.

• New Orleans Super Bowl Host Committee Chair Marcus Brown tells SBJ's Terry Lefton that he feels this year’s host city is ahead of schedule with planning.

• SBJ this week rolled out our class of 2025 Champions: Pioneers & Innovators in Sports Business. Among those with ties to the NFL world are Ross Greenburg, who established "Hard Knocks" at HBO Sports, as well as longtime 49ers front office exec Carmen Policy and Frank Vuono, who headed consumer products at NFL Properties from 1985-1993.