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FEBRUARY 24-MARCH 1, 2020 VOLUME 22 ISSUE 44 $7.95

In The Pink

After six years of starts and stops for owners Jorge Mas and David Beckham, Inter Miami CF is ready for action.

PAGE 22 Study: NBA jersey patch sponsors see strong recognition.

Lightning owner Jeff Vinik reimagines Tampa sports group.

Champions 2020: Jon Spoelstra was a marketing innovator.

In-Depth: MLS at 25.

Execs on how it began and where it’s going.

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SPORTS BUSINESS JOURNAL

STATE OF PLAY MARK YOUR CALENDAR

APRIL COMING . . .

The Philadelphia Barrage is returning to Major League Lacrosse after a 12-year absence, rejoining the six-team league for the 2020 season.

THE METER

Walk Of Life

The USOPC kicks off a five-city festival tour in Times Square to mark 100 days from the start of the Summer Olympics in Tokyo.

Softball legend JENNIE FINCH is among roughly 75 athletes expected to take part.

“

. . . GOING

Two days after suffering a fiery collision while leading the final lap of the Daytona 500 that had many fearing for his long-term health, NASCAR driver Ryan Newman walked out of Halifax Medical Center in Florida holding hands with his two daughters. The photo shared by Roush Fenway Racing quickly went viral, with more than 100,000 likes and almost 19,000 retweets in the first 24 hours.

Roger Federer announced that he will miss five events around the world, including the French Open, after having arthroscopic knee surgery, a blow for event organizers and for the sport as a whole.

MONEY TALKS

You know me.

I get too pissed off to be on Instagram.

— Angels owner ARTE MORENO joking about why he doesn’t have a social media account

Getty Images (4); @Fusion Twitter; @roushfenway Twitter

RATINGS GAME

TAKING ATTENDANCE

Viewerrs on ABC for lasst year’s y afternoon Saturday e of the NFL coverage combine, the first time the event had landed a broadcast his year’s slot. Th edition began on y and runs Sunday h March 2. through

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Estimated crowd for the first home game for the Philadelphia Fusion of The Overwatch League, which took place at The Met on Feb. 13.

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FORUM How MLS can silence critics and drive growth

A

ABRAHAM MADKOUR PUBLISHER AND EXECUTIVE EDITOR

THIS WEEK LEAGUES 8 ALL-STAR BREAK How the NBA is navigating a possible in-season tournament and licensed Kobe Bryant memorial merchandise.

By Terry Lefton and John Lombardo

MOTORSPORTS 10 DAYTONA REPORT NASCAR is considering one-year sanctioning agreements for some racetracks.

By Adam Stern

RESEARCH 12 STAYING POWER Miami’s hotel business hit record numbers during the Super Bowl week.

By David Broughton

MEDIA 14 PRIME VIEW Amazon doesn’t take “a one-size-fits all” approach when it comes to sports, executive Marie Donoghue says.

By John Ourand

OPINION 48 WHO NEEDS A HUG? A “communicaring” approach can build new connections between teams and customers.

By Bill Sutton

OPINION . . . . . . . . . 48 FACES & PLACES . . 49

BOUT A decade ago, a top team executive from a rival league left me a voicemail that criticized our extensive coverage of Major League Soccer. He asked facetiously whether Commissioner Don Garber had some incriminating information on me or Sports Business Journal that compromised us and resulted in positive coverage of the league. He railed that we reported on every nuance and overplayed MLS’s importance compared to the more established leagues — including the one for which he worked.

We talked it out, but that wasn’t the last time readers questioned our treatment of the league, which starts its 25th season on Feb. 29.

Two years ago at our Sports Business Awards, MLS won League of the Year. Last year, Garber won Executive of the Year. I certainly received “feedback” on those honors. While many admire the consistent growth of MLS, there are vocal critics. I’m told often that the league’s business model doesn’t pencil out. Critics say that expansion fees of more than $300 million can’t be supported financially, especially with the league’s media and sponsorship revenue.

I’m asked about the MLS television viewership numbers compared to other sports. All fair points and worthy of a healthy debate.

But let’s not kid ourselves — investors in MLS are playing a long game, as they should.

They see a rapidly shifting American demographic; a global sport that appeals to an ethnically diverse population; a game that is easily understood and fits into succinct viewing windows. Investors like the growth attributes and see them in their favor. There is a healthy soccer economy, and agencies and companies are looking to draft off it. There are challenges, and in talking to people close to MLS, here are areas that must be addressed to drive the league forward and thrive over the next 25 years.

 FIX THE BIG MARKETS: Each team must continue to drive revenue in a more aggressive way, as with nationally shared revenue still growing, teams must over-index on local media and sponsorship revenue. While many focus on the new markets, I’m curious to see the efforts to enhance the legacy franchises.

Boston and Chicago should be among the league’s top five markets, and they aren’t.

The Fire relocating to Soldier Field should help, while an urban soccer facility in Boston would drive major revenue for the Revolution. Dallas and Houston are also huge soccer markets that are underperforming. Get those four markets among the top third in revenue and the dynamics change significantly.

 PLAYERS AS A REVENUE STREAM: MLS should copy the model of many leagues across the world and make players a revenue stream. Allow teams to buy talent, let them play for a couple years and then sell them for more money. This seems like a practical and strategic revenue driver for MLS.  MEDIA EXPOSURE: So many people are talking about how Garber and top media executive Gary Stevenson will navigate the next round of media negotiations. A selling point to receive these beefy expansion fees was the promise of increased national media revenue. Combined, the current eight-year deals are valued at $90 million annually and expire in 2022. In addition to the national deals, the league has asked each team to sunset their local media deals at the same time, allowing MLS to go to the marketplace with a massive inventory of programming. It’s a promising proposition with robust potential, but a read on the marketplace shows some skepticism over the league’s ability to draw the audience needed for a massive payday. WHICH LEADS TO … : The league has to avoid taking big money only to disappear behind a paywall. It can’t get buried on limited exposure platforms and trade audience growth for short-term dollars. Follow the NFL and seek the broadest and widest exposure possible.  BUT THE BIGGEST ISSUE IS … : MLS can’t dramatically improve the TV deal without continuing to improve the product. That’s not a new issue but it’s the biggest, and it’s the reason Garber and his team, as well as league ownership, continue to mine for more dollars. More revenue, more spent on talent, better players, better product, more engaged fans, more appealing to sponsors and media partners. It’s not complicated, but it’s not easy.

In talking with colleagues and sources, the passionate debate and points of view around MLS outweigh any other property we speak about because of the league’s place in the U.S. sports landscape and for all the reasons listed above. I appreciate the league’s growth over the past 25 years, and feel confident in its leadership and the caliber of ownership. Count me in as a believer in the promise and potential of MLS. The league has methodically built a business to be respected and poised for future growth. It’s a growth stock, and I’m buying.

The entire contents of this magazine are copyrighted by Street & Smith’s Sports Business Journal 2020 with all rights reserved. Street & Smith’s is a registered trademark of Leaders Group Holdings LLC. Reproduction or use, without permission, of editorial or graphic content in any manner is prohibited.

Street & Smith’s Sports Business Journal (ISSN1098-5972) is published weekly, with the exception of the first week of July and the last two weeks of December, for $306 a year

by Street & Smith’s Sports Business Journal, at 120 West Morehead Street, Suite 310, Charlotte, NC 28202.

In Canada $371 per year, includes GST and all other countries $471, includes a one-year subscription and expedited air delivery (GST#139794580).

Periodicals postage paid at Charlotte, NC, and additional mailing offices. Street & Smith’s Sports Business Journal is a publication of Leaders Group Holdings LLC. Street & Smith’s Sports Business Journal is an equal opportunity employer.

POSTMASTER: Please send address changes to Street & Smith’s Sports Business Journal — Subscriber Services, P.O. Box 36637, Charlotte, NC 28236-6637 FOR CUSTOMER SERVICE CALL 1-800-829-9839 For article reprints, please contact newuser@ sportsbusinessjournal.com or call customer service at 1-800-829-9839.

Abraham Madkour can be reached at amadkour@sportsbusinessjournal.com.

CLOSING SHOT . . 50 Cover image by Inter Miami CF

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FIRST LOOK & BUZZCAST Check out our First Look podcast every Monday where we discuss the week’s top stories. Also, check out Buzzcast in SportsBusiness Daily’s Morning Buzz, our daily two-minute look at the stories of the day.

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WE MOURN THE LOSS OF AN ICON, PA R T N E R , F R I E N D A N D FAT H E R .

Donate to mambamambacitasports.org, dedicated to carrying on Kobe and Gianna Bryant’s legacy of creating leaders, opportunities and skills through sports.

upfront

Patchwork Magic Study shows strong recognition rates for NBA jersey patch sponsors as new deals loom. BY TERRY LEFTON AND JOHN LOMBARDO

T

WO WELL-ESTABLISHED brands and a label trading on

New Orleans’ reputation as a culinary mecca have received maximum exposure value from their NBA ad patch deals, according to a YouGov study commissioned by Sports Business Journal.

The study’s results come as most NBA teams are in the market seeking new patch deals, which executives say could be worth at least 30% more than when the original sponsorships were sold three seasons ago.

Nationally, three patch sponsorships were correctly identified by 50% or more of those surveyed. Disney’s deal with the Orlando Magic bears testimony to that brand’s reach and renown, as 66% of those in a national sample correctly identified the Magic/ Disney World association, easily the best score in the study.

“It has exceeded our expectations,” said Alex Martins, CEO of the Magic, adding that Disney CEO Bob Iger has taken notice.

“Bob said to me that he loves the patch and the exposure,” Martins said. “Disney has been a perfect partner for us and hav-

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ing the media giant in our backyard has deepened it.”

Zatarain’s, a New Orleans company that markets spices, gumbo mixes and flavored rices, came in a surprising second nationally, at 56% recognition, while Harley-Davidson’s Milwaukee Bucks ad patch scored a 53% recognition rate.

Interpreting data is never easy, but in this case the high scores for Milwaukee and New Orleans can be explained.

“Exposure value outside your market is based on national TV appearances more than any other factor,” said Scott Sonnenberg, chief global partnerships officer with the Los Angeles Clippers.

With the buzz around top NBA draft pick Zion Williamson, the New Orleans Pelicans have a franchise-record 30 national television games scheduled this season. However, the Clippers are to appear for a franchise-record 26 times on national television and their Bumble patch deal is tracking at 38% nationally and 28% locally, third worst in the league. Still, Sonnenberg said exposure value has “far exceeded expectations, and across the league you keep seeing prices going up, so. …”

The NBA first allowed its teams to sell 2-1/2 by 2-1/2-inch ad patches on uniforms for the 2017-18 season, generating more than $150 million in incremental sponsorship revenue, largely from new brands. More than 20 patch sponsors were doing business with NBA teams for the first time.

With most patch deals expiring at the end of this season or next, team executives have a variety of opinions on how much

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Getty Images

Of fans surveyed nationally, 66% knew that Disney sponsored the jersey patch of the Orlando Magic, the highest recognition rate in the study.

SPORTS BUSINESS JOURNAL

WWW.SPORTSBUSINESSJOURNAL.COM

PATCH SPONSOR AWARENESS Sports Business Journal and YouGov collaborated to see how aware NBA fans are of the brands who sponsor jersey patches on team uniforms.

The online survey was conducted Feb. 6-14 among 3,720 NBA fans, age 18 and above.

15 Brooklyn Nets–Infor 8

32% 30%

Charlotte Hornets–LendingTree 1

30% 25%

Chicago Bulls–Zenni Optical 1

34% 31%

Cleveland Cavaliers–Goodyear 1

38% 54%

Dallas Mavericks–Chime 13

31% 34%

Denver Nuggets–Western Union 11

34% 38%

Detroit Pistons–Flagstar Bank 1

32% 47%

Golden State Warriors–Rakuten 14

32% 37%

Houston Rockets–Rokit

49% 47%

15 Indiana Pacers–Motorola 1

32% 33%

Los Angeles Clippers–Bumble 15

38% 28%

Los Angeles Lakers–Wish

39% 41%

20 Memphis Grizzlies–FedEx 2

35% 33%

Miami Heat–Ultimate Software 3

36% 33%

Milwaukee Bucks–Harley-Davidson 10

53% 74%

Minnesota Timberwolves–Fitbit 2

31% 33%

New Orleans Pelicans–Zatarain’s 14

56% 67%

New York Knicks–Squarespace 3

36% 51%

Oklahoma City Thunder– Love’s Travel Stops & Country Stores 1

44% 38%

Orlando Magic–Walt Disney World 0

66% 61%

Philadelphia 76ers–StubHub 13

44% 60%

Phoenix Suns–PayPal 0

27% 26%

Portland Trail Blazers–Biofreeze 15

37% 39%

Sacramento Kings–Blue Diamond 0

43% 36%

San Antonio Spurs–Frost Bank 2

46% 55%

Toronto Raptors–Sun Life Financial 5

26% 33%

Utah Jazz–Qualtrics 7

35% 39%

Washington Wizards–Geico 1

28% 44%

%

NATIONALLY

70

60

50

40

30

20

%

41% 46%

%

Boston Celtics–GE

%

27% 29%

%

Atlanta Hawks–Sharecare 2

%

National recognition% Regional recognition% %

Team–Sponsor No. of nationally televised games, through Feb. 9

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of a revenue boon Patch 2.0 will bring.

Amy Brooks, president of the league’s team marketing and business operations division and NBA chief innovation officer, said she expects roughly a 30% increase, driven partly by the new league rule that allows each NBA team to sign two international sponsors. “We knew our games are being broadcast globally, and this is a way to incentivize global brands,” Brooks said.

“It is why we have 20 of the 30 patch partners of global brands.”

Scott O’Neil, CEO of Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment, which owns the Philadelphia 76ers, is looking for the global reach of the patch to drive any new deal. The Sixers were the first NBA team to sign a patch deal, reaching an agreement with StubHub. “Domestically, I don’t think there were many surprises, as far as exposure, but the international side will make a big difference for our next deal, because our team has really exploded in China with exposure numbers there,” O’Neil said.

Wasserman did some of the original valuation research on NBA patches, said Elizabeth Lindsey, president of brands and properties. “You’d really have to know the original baseline information of any brand to compare something as established as Disney to something new like Bumble,” she said. “But by whatever measure, I can tell you these are working. … As far as who’s next, I believe it will be baseball (MLB), which needs some reinvigorating.”

Milwaukee’s Harley-Davidson deal was ranked as one of the league’s best, but the motorcycle brand is not expected to renew.

With an ascendant team, Bucks President Peter Feigin is looking for a multiple of two to three times on the next deal. “The big change is how well the patch translated for us onto social media,” he said. “Growth there has been just exponential, but the really good news for all us is that after three years, the patch concept is credible. We don’t have to sell that whole concept anymore.”

Nationally, four patch deals had recognition scores below 30%: the Washington Wizards’ Geico patch (28%); the Phoenix Suns/ PayPal and Atlanta Hawks/Sharecare patches, both of which achieved a 27% recognition rate; and the Toronto Raptors/Sun Life Financial patch, which received a 26% national recognition score.

MKTG Canada Chairman Brian Cooper, who helped negotiate the Raptors’ patch deal with Sun Life, estimated that leaguewide, teams should average 30% to 35% more for Patch 2.0.

