Good morning and Happy Mother’s Day. I hope it’s a wonderful, special day for all the moms. A few things to start your week …
- Early highlights from a conversation on how jobs in sports are changing
- Why people are talking about the vision of Hometown Soccer Holdings
- Key stories of the week and what they mean
- Breaking down the business lessons of “The Birth of ESPN”
- This Week’s Forum: Looking back at the start of the Sports Business Awards
SBJ hosted a roundtable discussion in New York City on Thursday afternoon, where a number of sports executives discussed “How Sports Jobs Are Evolving.” We had a mix of C-level execs, an athletic director and chief people officer from a league and there we some consistent themes: An openness to hiring talent, not just from sports but especially outside industries; a need for people who can understand working in a private equity environment and the demands of PE leadership, and there was a connection between performance and value, finding talent who can help drive the bottom line.
In terms of the impact of AI, finding talent who can adapt and pivot was seen as critical — being a master generalist who can dig in and figure things out was also stressed by the group. Finally, it’s too early if sports is in the job replacement stage because of AI; everyone is more focused on training staff to use it frequently and responsibly. Details from this conversation and more on “How Sports Jobs Are Evolving” will be featured in SBJ’s June 22 issue. Let me know if you have something to add to our coverage.
→ The story I heard the most about this week are the efforts of Hometown Soccer Holdings, which is backed by KKR and MLS, and looks to move MLS Next Pro teams to midsized markets in new 6,000- to 8,000-seat stadiums. It’s another bet on bringing sports to small to midsize cities where they are the biggest draw in town. If these intimate venues can be built and funded, the opportunities for multiple uses and various programming are very appealing, as well as the revenue streams that can come with it.
HSH CEO Tom Glick believes there are more than 100 U.S. markets that are large enough to support professional soccer but don’t have a team. Even if they don’t scale to 100, getting to 40 to 50 markets offers quite a network and canvas to build on — these would be consumers and audiences that brands, marketers and touring acts would want to reach.
We have plenty of large stadiums in the major cities, but there is real interest to building right-size facilities in these markets. This focus on middle America is similar to what Diamond Baseball Holdings, OnDeck Partners and Prospector are doing around minor league baseball, but that’s around established and built ballparks.
→ A deal this week that further indicates the high-profile and investor interest in sports was financial services firm William Blair acquiring sports investment bank Inner Circle Sports, which was founded nearly 25 years ago by Rob Tilliss and Steve Horowitz. Here’s what I take away from this deal: Just like you saw all the big law firms recently hire sports lawyers to establish that new capability at their practice, you will see more and more banks get into sports M&A. They all see the increasing valuations, significant investments and high-profile nature of sports teams and companies and they also want the knock-off effect of doing business with these wealthy sports investors who are surely going to buy many other companies. So the banks see a number of long-term business opportunities. For Inner Circle Sports, one of the last independent boutique M&A firms, it gives the 16-person company — which routinely punches above its weight — more resources and support.
→ Don’t sleep on the trends in new training facilities and team headquarters. A couple of recent examples to point out are what the Patriots did with their 160,000-square-foot New Balance Athletics Center, which has launched quietly, but those who have seen it have raved about the technology and amenities. A friend of mine bent my ear after visiting the RWJBarnabas Health Red Bulls Performance Center in Morristown, N.J., which opened just a few weeks ago. It is a nine-figure investment that sits on 80 acres and features eight full-size outdoor soccer pitches, among other elements. Last Thursday, in another major investment, U.S. Soccer opened the Arthur M. Blank U.S. Soccer National Training Center in Fayetteville, Ga., which sits on 123 acres just 20 miles south of Atlanta. You’ll want to check out this $250 million complex, which gives the federation a permanent training center and headquarters for the first time. Think about that — there is so much to this facility, including 17 outdoor playing surfaces, and it will be the organization’s corporate headquarters, with more than 350 staff members slated to move in on May 18. These facilities can’t be overlooked — they are significant infrastructure investments and are considered stand-alone elements critical for recruitment, player engagement, morale, training and therapy/recovery. Keep these investments on your radar.
You will also see these facilities considered in future Sports Facility of the Year categories for the Sports Business Awards. Someone expressed surprise the other day that that there were no “new” facilities among this year’s nominees. I argued it goes in waves, and next year, you could see one of the above facilities nominated as well as a whole crop of new builds, including Highmark Stadium, Inter Miami’s Nu Stadium, Northwestern’s Ryan Field, the renovated Belmont Park. Wow! You want to be a judge and determine a winner next year?