“The exposure value has been what we expected and across the league, sponsors have found value in literally being part of a team’s fabric,” Cooper said.

Scored regionally, the top ad patch program was Milwaukee/ Harley-Davidson with an impressive 74%. Other top scorers: New Orleans/Zatarain’s (67%); Orlando/Disney World (61%); the Philadelphia 76ers/StubHub (60%); and San Antonio Spurs/ Frost Bank (55%). The lowest patch recognition scores regionally were Atlanta/Sharecare (29%); L.A. Clippers/Bumble (28%); Phoenix Suns/PayPal (26%); and the Charlotte Hornets and Lending Tree (25%).

Excel Sports Management sold the original patch deals for Charlotte, Chicago and Houston, and currently represents the Boston CeltMETHODOLOGY ics as the team looks to replace GE. “A multiple of two to three times for The YouGov online study, conducted most teams is optimistic,” said Emilio during the first two Collins, chief business officer at Excel. weeks of February, “The international and national digiasked 3,750 people, tal rights will help a lot, but this is a a representative U.S. sales cycle that takes six to 12 months. population sample, 18+, self-identifying Our main learning is that you have to as being “interested go incredibly deep in prospects. We’re in the NBA,” to targeting a prospect list of nearly 1,000 match six NBA teams companies. This is a sales process with their ad patch where you need the right brand with sponsor. Each person surveyed was offered the right internal champion, with its a local team and business having the right internal patch sponsor as part trajectory that the patch will be a gameof his/her sample. changing asset.”

Three partnerships were correctly identified by at least 50% of NBA fans in the U.S.

Orlando Magic– Walt Disney World 66% Milwaukee Bucks– Harley-Davidson 53% New Orleans Pelicans– Zatarain’s 56% Four partnerships had national recognition below 30%

Washington Wizards– Geico 28% Phoenix Suns–PayPal 27% Atlanta Hawks– Sharecare 27% Toronto Raptors– Sun Life Financial 26% REGIONALLY Seven partnerships were correctly identified by at least 50% of NBA fans in the club’s home region.

Milwaukee Bucks– Harley-Davidson 74% New Orleans Pelicans– Zatarain’s 67% Orlando Magic– Walt Disney World 61% Philadelphia 76ers– StubHub 60% San Antonio Spurs– Frost Bank 55% Cleveland Cavaliers– Goodyear 54% New York Knicks– Squarespace 51% Four partnerships had regional recognition below 30%

Atlanta Hawks– Sharecare 29% Los Angeles Clippers– Bumble 28% Phoenix Suns–PayPal 26% Charlotte Hornets– LendingTree 25%

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UPFRONT

NBA reviewing logistics of in-season tourney THE NBA’S IDEA to create an in-season

Jennifer Hudson’s stirring pregame performance of “For All We Know” honored Lakers legend Kobe Bryant at the All-Star Game.

berwolves’ average attendance of 14,755 per game is last in the league.

The Atlanta Hawks and the Charlotte Hornets have offered limited concession discounting, but not to the level of the Timberwolves.

Amy Brooks, president of the NBA’s team marketing and business operations division, said she was not yet sure on how many other teams will follow the Timberwolves’ deep discount offer.

“Our teams are looking for creative solutions to maintain fans, and this is very creative,” she said. “At the same time, the most important thing is a great product and creating hope that a team can win a championship.

It’s important to provide a valuedriven experience but teams do that outside of discounting as well.”

NBA teams are in full-season-ticket renewal mode for next season, and the Minnesota Timberwolves are rolling out an aggressive new offer of a 50% discount on food, beverage and merchandise to full-season ticket holders purchasing those items through the team’s app.

The Timberwolves’ discount offer ■ STILL UNLICENSED: While there follows the San Francisco 49ers’ new was a smattering of unlicensed Kobe plan for their season-ticket holders: Bryant memounlimited F&B (exrial merchancluding beer and dise in and other alcoholic bevaround the Allerages), while raisStar Game, the ing season-ticket league’s licensprices an average ees are still in of $20. the dark about Minnesota’s whether or even offer comes as the if they will be team looks to capipermitted by the talize from its releague and the cent blockbuster estate of the late trade with the Lakers legend to Golden State Warsell licensed meriors for D’Angelo Unlicensed Kobe Bryant merchandise morial product.

Russell. The Tim- was available around the All-Star Game.

■ DISCOUNT DOUBLE-CHECK?

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Licensees definitely have interest, and some have even done preliminary product designs. For the foreseeable future, the league has the brakes on. Longtime Bryant commercial affiliate Nike has postponed issuing a new Bryant sneaker originally scheduled to hit retail this month. Sources said both the league and Nike will revisit the situation when appropriate.

The addition of arguably the league’s best player in Kawhi Leonard, along with All-Star Paul George, helped the L.A. Clippers hit the All-Star break with 37 wins, five more than at that point the prior season. Off-court, the results have been even more dramatic.

Chief Global Partnerships Officer Scott Sonnenberg said that Clippers sponsorship revenue is up 35%, with the team adding 31 new partners, including selling naming rights to the team’s practice facility in Playa Vista to tech company Honey. Other new sponsors include Verizon and a trio of nonexclusive beer sponsors.

The team added four additional salespeople before the season.

“We started a lot of conversations before free agency and once that hit, we started closing deals,” Sonnenberg said.

■ L.A. STORY:

■ PLAYING WITH A DIFFERENT BALL:

It’s been a season of change for Sashi Brown, the former Cleveland Browns executive who last summer was hired

as chief planning and operations officer for the newly created Monumental Basketball, which oversees the NBA, WNBA and G League Washington, D.C., teams owned by Ted Leonsis.

Brown is adjusting to the stark difference in rhythms between the NFL, where a team’s success is defined by 16 Sundays, compared to the grinding 82-game NBA schedule.

“There is more fluidity to the NBA season; it is not as climactic as the NFL, with one game a week, and the highs and lows,” Brown said between panels at the NBA Technology Summit on All-Star Friday. “If we lose a game today, we may be playing toBrown m o r row n i g ht , s o there needs to be a great focus.”

At the same time, Brown sees similarities between the NBA and the NFL. “The way a team comes together and the way you lead all translates. We are trying to create an environment where the athletes have the best possible chance to win. We want to be a team that is about something in sports and in business.”

Brown said his biggest priority is to build up Monumental Basketball’s platform.

“From technology, to how we operate our building and schedule our teams, we can bring an elite level of service across all of our teams,” he said.

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Getty Images

tournament is advancing, but it’s more of a set play than a fast break.

Originally, the hope was to get the new initiative finalized for next season, the NBA’s 75th anniversary.

While there’s strong interest in the new format from all quarters, no vote is expected by the April board of governors meeting.

One source familiar with the effort said a key issue to be From the NBA resolved is All-Star Game how to CHICAGO compensate teams TERRY LEFTON for the loss AND JOHN LOMBARDO of revenue, should the new format be adopted and the league decide to reduce the number of games in the current 82-game season.

“Everybody likes the idea of trying something new and creating new interest,” a source said. “What has not been answered is how do we replace the lost revenue from what would be two home games.”

Discussions are also focused on a timetable for the tournament. One idea is to hold the event around late December or early January in order to make early-season games count not only for the regular-season standings, but also to determine pool play for the in-season tournament.

SPORTS BUSINESS JOURNAL

Legends launches global sponsorship and naming-rights unit

BY KARN DHINGRA LEGENDS IS SPINNING OFF its sponsorship

Rob Manfred had to answer questions about the Astros’ punishments last week while enduring criticism from players.

Scandal fallout continues as Manfred, MLB take hits

Getty Images

AFTER A WEEK in which he acknowledged his own mis-

apologized, calling the remark a mistake, but that step and endured scathing criticism from typically has not tamped down calls from MLB players to punreserved MLB stars as well as a global superstar in ish the Astros players — who were given immunity LeBron James, the prevailing message that MLB for cooperating with the investigation — or strip the Commissioner Rob Manfred received from baseball’s franchise of the 2017 title. other 29 clubs was this: Houston Astros owner Jim That is a path Manfred is reluctant to travel, because Crane is the person most responsible for the sport’s it would establish a precedent for taking away other ongoing public relations mess. championships and awards that may have “It’s really been, ‘I know it’s been tough been tainted by cheating methods, includBY ERIC for you — you’re taking a hit for Crane,’” ing the use of performance-enhancing PRISBELL according to an industry source close to drugs. However, it is a topic unlikely to go Manfred. away any time soon, especially with a rulManfred was taken aback by Crane’s tone ing expected as early as this week on MLB’s when he and the team attempted to apologize publicly investigation into sign stealing by the 2018 Boston on Feb. 13 for the sign-stealing scandal that has domiRed Sox, who also won the World Series. The source nated recent discussion of the sport. Crane’s comment close to Manfred said he is not planning to revisit that the team’s elaborate scheme during their 2017 World the issue of vacating either championship.

Series-winning season had no impact on the outcome If nothing else, MLB has a new villain for opposing of games was, in particular, widely panned as tone deaf fan bases to pay attention to. Whether that affects busiand defiant. What made the owner’s display even more ness metrics such as ticket sales when the Astros come striking was the fact that the organization has been to town is still to be determined. The Texas Rangers, working with an outside firm on crisis management for instance, don’t put single-game tickets on sale until and had exactly one month from the time Manfred islate next week, but it will be worth watching whether sued his nine-page report to craft an appropriately there’s a sales impact to the three series this year against contrite public response. the Astros. The Rangers will host Houston for the first The Astros’ perceived lack of remorse wasn’t the time April 10 at the new Globe Life Field, but the weekonly source of outrage among MLB players. They end date, the in-state rivalry and the new stadium could were equally united in their displeasure with Manall contribute to an increase in ticket sales. Last year fred’s comment in an ESPN interview that called the for a comparable April weekend set against Houston, World Series trophy “a piece of metal.” Manfred later the Rangers averaged 33,836 fans at Globe Life Park.

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and naming-rights division with the launch of Legends Global Partnerships. The new division will pursue deals in the U.S. and abroad under the leadership of Chris Hibbs, who was appointed president of the unit.

Legends Global Partnerships is leveraging the recent naming-rights deals Legends secured for the Los Angeles Rams’ and Chargers’ SoFi Stadium, the Raiders’ Allegiant Stadium and LAFC’s Banc of California Stadium, and its role as sponsorship and sales agent for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics.

“It seemed like the right time to kind of let Legends Global Partnerships stand alone,” Hibbs said. “It’s an area of our industry that’s growing, and we think it’s becoming more and more important to owners, to properties, to real estate people; there’s a premium put on driving revenue at the ownership level.”

The slate of services from Legends Global Partnerships includes naming rights and other venue entitlement positions, jersey sponsorships, premier events, emerging entertainment platforms, and mixed-use real estate development.

The division will look for business opportunities that are not strictly in sports, Hibbs added. “It’s time to evolve from that sum,” he said. “We’re in entertainment marketing, and fan experience or guest experience, that can take a lot of different forms.”

Hibbs, who was Legends’ chief commercial officer for the company’s work on SoFi Stadium and Hollywood Park’s 298-acre LA Sports and Entertainment District, said he will continue to work on the Rams-owned project into early 2021.

Joining Hibbs at Legends Global Partnerships will be other current company executives. Senior Vice President Matt Pope will focus on U.S. Olympic and Paralympic properties; senior VPs Doug Smoyer and Jamie Guin will move from Legends Global Sales to head up the division’s eastern and central U.S. partnership teams; Ben Martin, a VP for Legends’ Europe, Middle East and Africa division, will lead the division’s London office; and Kristin Condo was promoted to director and moved over from Legends Global Sales. Katy Chambers Mollica will lead the division’s sales team for LA 2028 and Team USA properties.

Legends’ services now span six divisions: Global Partnerships, Global Planning, Global Sales, Hospitality, Global Merchandise and Global Technology Solutions.

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UPFRONT

A M E AS U R E D LO O K AT T H I S W E E K ’ S HOLDINGS

BUY

PEACE OF MIND The collective bargaining agreement between the NFL and the NFLPA doesn’t expire until March 2021, but there was a growing sense that a new CBA would be reached by next week.

Doing so would continue a strong run lately for the NFL and allow it to enter discussions on new TV contracts knowing that there won’t be any work stoppages for the foreseeable future.

SELL

CAN’T HEAR YOU The Oakland A’s have elected not to have the team’s games be available on local radio this season. Instead, they will be available for streaming on the TuneIn app. For a club that regularly ranks near the bottom of the league in attendance, making games harder to find on a traditional outlet feels like a risky move.

HOLD

PREMIER LETDOWN Rory McIlroy passed on being part of the proposed Premier Golf League, dealing a sizable setback to the organization that is trying to build a competitor to the PGA Tour. However, stars including Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson and Brooks Koepka have not made a definitive decision, and until they do the PGA Tour will have to contend with a distraction for some of its biggest names.

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F E B R UA R Y 2 4 - M A R C H 1 , 2 0 2 0

NASCAR track sanction deals to allow for schedule flexibility SEVERAL NASCAR tracks are expected

tona announced it will host a new Talladega Superspeedway Presito get only single-year sanction agreesoccer tournament on July 4th weekdent Brian Crichton led a group of ments for the next handful of years, end next year with pro teams from several NASCAR employees who according to sources, in a bid by the North and South America. This is walked up and down the lines handsanctioning body to keep its schedulfirst time a NASCAR track will host ing out free water to parched fans. ing options wide open. a pro soccer match, and the event is Regardless of the From 2016 through the latest example of how speedways lines, the security effort From the this year, tracks that are leveraging their facilities to land was ultimately successDaytona 500 host NASCAR Cup Sehigh-profile non-racing events. The ful. Sources said the DAYTONA, FLA. ries races have had the Daytona Soccer Fest, which is being plan included the track same five-year conorganized in conjunction with Latin and all teams having to ADAM STERN tract, which guaranAmerican sports and entertainment keep their various spacteed them either one or event company Torneos, will also es, buildings and haultwo events annually for the duration. include music, esports competitions, ers unlocked the night before the race However, with calls from fans, drivfishing and water slides. so that Secret Service could do sweeps. ers and others inside the sport to Meanwhile, The Daytona, the new Several teams and sponsors canchange up what is perceived as a Marriott Autograph Collection hotel celed driver appearances on race day stale schedule, sources say NASCAR that is part of the One Daytona because many of them involved a is considering one-year terms for mixed-use development across the driver having to leave the infield to many tracks to gain maximum flexstreet from the track, was open for go to a grandstand suite, a movement ibility, at least until the sport’s media its first 500 weekend. The hotel, that was complicated by the securights deals expire after 2024. It was which was fully booked for the weekrity effort. One source even spotted not clear which tracks could get end, has an array of racing-related low-key NASCAR Chairman and single-year terms. touches in its lobby.

CEO Jim France standing in a secuPrior to the current five-year rity line on race day before someone Q THERE’S THE BEEF: The Daytona deals, NASCAR had renewed track with NASCAR noticed who he was 500’s status as NASCAR’s biggest agreements on an annual basis, but and whisked him through. race typically results in some blueswitched to the longer term to save NASCAR received a halo effect chip brands that are not often seen industry executives administrative from President Donald Trump’s visit. in the sport making time. As for other motorsports propa play. Wendy’s was erties, IndyCar has had annual the most notable agreements in the past but has recompany to fit that cently started moving toward muldefinition this year, tiyear agreements. Formula One’s with a multifaceted deals are typically multiyear. campaign that inOne-year terms would also give cluded two large popadded teeth to NASCAR’s proposed up restaurants at the new attendance standard for 2021, track plus a media which would levy a penalty on tracks buy with Fox Sports. that don’t reach 70% capacity for Cup Wendy’s built two pop-up restaurants that gave fans an Wendy’s, which has Series races. NASCAR would have opportunity to sample the new Breakfast Baconator. not been in NASCAR more ability to review and possibly beyond routine TV strip a race from a venue over poor advertising for years, set up a pop-up attendance, sources say.

The initial tune-in for the race on Fox structure at the entrance to the infield Tracks that host two Cup Series was up 32%, according to Nielsen fast fan zone and on the sponsor midway, races and don’t sell out are seen as national numbers, which seemed to which is close to the grandstand gates. the most likely to lose a date when indicate a Trump bump.

Launching a new Breakfast Baconathe 2021 schedule is released, which In this election year, industry extor sandwich next month, Wendy’s is expected to be around April 1. ecutives have now turned their atused the platform to let fans sample tention toward whether Trump may Q PRESIDENTIAL MOMENT: As lines its new product. A source said Wenmake another motorsports splash snaked hundreds of people deep leaddy’s is looking at doing other deals later this year on Memorial Day weeking to the entrance of Daytona’s inin the sport, so this may not be a pure end. With both the Indianapolis 500 field fan zone, the things keeping fans Daytona 500 one-off track deal. and Charlotte’s Coca-Cola 600 bathed calm were occasional cloud cover, a Other brands newly activating on in patriotic themes, some are predictbreeze, free water and the promise the midway included Barstool Sports ing that Trump could stop by one or to see a historic presidential visit. and Anheuser-Busch’s Babe wineeven both of the events that day.

With one of the largest domestic in-a-can brand. Meanwhile, A-B’s Q DAYTONA STILL RISING: Four years Secret Service presences in U.S. hiscall-to-action social media sweepafter the completion of the $400 miltory, the race faced unprecedented stakes campaign, #Pit4Busch, was lion Daytona Rising project, the security measures that resulted in the No. 1 trending topic in America track continues to evolve and add lines that took fans two to three throughout the race, even above the amenities and events on its grounds. hours to get through. More than 500 #Daytona500 hashtag itself, receivOn the day before the race, Dayagents were on site, sources said. ing 225,000 social media mentions.

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Getty Images; Adam Stern

The Market

SPORTS BUSINESS JOURNAL

Rebranded Vinik Sports Group ‘open for business’

BY MARK J. BURNS THE COMPANY long known as Tampa Bay Sports

Getty Images

and Entertainment is being rebranded as of Feb. 24 as the Vinik Sports Group, and it will continue to be led by Tampa Bay Lightning owner Jeff Vinik.

“This formalizes our structure, and announces that we’re open for business for those who think we can add value,” said Vinik, a hedge-fund bllionaire who will be the owner and chairman of VSG. VSG will have three separate divisions: VSG Live, VSG Commercial Sales and VSG Facilities. Under VSG Live, the company will sell live entertainment for Amalie Arena, home of the Lightning, along with Yuengling Center, a multipurpose facility on the University of South Florida campus. VSG is also contracted with WWE to sell tickets to WrestleMania 36 at Raymond James Stadium on April 5.

Within VSG Commercial Sales, the division will sell sponsorships across its entire portfolio, which includes both arenas, the Lightning and USF, for which VSG continues to hold the school’s multimedia rights. Additionally, the sales division will monetize the Vinik-backed, over-the-top platform called The

business, facility ops, guest services and creating the premier Tampa Bay sports and entertainment company under one umbrella,” Griggs said of the creation of VSG. Vinik added that VSG as a whole will be focused on taking on more local and regionally based opportunities as they present themselves and where he, Griggs and senior leadership believe they can provide added value. For example, if an NCAA championship event comes to the Tampa area, VSG could hypothetically assist in a variety of areas. He wouldn’t disclose where active conversations stand around new business, but did say that as of now the commercial sales division has Lightning owner Jeff Vinik will be VSG’s owner and chairman. the most opportunities for future growth, at least in the short-term.

Identity, which has local lifestyle and sports content.

While there’s a focus on leveraging VSG’s Finally, VSG Facilities includes the overall managestrengths for new commercial opportunities, there’s ment of the two venues in addition to the Embarc still a concerted effort toward focusing on the Collective, a new entrepreneurship hub in Tampa. company’s main competencies.

Steve Griggs, who is currently the CEO of the “The core of our business is still the Tampa Bay Lightning, will operate as the CEO for the new Lightning, the concerts and other events that enterprise as well. happen in our arena,” Vinik said. “We never want to “It allowed us to build an organization that is lose sight of that. We never want to stop serving our focused on sales and service, marketing, the event fans.”

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F E B R U A R Y 24 - M A R C H , 2 02 0

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UPFRONT

Miami hotels hit Super Bowl record numbers HOTELS IN the Miami-Hialeah market enjoyed the most

successful Super Bowl ever, according to data provided exclusively to Sports Business Journal by STR, an industry group that monitors the

BY DAVID financial metrics of 67,000 hotels and BROUGHTON 9 million hotel rooms around the globe.

The average daily room rate (ADR) in the market during the two weeks leading up to this year’s game on Feb. 2 was $349, nearly double Atlanta’s $177 average last year and 40% higher than what it was in 2010, the last time the game was in Miami. The market’s 86% occupancy rate during that stretch was also a Super Bowl record.

Hoteliers in Tampa (host of next year's Super Bowl LV) hope this month’s success in South Beach, combined with a strong lodging market of its own, will help them forget about the economic challenges they faced in 2009, the last time the game came to town.

At the time of that game with the planet gripped in a recession, the U.S. unemployment rate was 8% and climbing, corporate hospitality spending at sports events had been all but sidelined, and the country’s lodging industry was poised to suffer its biggest year-over-year financial decline ever.

The 446 hotels and 43,898 rooms in the Tampa-St. Petersburg market had an average daily rate (ADR) of $164. Although that was up 36% from the same time the previous year (see graphics), it was low

by Super Bowl standards. Their colleagues in Jacksonville, for example, had seen prices nearly double when they hosted the game four years earlier.

Tampa’s overall occupancy rate actually dropped more than 3 percentage points compared to the same two-week period in 2008, and to make things worse, every metric dropped even further the following year, when most Super Bowl hosts usually benefit from a postgame bump.

But the 2021 Super Bowl host’s lodging business is now one of the strongest in the country, according to STR. Fourteen under-construction properties are expected to open this year, delivering 1,883 rooms, bringing its Super Bowl inventory to 505 properties and 51,000 rooms. Tampa-St. Petersburg is one of just four major markets projected to report revenue peravailable-room growth of 3% or higher in 2020. In contrast, STR projects a slight decrease in occupancy nationwide this year, the first drop since 2009.

Blake Reiter, STR’s director of custom forecasts who handles the Super Bowl data each year, said that although official projections aren’t calculated until closer to an event’s date, Tampa’s occupancy rate leading up to next year’s game could possibly exceed the 92.8% level that Miami enjoyed earlier this month during the three-day Super Bowl weekend period.

“From a percentage growth standpoint, Tampa will get a substantial pop,” he said. STR data shows that the ADR in the market during this year’s threeday Super Bowl weekend was $154.

And there’s no question that the market has enhanced its offerings to sports tourists.

Rob Higgins, executive director of the Tampa Bay Sports Commission, said that Raymond James Stadium will have undergone $160 million in upgrades since the last time the game was in town.

Higgins said his group analyzes actual hotel and

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F E B R UA R Y 2 4 - M A R C H 1 , 2 0 2 0

TRACKING SUPER BOWL HOTEL RATES

Host City (Date)

On behalf of SBJ, STR calculated a rolling 14-day Super Bowl hotel average starting the Monday two weeks prior through the night of the game.

1 year prior

Avg. occupancy Super Bowl year 80%

1 year after

1 year prior

% increase Avg. daily hotel Super Bowl year $250

60%

$200 $150

40%

See right for how to interpret the charts.

$100 $50

20%

For more data, visit us at sportsbusinessjournal.com a-St. Petersburg ( 64.0%

58.6%

Miami-Hialeah (Fe

)

$12

.83

66.7%

Dallas (Feb. 6, 2011) 49.9%

61.2%

55.4%

78.9%

81.1%

)

$1

5.70

Indianapolis (Feb. 5, 2012) +52% $130.11

$85.64

$89.80

43.7%

65.5%

New Orleans (Feb. 3, 2013)

47.2%

$71.80

%

$12

x (Feb. 1, 67.9%

78.2%

78.1%

69.2%

68.2%

72.

%

$1

-San Mat

+59% $132.04 $209.78 $151.82

75.4%

76.9%

78.1%

2.73

(

. ,

+ $205.60 $2

4.03

Minneapolis-St. Paul (Feb. 4, 2018)

+52% $108.77 $165.41 $109.51

$11

.6%

)

55.2%

Atlanta (Feb. 3, 66.0%

$81.30

+ .70

Houston (Feb. 5, 2017) 64.0%

+143% $174.55

New York (Feb. 2, 2014)

+93% 59.8%

1 year after

69.8%

52.5%

+91% $108.08 $206.58 $105.73

Miami-Hialeah (F .99

83.

/A $23

airline data surrounding all their events, and projects that Super Bowl-specific visitors will generate 95,633 room nights next year.

Other key data points from the past 17 Super Bowls: f Dating back to 2004, Dallas in 2011 offered the lowest ADR, at $130.11. Tampa in 2009 had the lowest occupancy of the study, at just less than 61%. f The biggest ADR spike occurred in 2012, when year-over-year rates in Indianapolis surged 143%, from $71.80 to $174.55. Jacksonville (2005), New Orleans (2013) and Minneapolis-St Paul (2018) each saw their host-year rates nearly double compared to the previous year. But Reiter cautions against such general comparisons, saying no one really expects viewers to suddenly book a February vacation in a cold-weather city just because they saw

N/A

its skyline during the Super Bowl telecast. f Only four markets in the study saw their ADR drop the year after hosting the game to a level that was actually lower than what it was the year before the game. The recession clearly played a part in two of those: 2008 host Phoenix saw a 5 percentagepoint decline in 2009 compared to 2007; their successors in Tampa saw prices plummet 18 points over the comparable two-year period. New York City (the 2014 host) dropped 7 points in 2015 compared to 2013; Minneapolis slipped 2 points last year compared to 2017, after its average rate nearly doubled (from $108 to $207) in 2018, its host year. f Atlanta, last year’s Super Bowl host, saw ADR rise 4.2% (to $114.54) in calendar year 2019, leading all major U.S. markets.

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Donoghue looks for sports rights that enhance the benefits of being an Amazon Prime member.

SPORTS M E D I A

Here’s what Amazon’s Marie Donoghue told me about the media giant’s approach to sports

A

MAZON REMAINS the most compelling story-

Donoghue, Amazon’s vice president of global sports video, told me during NBA All-Star weekend in Chicago recently. “We are not a onesize-fits-all when it comes to sports.”

Donoghue, who also was spotted a week earlier in Miami for the Super Bowl, has been visible in the sports community since joining Amazon a year and a half ago.

Anyone who thinks that Amazon would approach the sports rights marketplace the same way that a traditional media company would doesn’t OURAND understand how the tech giant looks at the business.

Take its 2018 deal to show 20 Premier League matches per season in Britain. The agreement — reported to be $116 million over three years

line in sports media as TV networks prepare to go through the next round of what’s expected to be a hotly contested sports rights bidding process.

With a market cap of more than $1 trillion, it’s clear that the company can afford the rights for any sport it wants.

By comparison, Disney’s market cap is around $255 billion, a number that seems tiny side-by-side with Amazon.

The question is whether Amazon really is interested in paying for rights

BY JOHN to top-tier sports in the United States.

The reasons why leagues want Amazon involved in the bidding process are obvious. Just the threat of Amazon can serve to keep rights high for mid-tier to bigger leagues and conferences.

Amazon counts around 150 million Prime subscribers worldwide and has a technical streaming savvy that could attract younger demos that aren’t watching traditional television anymore.

But Amazon so far has not approached the market as a company that is interested in dominating the sports rights marketplace. In just the past few months alone, for example, it passed on the chance to grab the PGA Tour’s digital rights and the UEFA Champions League digital rights in the United States.

Surely, Amazon would have picked up one of those sports if it was really serious about wading into the sports rights marketplace, right?

Amazon streamed 10 Premier League matches on the day after “That’s what confuses people,” Marie Christmas, including Aston Villa’s 1-0 win against Norwich City.

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— had Amazon stream 10 matches in early December and 10 more on Boxing Day, all exclusive to Amazon Prime customers. The Dec. 26 slate featured six matches that were streamed simultaneously.

“The first two days of the Premier League matches were the two highest-ever Prime sign-up days in the U.K. for us,” Donoghue said.

Amazon has pursued a different model with “Thursday Night Football,” which is reported to cost around $65 million per year. Rather than carrying the game exclusively, Amazon and Twitch share it with two TV channels (Fox and NFL Network) and mobile outlets.

“Offering ‘Thursday Night Football’ games in a tricast model drives great benefits to our U.S. consumers,” Donoghue said, allowing Amazon to reach new audiences and provide different audio feeds.

Amazon picked up exclusive rights to UEFA Champions League in Germany as part of a three-year deal starting in 2021, amounting to 16 matches per season. And it picked up the second of two French Open packages in France as part of another deal that starts in 2021.

It shows NBA G League games on Twitch and has a deal with WTA in Britain.

Plus, Amazon gives its subscribers access to sports through channels on Prime Video, and sells out-ofmarket packages for NBA League Pass and MLB TV. “We’re not the same as the other services out there,” Donoghue said. “Amazon Prime is a membership service. You get benefits for being a member. Prime Video is one benefit you get for being a member. My job is to figure out how to use live sports to enhance that membership.”

For Donoghue’s team, those enhancements come from more than just producing video around the games — although that still plays a part. Donoghue highlighted the fact that Amazon’s Premier League deal in Britain marked the first time U.K. consumers could see every match on a given day.

But Donoghue also said that Amazon provided more enhancements, such as a Red Zone-style Goal Show and “near instantaneous” highlights. It offered different audio tracks for games, including one called “Sounds of the Game” that had no announcers.

“We were surprised by how many fans were delighted by that,” Donoghue said. “It makes sense if you’ve ever gone to a Premier League match — the songs and the chants. We didn’t even promote it, and fans found it on their own.”

Some of those innovations — such as multiple audio feeds — mimic what Amazon is doing with the NFL. But even with the NFL it has incorporated commerce tabs into the game, allowing fans to make purchases during the game.

“We start with the customer and work backwards,” Donoghue said. “We don’t always know what the customer is going to like. When we have data, we look at it. Sometimes it’s a clear idea of what works and what doesn’t work. Sometimes our execution can be improved to get better data. A lot of times, we have to make decisions without data. If it’s good for the consumer, we’ll consider it.”

John Ourand can be reached at jourand@sportsbusinessjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter @ Ourand_SBJ and read his twice-weekly newsletter.