→ This week’s example of the unpredictable and peculiar storylines leading up to the World Cup was the notion that fans would get around the expense of taking the bus ($80) or train ($150) from New York City to MetLife Stadium by … walking the several miles, around ten, to the stadium. Yes, that was really getting some traction, largely from foreign visitors. NYNJ Host Committee CEO Alex Lasry had to come out and stress, “Do not walk. It is illegal to walk to the stadium, and it is not safe.” NJ Transit President Kris Kolluri had the best line, calling the notion of walking to MetLife Stadium “about as bad an idea as I’ve heard.” Not surprisingly, the focus is on pricing leading up to the World Cup.
→ I never met Ted Turner, and that was a great disappointment. What a legend, and in a meeting in New York City this week, a sports management professor shared with frustration that their students had no idea who Ted Turner was or his impact on sports or even the networks that bear his name. That’s not altogether surprising, as many under 30 are unaware of this titan of sports and media. How he revolutionized sports viewing and team broadcast territories is so relevant today. A few of my favorite takeaways on his legacy are here, here, and here.
→ I caught “Sports Heaven: The Birth of ESPN,” which tells the story of founder Bill Rasmussen’s efforts and travails of launching the network. The documentary is just over an hour and was shown on ESPN on Monday, April 6, the same night as the NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship, so it was understandable if you missed it. But it’s worth your time, and there are a number of exhilarating aspects of bringing a dream to life, but also emotional heartache for what generally happens to founders when egos and a larger company invests, in this case, Getty Oil. Here’s what I liked and other takeaways:
• The 93-year-old Rasmussen, battling Parkinson’s, while saying he’s trying to “perfect the ability to live” with the disease, adding “I have always had a positive attitude.”
• The youthful images of so many who built the networks, from Chris Berman to Bob Ley, a young George Bodenheimer, with the tag “Mailroom/President, ESPN (1981-82, 1998-2014).” Longtime PR exec Mike Soltys, a producer of the doc, looking like a teenager when he graduated from UConn in 1980, making a pitch for an internship and saying, “I will work for free, which was music to Rasmussen’s ears.”
• The dynamic between Bill Rasmussen and his son and business partner, Scott, in building the network, including the critical story of the father/son taking a day off, driving to the Jersey Shore to celebrate family, and promising not to talk business. Of course, they end up discussing business the whole way.
• When arguing about what to put on the network, Scott said, “I don’t care what you do with it; show football all day and see if I care.” He then added, “For the first time during the ride, my father didn’t yell back at me. He said, ‘That’s it. Sports all day, every day.’” The programming strategy was born.
• The tremendous respect for Bill Rasmussen was evident throughout, as he set the vision and inspired people to come along the journey. Jimmy Pitaro said that ESPN staffers today know they wouldn’t be where they are today without the efforts of Rasmussen.
• The hard realities when a startup brings on outside investors, and the pushing out of the founders, with Scott Rasmussen exiting quickly, “eaten up by the corporate culture.” As Bob Ley said when they pushed out Bill, “The chess board was getting crowded, something had to give, and what gave was check-mate, Bill and Scott.”
• Scott Rasmussen saying, ‘My father and I walked away with very low seven figures between us. … It was a big corporation taking advantage of a couple of guys who didn’t have good enough lawyers. It’s the way it goes.”
• ESPN shifted from a family run business to a corporate business. As longtime PR exec Rosa Gatti said, “When you lose a person like Bill, you lose a piece of your history and that’s what ESPN lost.”
• Gatti saying while she tried to bring Bill Rasmussen back to Bristol at times, she was always denied by management, but Bodenheimer shows his true class by inviting Rasmussen back to the fold during ESPN’s 25th anniversary. Bodenheimer; “It’s one thing to have a good idea. It’s quite another to make it happen.”
• Chris Berman’s legacy line: “Every sports fan should be thankful for Bill Rasmussen.”
• The biggest shock for me was the end tag, “After founding ESPN, Bill and Scott’s lives took different paths. They have been estranged ever since.”
Tenero Productions is looking for further distribution, but you can watch it on their platform, Tenero.TV. An audio book is out, and a print version comes out in late July.
→ Finally, a big hug and hat tip to my former colleague Tripp Mickle, who won a Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting this week. Born and raised in Charlotte, he went to Wake Forest, where my friend Justin Catanoso brought Tripp on as a semester-long intern at the Triad Business Journal during his senior year. Tripp graduated in 2003 and went out to Lake Tahoe to be the sports editor of a small paper and then went to Columbia’s master’s program for journalism. He was interning at Newsday when we hired him at SBJ in 2006, and he stayed with us for just over eight years, before going on to the Wall Street Journal in 2014. A tremendously talented reporter and writer and an even better person. We love seeing him continue to thrive.