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ESPN Images; Getty Images

THE INSIDERS

WORLD CONGRESS OF SPORTS 2020

5 INTERVIEWS YOU DO NOT WANT TO MISS! DON GARBER

ROB MANFRED

Commissioner MLS

Commissioner MLB

CYNTHIA MARSHALL

JIMMY PITARO

MOLLY SOLOMON

CEO Dallas Mavericks

President, ESPN; Co-Chair Disney Media Networks

Executive Producer & President NBC Olympics Production; Executive Producer Golf Channel

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The Disrupter

JON SPOELSTRA spent a career not accepting the status quo, continually pushing the limits on sports marketing

BY JOHN LOMBARDO the midwinter gloom is offset by the bright Asian décor of Jon Spoelstra’s living room.

It is here among a colorful array of vases, pillows and art where the lanky and laidback 77-year-old is as comfortable chatting about coaching his grandson’s basketball team as he is about his groundbreaking sports marketing career.

Spoelstra has worked coast to coast, and winters in Hawaii, but he always finds his way back to his well-appointed hillside home in Portland.

And why not? It’s here were Spoelstra made his name in the industry, leading the Blazers to a decade of sellouts at the old Portland Memorial Coliseum during the 1980s as the team’s head of marketing and later general manager. Filling a building during a 41-game NBA home schedule is a grind, but it was the innovative Spoelstra who kept the ticket turnstiles spinning for former Blazers owner Larry Weinberg during a decade of regular playoff appearances but zero NBA championships.

After gunning the Blazers’ economic engine with bold business moves for years, Spoelstra, backed by the blessing of late NBA Commissioner David Stern, took his out-of-the-box marketing talents from the Blazers to a short-lived stint in Denver, then to New Jersey where he revitalized the downtrodden Nets, and finally over to minor league baseball where he reinvented how small market baseball is sold.

Along the way, Spoelstra literally wrote the book on Jon Spoelstra sports marketing and relaxes in his home stood as a mentor to a in Portland, where he cadre of some of the most spent 11 years with talented and successful the Blazers.

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The Champions

at the old Tiger Stadium with executives working in the busihis father, arriving at the ballness today.

This is the fourth installment park early for batting practice His methods in the late 1970s in the series of profiles for the and leaving late as he waited for through the 1990s were seen as 2020 class of The Champions: his dad to meet deadline. revolutionary but today are Pioneers & Innovators in Sports “I had a normal childhood, but standard operating procedures.

Business. This year’s honorees sports was the conduit between He brought team TV and radio and the issues in which they me and my dad,” Spoelstra said. rights in-house, boosted the box will be featured are: “We could talk Detroit Tigers.” office through creative ticket One summer as a 13-year-old, plans, and developed new takes Date Champion Spoelstra went to 50 Tigers on sponsorships to drive reveFeb. 3 Marla Messing home games. “They let me have nue, all born out of his refusal Feb. 10 Tommie Smith the run of the ballpark,” he to accept the status quo of how said. “I saw Ted Williams in teams do business.

Feb. 17 Jim Delany batting practice. I saw Mickey “His focus on excellence and Feb. 24 Jon Spoelstra Mantle.” reinventing the business was March 2 Marvin Demoff Most impressive to the young the most brilliant thing I’ve ever Spoelstra, oddly enough, was seen,” said Tim Leiweke, CEO March 9 Jim Steeg watching Detroit Red Wings star of Oak View Group, who turned Gordie Howe, who occasionally to Spoelstra to help market the would take batting practice with the Tigers before Minnesota Timberwolves in the late 1980s when he anyone came into the ballpark. worked for the team during the early years of the “He would have been a hall of fame baseball franchise. “Jon has been a huge influence. He was player if he didn’t play hockey,” Spoelstra said. “He the first massive disrupter, and he is still one of hit balls into the upper deck in left, center and right. the most incredible minds and hearts that I have And all the guys would gather around and watch.” experienced in the live entertainment business.”

Spoelstra played basketball at Birmingham High Q Q Q Q School where he averaged fewer than 10 points a game as a defensive specialist. “I had to guard the Spoelstra has been connected to sports all his other team’s best scorer, whether it was a 6-6 guy life. His father, Watson, was a longtime sportswritor a 5-10 point guard,” he said. er for the Detroit News where he covered the Tigers, Spoelstra also caddied at Bloomfield Hills Counthe Lions and University of Michigan football, givtry Club, where he looped mainly for General Moing the young Spoelstra an inside look at the intors big shots for $2.50 a round plus tips. “I was the dustry.

No. 1 caddie because I didn’t steal from their bags CONTINUED ON PAGE 18 As a kid in Detroit, Spolestra spent his summers

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Cathy Cheney

I

T’S A GUNMETAL GRAY Portland morning, but

CHAMPIONS: JON SPOELSTRA CONTINUED FROM PAGE 16

n n n n Spoelstra’s first foray into the sports industry began in the early 1970s when he created a company that regionally broadcast Notre Dame basketball games for $2,000 per game paid to the university.

“I called up Moose Krause, who was then the athletic director at Notre Dame, and I said ‘I got an idea I think you’d be interested in. I’d like to talk to you about it,’” Spoelstra said.

The next week, Spoelstra was in Krause’s office making the pitch to telecast Notre Dame games in an ad hoc network that would include Chicago, Detroit, Cleveland, Boston and New York.

The nascent network held great promise. Sponsorships were sold, ratings were strong and more than 100 local stations bought in after the first year, JON SPOELSTRA n Age: 77 n Residence: Portland, Oregon n Education: University of Notre Dame, 1966; major in communication arts Professional background: n 1977-1978: Buffalo Braves, vice president of marketing n 1979-1990: Portland Trail Blazers, vice president of marketing, then senior vice president and general manager n 1990: Denver Nuggets, president and GM n 1991-1993: New Jersey Nets, consultant n 1993-1996: New Jersey Nets, president and chief operating officer n 1998-2010: Mandalay Baseball Properties, president, managing director n 2010-2019: Founder, SRO Partners

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F E B R UA R Y 2 4- M A R C H 1, 2020

“He called up and said, ‘I’d like to talk to you about our situation up in Portland,’” Spoelstra said. “‘We won the championship. And our radio rights went down, our TV rights went down and I’d like to talk to you about it.’”

Weinberg wanted to meet at his Beverly Hills home, but Spoelstra wanted to get back to his family in Buffalo and begged off the meeting, telling Weinberg he was going home.

“He said, ‘What’s your price?

How much do you charge?’” Spoelstra recalled. “I said, ‘$2,000 a day.’

I just made it up. I go out there and we meet at his house at 9 a.m. He got his $2,000 worth, because I was there until 9 p.m. We just had a great conversation about what to do, and he’s telling me about how they’re winning a championship and they didn’t benefit by it.”

Weinberg hired Spolestra in 1979, Spoelstra sent out rubber chickens to Nets season-ticket holders, telling and the new Blazers executive them “Don’t Fowl Out’ on season-ticket renewals. made an immediate impact by Spoelstra said. But then key investors in the venture, bringing the team’s radio rights spooked by changing federal corporate tax laws, in-house, followed by the team’s TV rights a few pulled their money out after a year, Spoelstra said. years years later.

“It was my greatest success and greatest failure.”

After the first year under Spoelstra, radio revenue Spoelstra then took a Chicago-based TV ad sales jumped from $50,000 to $900,000. In 1982, when Spoeljob that had him traveling throughout the Midwest. stra took the team’s TV rights in-house, television On one fortuitous trip through Buffalo in 1977, he revenue jumped from $200,000 to $2 million. stopped in to see Norm Sonju, a friend from Chi“That was the shot heard round the world,” Spoelcago who was president and general manager of stra said. the struggling Buffalo Braves.

It also cemented Spoelstra’s reputation as an inIt was a simple courtesy call made to Sonju, who novator with an appetite for risk that usually paid later would become an owner of the Dallas Mavericks, but it ended up changing the arc of Spoelstra’s career.

“Norm said, ‘We’re a mess.

Would you come to work for me?’” Spoelstra said. “So I come home from Buffalo to tell Elisa. I said, ‘I won’t have to travel anymore.’ She’s thinking I got fired or something.” dividends.

Instead, Spoelstra became the new vice president “The smart people paid attention and did what he of marketing for the Buffalo Braves, which after a said,” said Steve Patterson, a longtime NBA team year and an ownership swap, relocated to San Diego executive and former president of the Trail Blazers. to become the Clippers. “Halfway in, I’m essen“He would take chances. He’d buy up movie theaters tially the advance man of where to move the Bufto sell pay-per-view for games in Portland before falo Braves,” Spoelstra said. cable. It was kind of far-out stuff in its day. When I After the Braves moved to San Diego, Spoelstra started full time with the Houston Rockets back in didn’t want to work for the team’s new owner in the 1980s, I’d go to the NBA marketing meetings and Irv Levin, who took over the team in an ownership listen and learn from him. He could drive tremendous swap with the Boston Celtics. revenues, viewership and fan engagement.”

“I just didn’t like his style at all,” Spoelstra said, Spoelstra’s bold approach soon spread, resulting who then moved on to a consulting job with the in one of the wackiest trades in NBA history when Christian-based Athletes In Action basketball team. in 1983 Spoelstra was traded to the Indiana Pacers Spoelstra figured his NBA days were done, but in return for point guard Don Buse. a presentation he had made to the NBA board of Blazers guard Darnell Valentine was injured at governors earlier in the year had caught the eye the time, so a deal was made that sent Buse to Portof Portland Trail Blazers owner Larry Weinberg, land in exchange for a two-week consulting agreewho was riding high after the Blazers had won the ment where Spoelstra met with prospective buyers CONTINUED ON PAGE 20 NBA title in 1977.

“The smart people paid attention and did what he said ... He could drive tremendous revenues, viewership and fan engagement.”

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Cathy Cheney

and I was polite,” Spoelstra said. “When the GM guys bet and won, I’d get a $20 tip or a $50 tip. I was rich.”

After high school, Spoelstra attended the University of Notre Dame, where he promptly flunked out after his first year. “I was immature,” he said.

He then knocked around, working for GM as an office assistant for top-level management and running notes between executives and union officials during labor negotiations. He impressed enough to earn a job offer from GM that would allow him to split time between working and attending school.

But Spoelstra turned down the offer, worried about the prospect of working for the rest of his career for GM. Looking for an adventure, he decided to travel to Australia. “I made it as far as the Philippines,” he said. “I thought the Philippines was a lot closer to Australia, but it’s a continent away.”

But the trip turned out to be a success given that before he returned to the U.S., Spoelstra met his future wife, Elisa, and began a corresponding courtship.

Spoelstra said he returned home in Detroit with 52 cents in his pocket, and after realizing the need to return to college, wrote a three-page letter to the priests at Notre Dame asking for academic forgiveness. He was re-admitted and went on to graduate in 1966 with a degree in communications. Spoelstra then married Elisa, moved to Evanston, Ill., and formed a marketing company.

salutes our friend

JON SPOELSTRA Sports Business Journal 2020 Champions Honoree

Your mentorship, leadership, and innovative approach has solidified your place as the most influential team sports marketer of our generation We are forever grateful for everything you have done to propel the sports industry forward

CHAMPIONS: JON SPOELSTRA CONTINUED FROM PAGE 18

of the team to outline how a team could financially prosper in the NBA. “They brought in guys and I explained, ‘You don’t have to lose money in the NBA. We’re in a little town of Portland, Oregon. You’ve got to sell seats and you’ve got to sell sponsorships.’ And the last two guys that came in were local guys. It was the Simon brothers.”

Convinced, Herb and Melvin Simon bought the Pacers in 1983, and Herb Simon still owns the team today.

“I was gone only a few days, it wasn’t two weeks.”

Spoelstra said. “So it might be said that I still owe him five or six days.”

Spoelstra promptly returned to the Blazers and the good times lasted in Portland until 1990, when Paul Allen bought the team from Wienberg.

By then, Spoelstra was ready to move on from the Blazers after spending 11 years making a name for himself while he and his wife raised their two children, Monica and Erik. Spoelstra said he could have continued to work under new ownership, but felt the time was right for a change.

Both kids followed their father into the business, with Erik as head coach of the Miami Heat while Monica worked for the Blazers and the Anaheim Ducks. She now runs her own health and wellness company.

“Growing up in an NBA family was unique, but we were also fortunate that it was a healthy relationship with the NBA profession,” Erik Spoelstra said. “I was able to enjoy the pure aspect of the sport and get access behind the scenes. He was able to coach me in the fourth, fifth and sixth grades. I was around the NBA game from an early age, and it wasn’t pushed on me at all.”

Like his own father did with him, Jon Spoelsta took his son to as many games as possible.

“It was a way for us to spend time together and enjoy the game we loved,” Erik said. “At my dad’s core is that he loves the aspect of mentorship, so it tied in well with a young son. He has such a creative mind and growing up with that level of creativity taught me to look at things differently and outside my comfort zone.”

After Jon Spoelstra left the Blazers, he began working for the Denver Nuggets in 1990 at the urging of David Stern, who wanted a veteran marketing executive to help the Nuggets ownership group that had recently bought the team.

It didn’t go well.

Ninety-one days into a five-year contract, the Nuggets — under an ownership group led by Peter Bynoe and Bertram Lee — and Spoelstra agreed to part ways as friction over the state of the team’s business grew.

Undeterred, Spoelstra began consulting with the Nets in 1991 and then accepted a permanent job in 1993 as president and chief operating officer.

The Nets in the early 1990s were

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a beleagured franchise, ranking near the bottom in nearly all business metrics. The team was controlled by seven owners, known as the Secaucus 7, and the team struggled both on the court and in the front office.

Spoelstra, embolded by his success in Portland, took a contrarian approach as he overhauled the business operations. No idea seemed out of reach as he made a serious run at changing the Nets’ name to the Swamp Dragons and famously sent out season-ticket renewal letters with rubber chickens attached to a “Don’t Fowl Out” message to uncommitted season-ticket holders.

He created five-game ticket packages, and turned the marketing focus not on the hometown Nets players, but on the stars from the visiting teams, a move that would be followed by teams for years.

“It was an experimental lab,” Spoelstra said.

“Desperate men do desperate things. That’s when I came up with a five-game plan. I said, you guys

want to sell season tickets? Nobody was wanting to buy season tickets here. We were selling the other guys. We were selling Larry Bird, Magic Johnson.”

Spoelstra became a mentor to a hungry young sales staff that included Scott O’Neil, who is now CEO of Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment; Howie Nuchow, co-head of CAA Sports; Brett Yormark, former Nets CEO and current co-CEO of Roc Nation; and Steve DeLay, owner of the Macon Bacon minor league baseball franchise (see related story).

All worked at the same time at the Nets and Nuchow and DeLay also worked with Spoelstra at Mandalay Baseball Properties.

“We had all these young Turks and I thought, wow, we could really do something, because these guys, they had the energy,” Spoelstra said. “All I had to do is provide them the knowledge and get them wrapped up in the plans that we were going to sell.”

One of the first things Spoelstra did was hire dozens of ticket sellers and set them loose on the market. Soon, revenue began to skyrocket. Over the course of Spoelstra’s tenure at Jon Spoelstra has written books, given speeches and mentored countless the Nets, attendance jumped from executives on his philosophy of selling. Here are his four tenets of marketing: last in the league to 12th and sponexact amount. When we sit down and 1. sorship revenue grew from $400,000 figure it out, it’s always far less than the New as a way of life. to more than $7 million annually. manager thought. This also applies In his book “Marketing Outrageously to teams.

What’s it gonna take to win By 1995, with five years of steady Redux,” Spoelstra said companies must a championship this year? Next year? strive to continually think of new ways success in building the Nets busiThree years from now? I’m not saying it’s to market their product or service. ness, Spoelstra began to chafe at possible, but shouldn’t a team be thinkthe Nets’ Secaucus 7 ownership 2. ing: What’s it gonna take?” group, which had become increasPush the outrageous envelope.

In the same book, Spoelstra details ingly more involved in the team’s 4. how outrageous ideas may lead to Think Pegasus, the Horse business operations. No longer did outrageous results. of Opportunity in Greek Spoelstra have complete control mythology. over the way he would run the 3.

“By subscribing to 1) New as a way What’s it gonna take? team. of life, 2) Pushing the outrageous en“This might be the most important “I could see that, all of a sudden, velope, 3) Asking what’s it gonna take, tenet,” Spoelstra said. “For example, when we’re starting to become sucthis horse with wings will kneel down, managers might say they can’t do cessful, they were concerned of who providing easy access to a wonderful, something because of a lack of budget. was going to get the credit, and that thrilling ride. I’ve got a small statuette I always ask: ‘How much do you need?’ of Pegasus in my home office.” isn’t the model of success,” he said.

The answer is often ‘a lot.’ I’ve never

THE SPOELSTRA TENETS

experienced a manager giving me an

— John Lombardo

CONTINUED ON PAGE 21

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Courtesy of ALSD

n n n n

Son Erik Spoelstra, coach of the Miami Heat, presents his father the 2017 Visionary Award from the Association of Luxury Suite Directors. Both of Spoelstra’s children followed him into the sports business.

SPORTS BUSINESS JOURNAL

Executives recall the many lessons learned JON SPOELSTRA knows how to spot and

develop executive talent. Consider that when he was president of the New Jersey Nets, he hired and then mentored some of today’s top industry executives.

During the mid-1990s, Scott O’Neil, now CEO of Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment; Howie Nuchow, coBY JOHN head of CAA Sports; LOMBARDO Brett Yormark, coCEO of Roc Nation; and Steve DeLay, owner of the Macon Bacon minor league franchise, all worked at the same time under Spoelstra and the Nets.

All point to Spoelstra’s mentorship as a primary reason for their success.

Here are their reflections on Spoelstra’s impact on them and the industry. n HOWIE NUCHOW: “You learned from watching him take risks. When you are 22 or 23, and you have all this ambition, you’d watch him change the rules, and it was empowering. A lot of us found empowerment in his chal-

Cathy Cheney

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 20

“I decided to walk out.”

The departure wasn’t easy.

“You don’t feel great about it, because here’s something that was a major part of your life,” Spoelstra said. “Everybody’s got their own mourning process, and I found out that my mourning process worked best by just leaving the environment.

So from New Jersey I go play golf in Ireland and drink a few Guinness.”

After a year, Spoelstra found his way back to the industry when Mandalay hired him to build up its minor league baseball business. He helped market wildly successful teams such as the Dayton Dragons, which today still own minor league baseball’s sellout record, and the Frisco RoughRiders.

Just like in the NBA, he took bold moves that included putting up rotational and LED boards on outfield fences, selling founding sponsorships, and limiting the number of games in season-tickets packages because Spoelstra didn’t want any tickets to “be left in the dresser drawer” when the season ended, said DeLay, who worked with Spoelstra at Mandalay.

“We turned the Dayton Dragons into the juggernaut that they are,” DeLay said. “We had seven founding sponsors with rotational signs for each one.

Nobody had ever done that.”

Spoelstra spent 12 years at Mandalay and during that time began writ-

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president. We’d get chicken wings and beer, and we’d sit and talk. He’d give us a business book every week. If you didn’t read the book, you had to pay for the meal.” n SCOTT O’NEIL: “He promoted me to sell sponsorships at age 23 after I fixed the copier machine on a Saturday. He took chances, and he was smart and he loved talent and didn’t care what size or shape it came in. He was a Spoelstra made his points in a pair of books he wrote. new-age leader in a business that was beglenging authority, thinking big and ging for it. He had such an impact on encouraging that to other people. By how I saw culture. The first thing he the time you were managing people, did was hire ticket sellers. We had 40; you would encourage that, too. He most teams had five. This was in 1992. used to take us out for dinner. It was There wasn’t much of a sports maramazing to spend time with the team keting team business back then. It was

ing books on marketing, including publishing “Ice to the Eskimos” in 1997 and “Marketing Outrageously” in 2001 that helped cement his reputation within the industry. He founded SRO Partners with DeLay that owns the Macon Bacon baseball team, and sells online sales marketing products.

Spoelstra sold his share in SRO in 2019 to DeLay and is currently working on another book to be self-published and plans to play more than 100 rounds of golf this year, just like he has for the past eight years. Fittingly, he plays golf a bit differently than other members at his Pumpkin Ridge Golf Club.

“I walk, carry my own clubs and I play in two and a half hours,” he said.

Even his golf game is a hallmark of Spoelstra’s style. Confident, independent and a free thinker, he’s always been ready to replace the status quo and do things his own way in a bold style that proved successful. His years in the industry still resonate, and he’s got a long executive tree that has prospered in the industry.

While most of his time is in Portland, he also makes a few trips to his home in Maui. Despite the lure of Hawaii, he limits his wintertime travels in order to coach his grandson in Portland, just like he coached his son Erik.

“I am the original Coach Spo,” Spoelstra said with a smile.

He would get no argument from a generation of sports marketers.

a bunch of young people just getting after it.” n STEVE DELAY: “One of the things that was great was that he’d put pressure on you to deliver, but he’d take you under his wing to help you. One day he was standing next to one of our owners and he called me over and said to go pitch him because he wanted to understand what we do when we call on businesses. I was 23, but it was because he had confidence in us. If he trusted us, he was comfortable putting us on the spot.” n BRETT YORMARK: “Jon was ahead of his time; he was an innovator and a creator. He always went against the grain in a positive way to do things differently. He was a master at selling things to people that they didn’t want to buy. Jon, to some people, could come across as somewhat aloof but when you got to know him and he liked you, there was nothing he wouldn’t do for you. He didn’t stay in one place too long. He would come in and be a change agent and move on.”

CONGRATULATIONS JON SPOELSTRA for being honored as a member of the 11th class of Champions: Pioneers and Innovators in Sports Business.

You are a true trailblazer within the sports community locally and around the globe.

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six-year odyssey, but there are still many miles to go until they get a new home.

BY BRUCE SCHOENFELD “He’s coming,” someone shouts in Spanish. “He’s on his way!”

Across the street from the parking lot where David Beckham’s car is supposed to arrive, workers stand waiting along the curb.

They’ve been hammering and hauling and drilling and welding for six months to get the gravesite of the old Lockhart Stadium ready for Inter Miami CF’s first season in Major League Soccer. Now they’re hoping for a photo, or at least a glimpse.

Nearly all of them are Spanish speakers – this is South Florida, after all. Their futbol loyalties run deep in one direction or another — a Honduran team, a Venezuelan team, maybe Peru’s Alianza or Colombia’s Deportivo. But they all know Beckham.

Beckham, 44, is one of Inter Miami’s principal owners, the club president, the face of the team. He wasn’t quite their generation’s Pele or Maradona in achievement, but he certainly was in fame. He played for three of the most important teams in the world — Manchester United, Real Madrid and AC Milan — and also MLS’s LA Galaxy.

Then he added Paris Saint-Germain as a coda.

He married a Spice Girl, Victoria Adams, and became a style icon whose name is familiar even to those utterly uninterested in soccer. A successful movie, “Bend it Like Beckham,” was made about his unique abilities and the following they engendered. “Until you actually spend time with David, I don’t think you can really realize how popular he is,” says Paul McDonough, Inter Miami’s sporting director.

For at least two seasons, until a new stadium can be built on a site near Miami International Airport or somewhere else, Inter Miami will play in the ripped-down, rebuilt Lockhart Stadium in Fort Lauderdale that has been home to failed soccer teams across three U.S. leagues. Beckham hasn’t seen the site since last May, when he wandered around kicking a ball in brush so overgrown that Jurgen Mainka, the team’s chief business officer, called it “Jurassic Park.” At that time, remaking the stadium on time hardly seemed realistic. “You can’t build this facility, and the training facility, and the parking, and all of that in eight months,” Beckham said he recalls thinking.

On this chilly December morning, Beckham is coming back to take another look, and to thank the laborers who have moved the project along at a remarkable pace. A foreman shouts to them in Spanish to keep working, but it’s fruitless. For eight months, they’ve been pushing faster than anyone thought possible, but now the cranes and power drills are silent. One of the PR people sees them massing and makes a mock

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Inter Miami CF

W

ORD IS SPREADING around the construction site.

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announcement: “A one-day delay in the production schedule because David visited.”

And then a Cadillac SUV pulls in, and Beckham steps out.

Almost as one, everyone holds up phones in front of their faces and they click away.

Beckham is surrounded by handlers, PR people, a videographer. Still, he gives a quiet, almost shy, hello to the Inter Miami employees, sponsors, city officials, and even a few fan representatives who have come to see him. “Good to meet you,” he says to every single one. When he asks, “How are you doing?” he actually seems to want to know.

He walks toward the stadium, but progress is slow. He stops on a patch of mud and meets with representatives of Tudor watches, potential sponsors. They’re immaculate, in Savile Row suits, but somehow Beckham looks even classier in a dark jumper and white sneakers. The Broward County pols step up, one after the next. He has brought worldwide attention to their corner of South Florida, and for that they’ll forgive almost anything, even the fact that the team he owns that plays in Fort Lauderdale is named “Miami.” He stands there and talks with them and takes photos for 15 minutes, 20 minutes, half an hour.

The workers have been told that Beckham will address them in the stadium and then join them for lunch, mounds of Cuban pork and black beans and bread that are being laid out in another Jorge Mas (left) part of the lot. First, though, he’ll tour had the local the 50,000-square-foot training facility connections being built beside it. With a group of that opened about a dozen dignitaries, sponsors and doors, while David Beckham hangers-on, Beckham heads off to get brought the his first look. celebrity status.

Whether Beckham will be able to guide a soccer team to success in a market that already has had three of them fail remains an open question. But the construction workers who are now massed three-deep on the edge of the parking lot aren’t concerned with that. They turn and follow him with their phones, clicking away.

v v v v In its quarter-century of operation, MLS hasn’t yet had a team transcend a local market. There’s no Real Madrid or Bayern Munich or Manchester United in American soccer, no New York Yankees or Dallas Cowboys or Notre Dame. No national team that some fans love, others hate, but everyone cares about.

The closest to that came during Beckham’s 98-game tenure with the Galaxy, from 2007 to 2012. In three of those seasons, his club won either the MLS Cup or the Supporters Shield awarded to the team with the best regular-season record. In one of them, 2011, it won both. Anyone who had an MLS loyalty, and plenty of fans who didn’t, followed how Beckham fared each week — and the Galaxy with him.

Beckham brought the attention of the world to soccer in America, which previously had been considered on the level of, say, the Belgian or Austrian leagues. “He brought a ton of credibility to conversations we were having,” says Court CONTINUED ON PAGE 24

“I thought we would announce it and be up and playing in two years.

I’ve never had so much pushback, not in my playing career or my business life.”

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THE STORY MAKING A FRANCHISE

left and above:

Until the team secures a deal for a permanent stadium, it will play at least two seasons in the rebuilt 19,000-seat Lockhart Stadium in Fort Lauderdale.

As the new season approached, the team had sold 11,000 of 12,000 available season tickets and sold out all of the available 23 suites.

Jeske, now the executive vice president for the United Soccer League, who was doing international marketing for MLS while Beckham was in L.A. Decades before, Pele, Franz Beckenbauer and Giorgio Chinaglia had introduced the world to American soccer while playing for the NASL’s New York Cosmos. But landing Beckham was arguably even more important for a U.S. league because he was still in prime popularity as a player.

Between MLS seasons, Beckham played 29 games on loan at AC Milan. Even after leaving Los Angeles, he finished his career with Paris Saint-Germain.

And because it was the internet era, Beckham’s American adventures were followed in the far corners of the soccer world. “We turned up in Australia, and we got 75,000 fans to watch the LA Galaxy,” Beckham says now, still sounding surprised.

They weren’t there to see the Galaxy, of course.

They were there to see Beckham.

The player contract that Beckham signed with MLS in 2007 included a $25 million option to invest in an expansion franchise five years after his retirement, provided that a series of conditions were met. At the time, the league had 13 teams. Beckham couldn’t take advantage of the option until — and if, as it was hardly a foregone conclusion at the time — the league reached 20. He was allowed to designate an MLS-approved city as the site for his new franchise, but it had to be one that did not have an active expansion effort.

Six years ago this month, Beckham exercised the option. “Miami is a vibrant, diverse community that thrives on the same type of energy that fuels the international appeal of soccer,” he said at the time, explaining why he had selected that market. “I look forward to a dedicated, long-term partnership with this dynamic city and Major League Soccer.”

Beckham’s $25 million option was a bargain by today’s standards, considering that the most recent MLS franchise set to be added, Charlotte, will pay

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the league an expansion fee between $300 million and $325 million.

However, one aspect of Beckham’s agreement also required the construction of a soccer-only facility where the team would play. “And that,” MLS Commissioner Don Garber says now, “took years and years.”

The odyssey that followed would have driven even the most experienced businessmen to despair. “I thought we would announce it and be up and playing in two years,” Beckham says. “I’ve never had so much pushback, not in my playing career or my

from 1972 to 1976. They moved to Fort Lauderdale, where they had several successful seasons as the Strikers, but ended up in Minnesota. MLS tried in Miami with the Fusion, from 1998 to 2001. A new incarnation of the Fusion came later, in the fourthtier NPSL. The executives who ran those clubs seemed to take for granted that the region’s Latino immigrants, who already had an affinity for soccer, would eagerly attend games. In fact, their deep understanding of the sport often worked against South Florida franchises, says Steve Gans, a Boston attorney and former professional player and executive who advises British and American clubs. “There are people who wouldn’t be caught dead going to an MLS game,” Gans says. “They’d rather go to their local social club and watch on closed-circuit rather than go see what they perceived to be an inferior product.”

Today’s product is far different than the MLS at the turn of the last century. Its fans skew younger than those of any other sport.

From the day it was announced, Inter Miami has been eagerly awaited. “We knew that the market was just right and ready,” GarThe team has invested $155 million to rebuild Lockhart Stadium ber says. Still, the stadium situation wasn’t. and to construct a training facility.

“We had days when I felt, ‘OK, it’s going to happen. We’re going to get this piece of business life.” land,’” Beckham says. “And then an hour later, it Negotiations with the political entities that run was gone. That was every day for five years.”