→ The biggest night of the year in sports business, the Sports Business Awards, is May 20 in New York. Learn more and get your ticket here — it’s the best room to be in all year. Also, SBJ’s Tech Week is May 18-20 at the Times Center in New York. Register today and check out the agenda.
→ If you missed Morning Buzzcast, check out this week’s episodes here.
→ Remember to subscribe to our YouTube channel.
As we celebrate the 19th annual Sports Business Awards, this week’s Forum looks back at how it started and has changed over the years …
Forum: The story behind the Sports Business Awards
The idea to produce a sports business awards show was approved in a corner conference room in Sports Business Journal’s Charlotte office in 2007. My boss at the time, Publisher Richard Weiss, and I went through the pros and cons of an event, which had been internally discussed and externally suggested for years. We felt we had a unique purview across the industry landscape, witnessing extraordinary work and leadership in sports, and were, of course, a bit intrigued with the idea of creating the Oscars for sports business.
So, we left the room and mapped out a plan to execute an event a year later in New York around 11 categories, for which SBJ would seek submissions, select nominees and decide the final winner. The first event took place May 28, 2008, at the Mandarin Oriental off Columbus Circle in New York City. We had a reception overlooking Central Park on a picture-perfect spring evening, followed by the ceremony attended by about 450 guests sitting at round tables featuring buckets of wine, beer and very light hors d’oeuvres.
Introducing the first category, Sports Team of the Year, the video failed to run, leaving me to fill time alone onstage while a suspicious audience wondered if the event was going to flop. Legendary Anheuser-Busch executive Tony Ponturo then came onstage, opened an envelope and announced the Boston Red Sox, coming off their second World Series in four years and seen as baseball’s gold standard operation, as the winner. Larry Lucchino led a contingent, including John Henry and Sam Kennedy, onstage and said, “We had a saying after we won in 2004 that any group of schlemiels could win once, and we wanted to prove that the organization was strong enough, deep enough, resilient enough to come back and do it a second time.”
We were off and running, and the evening featured a tribute to longtime Anheuser-Busch and Coca-Cola marketer Chuck Fruit. Other winners that night included Fox Sports for Sports Media; Sportsmark for Experiential Marketing; Pepsi for Sponsor; Octagon for Agency of the Year; and AT&T Park for Facility of the Year. MLS won the first of its three League of the Year awards, clearly benefiting from David Beckham joining the league while adding three teams and opening two stadiums. “We’ve gone through so many, many challenges over the years,” said MLS Commissioner Don Garber. “This is a great statement about dedicated ownership, passionate fans, sponsors that believe in a sport and broadcasters that are willing to take a risk on this sport,” he said.
The final award that night, Sports Executive of the Year, went to AEG’s Tim Leiweke, who beat out such competition as David Stern, David Hill, Henry and Garber. I forgot what a strong group of executives we had going up against one another. Leiweke practically sprinted onstage, and keeping his remarks short so the audience could catch a Lakers playoff game, said, “We try not to get focused on awards. It’s a great tribute to AEG, but we firmly believe our best days are still ahead of us.”
There was widespread, fun betting at the tables, and the energy in the room was evident. It felt like we could build something special. It hasn’t always been easy or perfect; the awards matter, and the winners celebrate, but those whose names aren’t called are understandably upset, and many over the years have left the ballroom immediately and questioned the outcome they didn’t like. We get it; we work in a competitive industry. The final decisions haven’t always, perhaps, been the right ones over nearly two decades, but were made in a moment in time and always with the best intent and sound rationale.
Over the years, SBJ has made a number of changes to the awards. We were pushed for more voices, legitimacy and transparency in voting, so we added independent, outside judges who determine the winners in most categories. We added, subtracted and tweaked categories. We added a plated dinner after being called out onstage for not serving food, and we’ve added celebrity hosts, presenters and a red carpet, resulting in one of the best rooms of the year in sports business.
As SBJ hosts more than 1,200 at our 19th Sports Business Awards next week, and honors John Henry with a Lifetime Achievement Award 18 years after he was up for Sports Executive of the Year, we still feel as if we’ve created something special. With sports seen as one of the leading industries in the world, with more investment, interest and importance, it’s vital that we recognize the companies, teams, leagues and people who are creating that foundation that so many want to be a part of today.
I always encourage people to attend and be a part of that salute and appreciation. They will frequently say, “Why? We are not nominated.” I get that, but my response is to be part of an evening celebrating the industry that, collectively, is doing so much good in the world. We should all be so proud and honored to work in sports.
Abraham Madkour can be reached at amadkour@sportsbusinessjournal.com.