Miami and Miami-Dade County proved difficult. A Eventually, Beckham says, Garber urged him to stadium site was there, and then it wasn’t. Addistart fresh in another city. Perhaps because he was tional financing seemed certain, until it vanished. too competitive to admit defeat, Beckham remained “I was bringing a franchise to a city that had a great adamant. “I said, ‘Absolutely not,’” he says. “‘Miami history of sports teams over the years, but didn’t is the right place and I’m doing this no matter what.’ have a soccer team,” Beckham says. “So I felt that I never thought, ‘This isn’t worth it. There was never I was giving the city something very special. But one moment when I sat back and thought, ‘Why am we just couldn’t get it done.”

I doing this?’”

The stench of failure didn’t help. Miami’s Toros He also understood that Sacramento or Cincinplayed in the old North American Soccer League nati or St. Louis had far less appeal to fans in China,

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Inter Miami CF (4)

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Brazil, Europe and Africa. “I still don’t think there’s another team that has the real opportunity that we have globally,” he says.

For all of his national and international appeal as an athlete and style icon, Beckham didn’t know the local political landscape. What he needed was a partner who did. “Someone who lived and breathed what Miami was about,” he says. “Someone who wasn’t doing it for vanity, but because he wanted to give back to the community.”

That was Jorge Mas.

v v v v Jorge Mas pulls a chair up to a long wooden table in a conference room on the 12th floor of the MasTec Building. The company’s world headquarters, it is located just off Calle Ocho, the center of Cuban

ham was playing there. “I was so impressed by the passion, the intensity,” he says.

In 2017, he tried to buy baseball’s Miami Marlins.

Assessing his bid, the Herald wrote, “In many ways, Jorge Mas embodies the classic Miami business success story.” The team was eventually sold to a group fronted by Derek Jeter, but Mas had emerged from the shadow cast by his father. “That’s how I first learned about him,” Garber says.

Soon after, Garber called to ask Mas if he’d have any interest in partnering with Beckham. Garber didn’t know it, but the soccer boom in America had passed Mas by. He hadn’t seen a game here since the 1970s. Still, he remembered the excitement that Beckham had brought to a full stadium in Madrid.

He’d also always been intrigued by athletes who transcended their sport. Through family connections, he has spent time with Michael Jordan. “I saw the same thing in David,” he says. “And he has more reach. He’s also probably more popular today than when he was playing.

That’s fascinating to me.”

Mas flew to New York for dinner with Beckham’s representatives.

The next morning, before he’d even met Beckham face to face, he told Garber that he was in.

Inter Miami CF

“It’s for the Americas. So if you’re in Argentina, Venezuela, Mexico, you’re thinking, ‘That’s my team. That’s my team in the United States.’” culture and influence everywhere north of Havana.

But it’s also just up the road from the Old Miami bastion of Coral Gables.

Positioned over Mas’ left shoulder is a framed portrait of his father, Jorge Mas Canosa. Born in 1939, Mas Canosa fled to Miami after Cuba’s Communist Revolution and landed a job as a milkman.

He eventually partnered with the owners of a struggling construction company called Iglesias and Torres, anglicizing the name to Church and Tower, and guiding it to success. Eventually, he financed his way to owning it.

That morphed into MasTec, an engineering and construction firm, and at one point the largest Latino-owned business in America. In 1994, Mas succeeded his father as its CEO. Mas Canosa died in 1997, having amassed a net worth of more than $100 million. A year later, MasTec became the first Latino-owned business to report $1 billion in annual revenue. These days, it has a market cap of $5 billion. The Mas family, including Jorge’s brother, Jose, who is the MasTec CEO and a minority owner of Inter Miami, holds 23% of the shares.

Mas Canosa’s life and business career were animated by his hatred of Fidel Castro. In 1981, he co-founded the Cuban American National Foundation. He financed the creation of an anti-Castro propaganda station, Radio Marti. He made enemies.

He boycotted the Miami Herald. But he had connections to everybody. “The Mas family is known,” stresses Tomas Regalado, the former mayor of Miami. “They are known as a family with resources. They have the resources not to fail.”

Now 57, Jorge Mas grew up a Dolphins fan. In 23 years, he says, he missed only a single home game — on Nov. 30, 1981, a Monday night against the Eagles, when he was sick. After his father died, he turned his attention to the NBA’s Heat. He’d bring his kids to games the way his father had taken him to the Orange Bowl to watch the Dolphins. But he’d also spend time in Spain with family friends. They’d take him to see Real Madrid, including once when Beck-

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v v v v

afternoon at the club’s temporary practice site at Barry University. The event would be choreographed, all the way down to whether McDonough would be standing or seated when Mas placed a scarf around Alonso’s neck. Around the table sat Jurgen, Estafania, Paloma, Rafi, Jacky, Adriana and Michael – a Mexican, two Venezuelans, a Colombian, a Spaniard, a Honduran, a Cuban-American. “In order to be the most inclusive team, we have to reflect what the community looks like,” explained Mainka.

Yet for Mas, who has the cut-and-paste title of lead managing owner and an undisclosed equity interest in the team itself, the target audience isn’t just Greater Miami. Like Beckham, his ambitions are greater than that. “It’s for the Americas,” Mas says. “So if you’re in Argentina, Venezuela, Mexico, you’re thinking, ‘That’s my team. That’s my team in the United States.’”

It’s no accident that Alonso is a Uruguayan who played in Spain for Atletico Madrid and Valencia, among other teams. He won the Concacaf Champions League, the Americas’ version of the UEFA competition of the same name, with the Mexican club Pachuca. Then he did it again with Monterrey.

If there’s a Hispanic box he doesn’t check, nobody has found it. “He understands our region,” said Niki Budalic, Inter Miami’s director of soccer operations, who formerly served as the general manager of Orlando City and works under McDonough. “He understands the kinds of players we are pursuing.”

Inter Miami has been linked with some of the sport’s biggest names, including Manchester City’s Sergio Aguero and Real Madrid’s Gareth Bale. “We have a lot of conversations,” Budalic says. “When you have David Beckham as president, I think it’s normal that people have conversations with him.”

But the players that Budalic means are emerging standouts from South and Central America, the kind of young talent that enabled Atlanta United to win an MLS championship in its second season.

“In global football, people still consider MLS more of a retirement league,” Budalic said. “We’re not interested in that.”

It’s a different strategy than that used by previous South Florida clubs, which pursued big names

Unique among teams in North America’s five major leagues, Inter Miami’s primary logo is in Spanish.

“Club Internacional de Futbol,” it reads, arcing around the word Miami and renderings of two great white herons. “We made a decision to make it Spanish as an homage to the overwhelming Hispanic population of South Florida,” Mas explains.

One afternoon just before the Super Bowl, Mike Ridley, the vice president of branding and marketing, stood outside a conference room in Inter Miami’s open-plan office holding an image of a work in progress: a street-level billboard that would be unveiled the following day at the corner of NW 26th Street and CONTINUED ON PAGE 26 6th Avenue in Miami’s trendy Wynwood neighborhood. Ridley was hoping to jump-start awareness of Inter Miami with some guer rilla marketing.

“2020 is a great year for football,” the sign read, except that “football” was crossed out and “futbol” inked in. Ridley showed the image to Mas, who had stepped off the elevator wearing an untucked shirt and shorts. “That’s awesome,” Mas enthused.

Moments later, the conference room filled with the club’s media and marketing team. They were gathering to plan a press conference introducing Inter Miami’s manager, Diego Alonso, which would be held the next A marketing campaign around the city tells fans that “2020 is a great year for futbol.”

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who could appeal to a discerning fan base. But when the face of the franchise is an international celebrity, you can assume that he’ll be enough of a draw, at least until the team nurtures its own stars.

“Look at the halo effect of having him as part of the ownership group,” says Mainka, the chief business officer. “We haven’t even kicked a ball. Yet we’re already No. 3 in the MLS in Instagram followers.

People know our brand globally. They knew from day one that Miami had a team. They didn’t know the coach, or the players, but they knew. The whole world was following along because of David.”

That global reach is apparent in reports that Inter Miami has signed a roughly $235 million sponsorship deal with the Qatar Foundation that will put the Qatar name on the team’s stadium and kit. No deal had been finalized by press time.

Beckham has been involved in nearly every aspect of the organization. The idea of a separate boot nook at the training facility, for example, was his, born from too many years of suffering through locker rooms that smelled too much like … well, locker rooms. “Even when I was still playing, I made a conscious effort to be involved in every single detail of every single deal or partnership that I had,” he says. “I’m a details person.”

Now that he isn’t playing, he’s even more involved.

“I have a different kind of experience,” he says.

“Being at big clubs, being around big clubs, seeing how big clubs are run. Because that’s how I see us.”

As he jets from continent to continent pursuing his various business interests, he takes an active role in recruiting players. “He’s well positioned to pull off some things that other people wouldn’t,” says Gans. “Convincing a top player that American soccer is not a wasteland, for example. He’s going to be credible.”

Beckham also can help create strategic alliances with top European clubs. He played for four of the biggest and left them all on good terms. “I always feel that there are potential partnerships to be made,” he says.

His sense of style, so essential to his own brand-

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ing, has manifest itself in his decisive opinions about the logo, the uniforms, and even the visual aspects of the temporary stadium. From the start, he was adamant that Inter Miami’s primary color should be pink. The choice has received mixed reviews from soccer fans, but it’s one that definitively represents Miami. If anyone can pull it off, the feeling seems to be, it’s David Beckham.

v v v v Unlike France’s Thierry Henry, who played in MLS late in his career and is now managing MLS’s Montreal franchise, Beckham will watch his team’s games in the owner’s box, wearing a suit (but probably not a tie), hidden from the fans. He’ll have little, if any, impact in how the team plays game to game. All of South Florida seems to be rooting for him to succeed. But has any fan ever bought a ticket to a game because of who owns the team?

Heading into the season, fans had bought 11,000 of the 12,000 season tickets the team offered. Singlegame ticket sales began last week. In addition, the team had sold out all of the 23 suites available and 95% of seats in the premium Midfield Club.

Soon enough, Inter Miami will need to offer fans something more. That includes both a competitive team and a more compelling venue. The club’s $155 million investment in the 19,000-seat stadium (and training facility) on the Lockhart site, financed in part by a $50 million loan from Goldman Sachs, is nearly $200 million less than what the soccer-specific facility in Nashville will cost, and about half that of Sacramento’s. But there’s a reason for that: The revamped Lockhart stadium is meant to house Inter Miami for only two seasons.

After that, it will be used for a USL team, perhaps a women’s team, and smaller international friendlies. Inter Miami will move to a privately funded stadium, designed by the renowned Miami firm Arquitectonica and HOK, a plan that still only exists on paper. “The team belongs in Miami,” Mas says. “The league wants a team that not only is called Miami, but actually plays there.”

So do Mas and Beckham. They need space for fullsized suites and ancillary revenue streams. They also want to create a shopping and entertainment district around the venue. “The sheer opportunities and economics of building something here will allow us to make investments in our team, our players, our player development,” Mas says, adding that the cost of the entire project will approach $1 billion. “That can happen here in Miami, next to Miami International Airport. It can’t happen in Fort Lauderdale.”

But can it happen in Miami? Regalado, the former mayor, isn’t so sure. “The politics have become an issue,” he says. “You have a government now in the city of Miami that is divided and combative. I can’t tell you that it’s ever going to happen.”

Mas proposes a 99-year lease on land where a golf course now stands, atop contaminated soil from an old municipal incinerator. Details of the environmental cleanup, concerns about traffic congestion so close to the airport, and replacement of the designated park space that comes with the loss of the golf course have pushed back debate among Miami’s city commissioners until May, and probably into the summer. Even if the project passes immediately, which is hardly guaranteed, the timeline would already seem to have been disrupted. “If the stadium does ever happen,” Regalado says, “it will definitely take longer than the two years they are planning.”

But those are worries for another time. Later this month, Beckham will be in New York for MLS media day. Then he’ll fly to Los Angeles for the club’s first game, against LAFC on March 1. He’s booked on “Good Morning America” and the “Today” show.

The Guardian, BBC, Sky Sports and the Times of London have visited or are planning visits. So are outlets from Spain, Germany, and beyond.

He has devoted six years in the service of this project, so he’s willing to do what’s needed to get the payoff. That comes on March 14, the date of Inter Miami’s first home game. (The opponent, fittingly, will be the Galaxy.) But Beckham also knows that instant success, on or off the field, is far from certain. “Everything I enter into, I look at with a long-term perspective,” he says. “I never go into any deal thinking it’s going to be a two-year deal.”

With this particular deal, his timeline is a lifetime, or longer.

“I want to walk into that stadium with my kids,” he says, “and tell them, ‘This is what daddy did for you.’”

Bruce Schoenfeld is a writer based in Colorado.

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People flocked to a 2014 news conference where Beckham announced plans for the team. top: Since then, hearing rooms have been packed as local governments discuss stadium plans and listen to those who are challenging the development.

LET’S HAVE A BALL As MLS embarks on its 25th season, the executives who laid the foundation for the most successful pro soccer league in U.S. history look back at how it all began. BY MARK J. BURNS

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FIFA awarded the 1994 World Cup to the U.S. in 1988 on the condition that the U.S. Soccer Federation launch a top-tier domestic pro soccer league shortly thereafter. Among the problems in doing so: Nobody in the U.S. Soccer Federation knew exactly how to pull that off.

RANDY BERNSTEIN, SVP of corporate marketing, MLS: Alan [Rothenberg] was the ringleader. He built this credibility with FIFA in the United States and countries around the world. He had this credibility that he pulled off the greatest World Cup in history. No one expected that to happen.

ALAN ROTHENBERG, founder, MLS: I never intended to be the organizer involved in the league. I thought that if we were successful, that there’d be more entrepreneurs who would step up and decide it was time to start a league.

SUNIL GULATI, deputy commissioner, MLS: In a sense, starting without any

history would have been easier because there was no history of failures in terms of financial failures. The World Cup gave people some rationale for thinking this could be successful.

JONATHAN KRAFT, founding investor/ co-owner, New England Revolution: When you saw the energy coming out of the World Cup in ’94, I had never seen anything like that.

MARLA MESSING, SVP, MLS: It was a little bit harder to get my arms around this small 10-team league and having visions of that turning into the NFL or the NBA one day.

ALEXI LALAS, defender, New England Revolution: The U.S. soccer landscape was littered with failed or fly-by-night endeavors. It became very apparent that this was not that because of the people in the room.

BERNSTEIN: There was no question we were all riding this wave of soccer, even though as I recall, we all took pay cuts. It was a no brainer.

INSIDE THIS SECTION PAGE 38

Charting the league’s attendance and media growth PAGE 40

The top 25 people and moments in MLS history.

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Commissioner Don Garber on next steps for MLS. PAGE 46

Where will MLS be 25 years from now?

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Stephen Dunn/ALLSPORT

F EVERYTHING had gone according to its initial plan, Major League Soccer would have celebrated its 25th season of existence one year ago. Alas, a slog to secure $50 million in investor money coupled with a quick turnaround from the 1994 World Cup and a slower sales cycle, among other early-day struggles, forced the league to delay its launch from 1995 to 1996.

The holdup would further temper anticipation in the United States after the country hosted the most lucrative global soccer event in history, and cast doubt as to whether the league would survive or whether it would join the list of previous failed attempts — like the NASL — as a sustainable professional soccer league in North America.

Yet despite nearly going bankrupt within its first five years, MLS not only survived, it has thrived.

When its new season kicks off this weekend, the league will feature 26 teams — with four more on the way in the next two years — and franchise fees have now topped $300 million. A quarter century after that rocky beginning, those who were present at the creation look back at the league’s humble origins. (NOTE: All titles are from 1995 or ’96.)

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MLS ultimately needed 10 commitments of $5 million each to fund the league from the outset, with the intention of launching in 1995.

That quickly proved impossible given the quick timeline coming off the World Cup and the tough road finding willing investors. In November 1994, the league decided to delay the launch to 1996.

MESSING: To be a sports team owner at $5 million and at such a low price, we thought that would be attractive.

It turns out that wasn’t low enough at the time.

HUNT: I could tell [my dad, Lamar Hunt] was pretty interested from the beginning, but all of his financial advisers were telling him, “Please don’t do it.”

PAYNE: The Spanos family with the Chargers spent a long time looking at it. The Fertitta family looked at it.

HUNT: My dad was one of the first to commit along with Stuart Subotnick [who co-owned the New York/New Jersey MetroStars].

ROTHENBERG: We were scrambling to get those last investor dollars. We could have done without it, but it would have been skinnier than we wanted.

PAYNE: There was a real possibility that this wasn’t going to happen.

That’s the direction we were going in at this meeting. I said to Stuart Subotnick, “You’ve said that you would be interested in a second team in the future. Would you be willing to buy an option for that team now so that you could confirm the price?” To Stuart’s credit, he thought about it for 30

seconds and said “Yes.” And he said, “And [AEG founder/LA Galaxy owner Phil Anschutz] will, too.”

Phil wasn’t at the meeting, and he didn’t have any representatives there. He agreed to buy an option up front. That got us to the $50 million we needed.

KRAFT: Phil was on his airplane with Bob Dole, who was running for president. Phil called in to tell everyone how excited he was to be partners with everyone. Without Phil, there is no Major League Soccer today.

ROTHENBERG: It was like a voice from heaven up above.

KRAFT: The operating documents for the league hadn’t been written yet when we committed.

GULATI: We had seven operator investors plus [international advertising and public relations agency] Dentsu.

HUNT: Three teams were initially operated by the league, and in hindsight, that was a horrible mistake.

ABBOTT: Dentsu was a small investor. They had been a commercial partner of FIFA and had seen the success of soccer in the U.S. They came to us early wanting to be involved in the league. They helped bring in some early sponsors and some other Japanese companies.

BERNSTEIN: Thank goodness [the start] was eventually pushed to ’96.

ABBOTT: When we decided in ’94 to move the launch to ’96 from ’95, we didn’t want to immediately announce it, so we could figure out a way to make it a positive announcement. A sports columnist at USA Today called me and said, “We’ve heard this rumor that the league is going to launch in 1996 and not 1995.” I said it was going to launch in 1995.

The next day, Alan was asked at some conference about the rumor. He said, “No, it’s definitely going to launch in 1996.” USA Today called back and said, “Maybe we misheard you.” I said, “No, I think we were still finalizing it.” At the end of the year, USA Today ran a “Top 10 stupidest statements of 1994” and I was No. 5. My wife framed that for me.

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FAR LEFT:

MLS kicked off its first season with a match between D.C. United and the San Jose Clash at Spartan Stadium on April 6, 1996.

BOTTOM LEFT: Deputy Commissioner Sunil Gulati once had meetings in four countries in a single day to help build the new league.

BOTTOM RIGHT: Mexico’s Jorge Campos (center, flanked by Marc Rapaport and Mark Abbott) gave the league an early jolt of star power.

Otto Greule Jr./ALLSPORT (Gulati); Al Bello/ALLSPORT

The two initial guiding principles for the upstart sports property were the single-entity league model and soccer-specific stadiums, the latter of which league officials realized was going to be a tougher sell for prospective investors.

KEVIN PAYNE, founding investor/coowner/president/general manager, D.C. United: You want to be competitive as hell on the field, but fundamentally, the league is only as strong as its weakest team.

MARK ABBOTT, SVP, business affairs, MLS: The single entity was Alan’s idea.

It had been talked about in professional sports for a while. The World League of American Football, which was the predecessor to NFL Europe, had a variance to that structure.

CLARK HUNT, founding investor/coowner, Kansas City Wiz/Columbus Crew: The original prospectus that Mark Abbott and Alan Rothenberg put together called for the construction of small soccer stadiums for all of the teams.

The capital commitment was supposed to be $20 million. Well, at the end of the day, no one wanted to put up $20 million.

PAYNE: I agreed with the logic behind [Alan’s] early plan that would require each investor to build a soccer-specific stadium, but I doubted that anybody would go for that at the beginning of the league. I was right.

ROTHENBERG: When we started showing the business plan to investors, they said, “Whoa, whoa. It’s risky starting a pro league, particularly a pro soccer league. If it doesn’t work out, I can shut the doors and walk away and whatever I’ve lost, I’ve lost. There’s no continuing drag. If I build a stadium, the league is unsuccessful and then the primary tenant is gone, then I’m stuck with this white elephant.” Wow, that’s a tall order.

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While investor funding didn’t officially close until November 1995, the wheels were simultaneously in motion around other business components, namely securing a television deal, stadium commitments and leaguewide sponsorships along with selling tickets and elevating interest in the local markets.

ROTHENBERG: We got a threatening letter from Major League Baseball [when we first had the name selected].

I basically said, “Please sue us.” I would love to see the headlines “Major League Baseball fears Major League Soccer.” I laughed it off. I was like, “You got be kidding!’ You don’t own the words ‘major league.’” It was stupid. It was probably early ’95.

BERNSTEIN: The type of sponsorship dollars we were asking had never been asked for in soccer in the U.S. There was minor league soccer, failed soccer.

There was shrapnel all over the sides of the road. We were asking for sevenfigure numbers per year and maybe eight figures over the term with our founding partners.

ROTHENBERG: How do you get a national sponsor in a category? Ford’s going to do a national deal and then each team could do a local deal with Chrysler, GM or Toyota? That would cut into the value of the league package and make it difficult for the league to negotiate.

BERNSTEIN: One of our strongest attributes was our strong launch out of the gate with over $100 million in sponsorship contracts [for the first four years]. That was largely built on this infrastructure and the league having control over the team rights.

ROTHENBERG: We were pretty gutsy.

We purposefully demanded that companies had to sign multiyear contracts.

BERNSTEIN: Our first year, our toplevel sponsors were AT&T, Bandai, Bic, Budweiser, Fuji Film, Honda, Mastercard, Pepsi and Snickers. They all had a jersey.

KRAFT: We had Bic on our jersey, the old pen and razor company. It’s ironic given the relationship we would go on to have with Gillette.

BERNSTEIN: It was breathtaking. This all made waves in the market. You never had a league office that was announcing basically week after week after week Fortune 500 companies investing in the long term of a professional sports league, let alone soccer.

HUNT: In those days, you weren’t doing TV deals where someone paid you.

You were doing deals just to get yourself on TV, which from a brand-build-

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ing standpoint, everybody felt that was very important. Typically in those arrangements, teams were actually paying to be on TV. KRAFT: Every game in Revolution history has been on television. I believe we’re the only team who can say that.

We’ve always had an over-the-air cable television deal that had every regularseason or playoff game on it. We just felt that you weren’t relevant and meaningful if you weren’t on television.

ABBOTT: ESPN came to us before the World Cup. They said they had an interest in being the broadcast partner for the league. We did reach an agreement with them that had games on ABC. Most of the games were on ESPN and ESPN2, but the 1996 championship game was on ABC. HUNT: It was extremely difficult selling tickets. Both of our franchises were playing in stadiums that were too big. We were playing at Arrowhead in Kansas City and then at Ohio State in Columbus.

ROTHENBERG: Ticket sales had to be driven locally. The incentive for teams to keep the lion’s share of ticket revenue, that was agreed to.

HUNT: As part of our commitment to go to Columbus, the mayor had gone out and secured season-ticket commitments ahead of the franchise arriving. The Crew had something like 10,000 season-ticket commitments.

Unfortunately, not all 10,000 turned into season-ticket holders. The drive the mayor led helped us a lot there.

Alexi Lalas, one of the most recognizable American players of his era, found “incredible romance” in the league’s early efforts at reaching a skeptical audience.

Signing players from all over the world also happened on a parallel track with the business side throughout 1995 and 1996.

GULATI: Tab Ramos was the first player we signed in the league. That’s before we had all of the financing closed. I met him on New Year’s Day 1995 in Mexico. He was trying to go to a Mexcian team, Tigres. We actually ended up loaning him to that team even though we didn’t have a contract for him.

TAB RAMOS, midfielder, New York/New Jersey MetroStars: When I signed with the league, there were no team names. They weren’t even sure of all of the cities.

GULATI: With some of the North American players abroad, we couldn’t necessarily match the salaries that they were getting abroad. If they had a great pioneering spirit and wanted to participate in building this, we couldn’t compensate them at that same level, but we were able to give them some preference and say in where they wanted to play.

In Tab’s case, he wanted to play in New Jersey.

That’s where he grew up and had family. We were able to place him there.

RAMOS: I felt like by me signing with the league, that would encourage other players to sign. It was a big risk for me.

GULATI: [Star Mexican goalkeeper] Jorge Campos, who was our first international player, was playing in two leagues at the same time — which probably was a little bit outside what the rules should’ve allowed at the time — for a few games.

MESSING: We were like the little engine that could.

We wanted Jorge Campos to come join the league.

We went down to San Diego because Mexico was playing a friendly there. We stood in the bowels of the stadium. When the team was ready to go onto the field, Sunil literally grabs Campos and says, “We need to talk to you about joining MLS.” We bum-rushed this guy.

BERNSTEIN: Budweiser wanted to really tap into a Hispanic market. Once Sunil signed Jorge Campos, and he was allocated to Los Angeles, that helped secure Budweiser as a sponsor.

GULATI: It was Mark, Phil, Alan and I. I had never met Phil before. We were sitting around. Phil looked around, pointed at me and said, “What does he do?”

Alan said, “He’s the player guy.” Phil said, “You get me that Balboa kid.” [Colorado Rapids defender] Marcelo Balboa had that phenomenal bicycle kick, which Phil had seen in the World Cup. Sure enough, when we got Marcelo, we put him in Colorado. He got his wish.

HUNT: The process of how some of those players were allocated, to this day, I’m not sure how that happened. I remember D.C. United being on the winning side of that allocation process.

GULATI: [New England Revolution defender Alexi Lalas’] agent, Richard Motzkin, and I both went to a game in Florence. After that, he, Richard and I drove to Milan. This was the crazy part. The next morning we flew to Boston through London. We wanted Alexi to play the next day in a U.S. Cup game in Boston for the national team. We got in the back of a police cruiser in Boston, got to Foxboro and he played in the second half of that game. He played in two games in 24 hours on different continents.

LALAS: [Boston] endeared itself to me immediately. The music scene. The Guinness. I made my deci-

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IN -DEPTH MLS PREVIEW

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sion based on the availability and the taste of the Guinness poured in the great city of Boston.

GULATI: I actually remember being in the press box and announcing it to multiple people, especially Ridge Mahoney of Soccer America. I remember saying, “We got the big guy.”

LALAS: That was a helluva 24 hours.

KRAFT: Alexi might have been as big a star as any in that first year.

GULATI: I was once in four countries one day. I started in Germany and had a meeting with Andy Brehme, who scored the game-winning goal for Germany in the 1990 World Cup. Flew from there to meet with Roberto Donadoni’s agent at the Milan airport.

Roberto signed. Flew from there to Heathrow where I met with Bobby Houghton, who would become the coach of Colorado. Then flew to New York for a meeting with Alan Rothenberg and Hank Steinbrecher. That was literally on the same day.

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After his goal in the 87th minute gave the Clash a 1-0 win and prevented a scoreless tie in MLS’s first game, Gulati had only one thing to say: “Thank God for Eric Wynalda.”

The majority of the MLS inner circle believed selling an Americanized version of soccer was critical to the league’s initial success — but they soon realized the opposite was actually true. An “MLS Unveiled” event in October 1995 proved to be the league’s coming-out party, at least publicly, further magnifying its brand issues.

MESSING: With MLS, it wasn’t stated but it was like, “How do we sell this product to the American public?” We looked for other models in sports and sporting events that were successful, and they had an American feel to them.

PAYNE: Some of it was being driven by people in the league office. Some of the apparel partners believed we needed to upend the status quo. A lot of people in the league office used to sneer at me as I was the soccer guy.

In their view, that was a pejorative term. I thought that was kind of praiseworthy given we were a soccer league.

KRAFT: This wasn’t something that could have some gimmicky American version. We had to replicate it. It’s one thing to push things on VAR and be a leader. It’s another to have no ties and have shootouts or a clock that counts down to 0:00 or to potentially widen and lengthen the goals by a foot

vertically and horizontally.

PAYNE: The league actually wrote a letter to FIFA and said they were willing to be an experimental league and try new ideas, most of which were bad ideas. People don’t even like to talk about them today.

ROTHENBERG: Heck, one idea that was thrown out was a playing surface behind the goal, like in hockey.

PAYNE: The league, most of the other teams and most of our commercial partners felt we needed to sell some juiced up American version of soccer.

We felt exactly the opposite — that people wanted to experience an authentic version of soccer that they were familiar with overseas.

MESSING: We did “MLS Unveiled” at the Hollywood Palladium. It was a stage show for our jerseys and brand.

There was music. We had decked out the Palladium. We were trying to make a lot of noise.

PAYNE: You look at other clubs, the San Jose Clash, the Tampa Bay Mutiny, with a logo that looked like a mutant bat. To this day, no one has been able to explain to me how it pertains to the Mutiny.

MESSING: We had Nike, Reebok, Puma and Adidas. They created the names, logos, the kits, all of that. They were the ultimate experts.

BERNSTEIN: The logos of the teams were chastised by many people. And the names. Even the trophy. Our group had to do the first trophy. People said, “Oh gosh, the trophy was too heavy.

It was too small.” It’s like, we had a budget. It certainly wasn’t enough to buy a beautiful Tiffany trophy. Our budget was more like,what can you get for $1,000? Not $25,000.

KRAFT: I remember that people thought the Revolution was the best name and the best logo.

PAYNE: If you look at our uniform, logo, our colors, everything about us was very traditional. Our first marketing slogan was “The Tradition Begins.”

LALAS: We are forever apologizing for the Americanization of the sport. It irks me to no end because we have nothing to apologize for. While some of those names were outside the box, relative to traditional soccer, we were starting from scratch. We were doing things differently. I find incredible romance in that, even in the failures.

MESSING: The L.A. Times, they hammered us. That’s my hometown paper.

I took that one personally.

The first match occurred on April 6, 1996, with the San Jose Clash beating D.C. United 1-0 before a sellout crowd of 31,683 at Spartan Stadium in San Jose. The first season had its share of memorable moments, but the league’s path to sustainability was a long way from being assured.

MESSING: We launched the league really with a lot of fanfare even though it was in the smallest stadium that the World Cup had been in up in San Jose.

GULATI: It was 0-0 [between D.C. and San Jose]. I was sitting next to Lamar Hunt, and it was late in the game. We did not want to have a 0-0 game for our first one. I turned to Lamar and I asked, “What do you think of the game?” He goes, “There’s too much parity.”

ROTHENBERG: I love to tell [then San Jose Clash forward] Eric Wynalda that he was the biggest pain in the ass when he was on the national team, but I’ll love him forever for two goals. One was when we played Switzerland in the World Cup in Detroit. He kicked the goal to give us a tie. And then we’re in San Jose, it’s a 0-0 game. People are going to say, “The MLS is so dull. Blah, blah, blah.” Then he kicked in a beautiful goal. Those were two of the most important goals for soccer.

GULATI: My comment at the time that was published was “Thank God for Eric Wynalda.”

MESSING: There was relief and euphoria with all of us around that goal.

GULATI: It was our nightmare scenario of a low-scoring game, which was a concern. “Americans won’t accept this, there aren’t a lot of goals. It’s like watching the grass grow.” All of that.

ABBOTT: At the opening game for the Galaxy, we had a very famous Mexican player Jorge Campos, who wore these flamboyant jerseys. He played for the Mexican national team in the World Cup. He was quite well known in Mexico and the U.S. There was a huge roar for him at the game. The next day, he and his agent came into the office. They said he really wanted to stay, but he wanted a Ferrari. I was tasked with going to buy a Ferrari for him at the Beverly Hills Ferrari. I went there to try and negotiate. They said, “You don’t really negotiate these things.” They threw in the AM/FM radio for free.

LALAS: We were playing two games on a West Coast swing. We would play in Los Angeles and then maybe San Jose.

I remember being ejected in a game [which carried an automatic one-game suspension] and the commissioner suspending the suspension that I would have had in order for me to play in San CONTINUED ON PAGE 34

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Jose. There were business interests.

It was Wild West back then.

GULATI: The [MLS Cup] was quite an incredible game. We had an absolute downpour at Gillette Stadium for a couple of days. The game ends. The Galaxy loses to D.C. United in overtime on a header goal. D.C. started off horrendously and came back. It was a mess.

This was at the old Foxboro Stadium.

It was practically flooded. Upstairs they

were trying to figure out who was the MVP. Apparently, they had not received all of the press votes. I’m on the field with a walkie talkie. They’re asking, “Who’s the MVP? Who’s the MVP?” I don’t remember the specifics. I remember saying “It’s Etcheverry. It’s Etcheverry.” They gave it to [D.C. forward Marco] Etcheverry, except the press had been listening in on it. They all asked, “So, who actually decided the MVP?” RAMOS: To see the excitement of the

league and the huge crowds in L.A., that I recall was something that really caught my attention. I was like “Wow, I think I made the right decision in coming back.”

KRAFT: We started with such great attendances that we probably all then took for granted how much work it was going to take to have staying power. We crushed it at the L.A. Coliseum. We crushed it at RFK. MESSING: Season 2 was when people

sort of sobered up, and that was when the longer slog of building the league took place.

KRAFT: In retrospect, other than saying “Hey, we’re going to field soccer teams and here are some basic rules around roster spots with Americans vs. foreign players,” we clearly hadn’t thought it through well enough. That’s not criticizing anybody. It’s a huge undertaking.

We were all lulled to sleep with the success we had the first part of that year.

MARKETCAST SPORTS POLL The following are results from the MarketCast Sports Poll taken in January. The poll includes more than 2,000 senior-level sports industry professionals spanning pro and college sports, brands and agencies.

Major League Soccer plays its 25th season in 2020. What grade would you give the league’s first 24 seasons?

A 18% B C 27% D 3% F 1%

51%

D.C. Unitted won the S Cup and first MLS he less-thanwith it, th ophy. fancy tro

In another 25 years, how popular will MLS be in North America?

One of the four most popular sports leagues 64% Not among the four most popular sports leagues 34% Not sure / No response 1% Which MLS expansion team would you most want to work for?

Austin FC 50% Charlotte franchise 28% St. Louis franchise 9% Sacramento Republic FC 3% Not sure / No response 10% Source: MarketCast in conjunction with Sports Business Journal. MarketCast provides research and analytics to fuel fandom for brands and properties in sports, media & entertainment. Visit marketcast.com.

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That success wasn’t enough to guarantee the league’s future. Financial struggles plagued MLS in the early 2000s, as the Miami Fusion and Tampa Bay Mutiny closed their doors by 2002, nearly forcing the league to cease operations following the contraction from 12 to 10 teams. Thanks to a small group of owners, however, the league stayed afloat, with the three groups collectively owning the league’s teams. MLS still had years of brand criticism to endure, but it was on its way to becoming a sustainable sports and entertainment property.

PAYNE: The league could easily have folded in 2001. Just because we collectively agreed on decisions didn’t necessarily mean we were making the right decisions at the time. We overspent on players. We blew the initial commitments and initial capital call pretty quickly. There was a lot of stress on the league in the latter part of ’99, 2000 and 2001.

HUNT: [September 11, 2001] really put an exclamation point on the struggles that we were having at the end of 2001.

The league came very close to going out of business. I don’t know how many meetings I attended with bankruptcy attorneys where we talked about putting the league out of business. My younger brother, [now FC Dallas President Dan Hunt], had been working in New York and after 9/11, he came back to Dallas. He had started to work for the club. This was late 2001. Literally on his first day, we’re in the Chiefs offices on a call. Phil Anschutz basically said, “That’s it. I’m done.” That effectively meant the league was out of business. My brother is fond of telling people that I told him on his first day working for us, “You’ve been hired and fired on the same day.”

The Hunt and Kraft families, along with Anschutz, eventually bought all of the league’s teams, saving it from extinction in 2002. That bought MLS enough time to find its niche and, more importantly, the media and sponsorship deals that kept the league afloat through its second decade. Starting in 2004, MLS began expanding again — with escalating franchise fees reaching the $325 million David Tepper paid late last year for a team in Charlotte — and it has gone from 16 teams in the 2010 season to 26 for 2020.

LALAS: I would be lying if I told you that myself or others involved would envision the 2020 version of Major League Soccer. It’s beyond my expectation. It warms the cockles of my red-headed heart in terms of the growth and progress of Major League Soccer.

KRAFT: At owners meetings, you walk into the conference room now, and there’s a huge conference facility. There’s probably 70 to 80 people sitting at the table. For the first decade of the league, it took place at the league office in New York City in just the conference room. Everyone could sit around the conference table; it was 12 people. There’s 70 some odd people sitting at the table now, and there’s probably another 50 to 70 staff sitting around the room.

BERNSTEIN: There was an internal bond among all of us from the early startup days. When I sit down with [any of them], we all have a bond that not only goes back to the World Cup, but making Major League Soccer a reality.

GULATI: I was always very optimistic that the league would be successful and part of the professional sports landscape in this country. I always believed that. It’s fair to say it’s exceeded what I thought it would be at that point in time.

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The most popular sports league 1%

THE WORLD’S GREATEST

BELONGS IN ONE OF THE WORLD’S MOST BELOVED DESTINATIONS

200,000+

HOTEL ROOMS, TIMESHARES

&À6!#!4)/.À2%.4!,3

Orlando proudly welcomed 75 million visitors last year. We’re ready to welcome the À&)&!À7ORLDÀ#UP™. (/34).'À7/2,$˹#,!33À3/##%2 Orlando is no stranger to championing greatness, having hosted the 1994 FIFA World Cup™, 1996 Olympic soccer matches, 1998 MLS All-Star Game, 2016 Copa America Centenario, 2017 NCAA Women’s College Cup, 2019 MLS All-Star Game and multiple Men’s and Women’s US National Team and International Friendly matches.

A REGION THAT’S READY TO RALLY In Orlando, our passion for soccer stretches well beyond the pitch. Our super region’s collective resources include hotel rooms, meeting spaces, entertainment venues, training sites, and fan fest locations spread across four counties, plus a coalition of 300 regional leaders committed to forging epic athlete and fan experiences.

7%À$/-).!4%À4(%À4/52)3-À#/-0%4)4)/. %ASILYÀACCESSIBLEÀAIRPORTS À7ORLD FAMOUSÀTHEMEÀPARKS À!BUNDANTÀACCOMMODATIONS ÀFROMÀA˯ORDABLEÀTOÀLUXURY À &AVORABLEÀWEATHERÀ ÀDAYSÀAÀYEAR À"EACHESÀONÀBOTHÀCOASTS À)TœSÀNOÀWONDERÀMILLIONSÀOFÀVISITORSÀ˱OCKÀTOÀ Orlando from all over the globe, making us one of the top tourist destinations in the world—and America’s most visited destination.

7(%2%À3/##%2À$2%!-3À#/-%À425% Orlando City and Orlando Pride support everything from youth soccer clubs to hosting international championship events. Their continuous investment into our community, including MLS, NWSL and USL1 CLUBS ÀAÀBRAND NEWÀSOCCER SPECI˰CÀDOWNTOWNÀSTADIUM ÀTWOÀTRAININGÀGROUNDSÀANDÀMULTIPLEÀMINI PITCHESÀ stretching three counties wide, keeps our fan base growing and the excitement spreading across our region.

Learn how Greater Orlando is gearing up for the À&)&!À7ORLDÀ#UPb

Orlando2026.com

IN -DEPTH MLS PREVIEW MLS ATTENDANCE HISTORY

TOTAL NO. TEAMS: 10

12

10

12 13 14 15 16 18

19

20 22 23 24

9m

8.70m

NO. TEAMS: 10

RECENT MLS TV DEALS

AVERAGE

12

10

12 13 14 15 16 18

19

20 22 23 24

23k

22 2.1k

RIGHT HOLDERS:

ESPN, Fox TERMS: 8 years, $600M FINAL SEASON: 2022 RIGHT HOLDERS:

8m

21.3 3k

21k

TUDN (Univision) TERMS: 8 years, $120M FINAL SEASON: 2022 RIGHT HOLDERS:

7m

ESPN/ABC TERMS: 8 years, $64M FINAL SEASON: 2014

19k 6m

RIGHT HOLDERS: Univision TERMS: 8 years, $79.4M FINAL SEASON: 2014

17.4k 5m

RIGHT HOLDERS: 17k

NBC/Versus LENGTH: 3 years, $30M FINAL SEASON: 2014

4m

RIGHT HOLDERS:

Fox Soccer Channel/ Fox Sports Espanol TERMS: 5 years, $11M FINAL SEASON: 2011

15k 3m

2.79m 2.14m

13.8k

2m

13k ’96

‘98

‘00

‘02

‘04

‘06

‘08

‘10

‘12

‘14

‘16

‘18

’96

‘98

‘00

‘02

‘04

‘06

‘08

‘10

‘12

‘14

‘16

‘18

Note: From 1998 to 2006, MLS had multiple revenuesharing agreements with ABC/ESPN.

REDEFINING

WHAT’S POSSIBLE PROVIDING INSIGHTS AND ANALYTICS

to improve our customer’s business and elevate the fan experience

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IN -DEPTH MLS PREVIEW

SILVER STANDARD Looking back at the 25 people and moments that have shaped Major League Soccer and taken it from a fledgling startup to a thriving enterprise poised for decades of future success. BY MARK J. BURNS

ALAN ROTHENBERG: Before serving as the lead architect and founder of Major League Soccer, Rothenberg was the chief executive and chairman of the 1994 FIFA World Cup. With the momentum of arguably the most successful global soccer event in history, Rothenberg, now 80, and a handful of colleagues embarked on creating a sustainable professional soccer league following years of failure in the United States.

Twenty-five years later, the league’s single-entity structure — an idea originally concocted by Rothenberg — remains as MLS reaches 26 clubs in 2020, with four more teams coming aboard over the next two seasons.

MARK ABBOTT (SVP, business affairs), RANDY BERNSTEIN (SVP, corporate marketing), SUNIL GULATI (deputy commissioner), MARLA MESSING (SVP): Together with MLS founder and Chairman Alan Rothenberg, these four individuals are remembered as some of the key figures responsible for jump-starting Major League Soccer on the heels of the 1994 FIFA World Cup and returning division one pro soccer to the U.S. TAB RAMOS: Now the coach of the Houston Dynamo, Ramos was the first player signed by Major League Soccer and Deputy Commissioner Sunil Gulati in 1995, even before league financing had officially closed.

For part of the 1994-95 campaign and the entire 1995-96 season, MLS loaned Ramos, who previously played for La Liga club Real Betis, to Tigres of Liga MX before he joined the New York/New Jersey MetroStars once the league officially began play in 1996. The three-time MLS All-Star played seven seasons with the MetroStars before retiring in 2002.

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JORGE CAMPOS: A former Mexican national team goalkeeper, Campos was the first international player signed by MLS ahead of the league’s debut in 1996. He spent three seasons in the league between the LA Galaxy and Chicago Fire. Campos’ résumé includes an unorthodox doubleheader match performance on June 16, 1996, at the Rose Bowl. He played for his country against the U.S. before suiting up for the Galaxy versus the Tampa Bay Mutiny.

APRIL 6, 1996: The inaugural MLS match occurred between the host San Jose Clash and D.C. United at Spartan Stadium. With a 0-0 tie late in the waning moments, league and team personnel grew worried that an eventual shootout would cause MLS critics to cast further doubt on the upstart pro sports league. San Jose forward Eric Wynalda finally scored in the 87th minute in front of more than 31,000 fans. The lone goal resulted in thenDeputy Commissioner Sunil Gulati stating postgame to the media, “Thank God for Eric Wynalda.”

OCTOBER 20, 1996: The inaugural MLS Cup occurred at Foxboro Stadium in a driving rainstorm. D.C. United defeated the LA Galaxy 3-2 following a twogoal comeback, which culminated in an overtime winner by defender Eddie Pope.

FRASER VS. MAJOR LEAGUE SOCCER: In 1996, a group of eight MLS players filed a lawsuit against the league, investors and the U.S. Soccer Federation, stating that its current single-entity model violated antitrust law because it lessened players’ values and effectively created a monopoly around top-tier pro soccer in the U.S. Six years later, the 1st Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the league, saying that the MLS didn’t restrict competition for players across the global soccer market.

DON GARBER: In 1999, Garber took over as MLS commissioner following a 15-year tenure at the NFL. During his leadership, MLS has more than doubled in size, going from 10 clubs to 26, waded through financial and league uncertainty in the early 2000s and spearheaded development of numerous soccer-specific stadiums, from Audi Field in D.C. and Allianz Field in Minneapolis to Children’s Mercy Park in Kansas City and Exploria Stadium in Orlando.

LAMAR HUNT: One of the original MLS owners, Hunt financed the league’s first soccer-specific stadium for the Columbus Crew in 1999. The groundbreaking moment, which moved the Crew from the home of Ohio State football to a more favorable alternative in Mapfre

Stadium, paved the way for other sport-specific venues coming online in future years. The new stadium served as an example for other clubs looking to mirror the transition to a more intimate and fan-friendly environment.

PHIL ANSCHUTZ: Like Lamar Hunt, billionaire businessman and AEG owner Anschutz was one of the founding fathers and investors in Major League Soccer and eventually owned at one time six teams in the early 2000s. Those closely tied to MLS during the startup phase have candidly said that without Anschutz alone, there wouldn’t be a Major League Soccer today.

LANDON DONOVAN: In 2001, the then-19-year-old joined the San Jose Earthquakes on loan from Bayer Leverkusen of the Bundesliga and became the face of American soccer.

Donovan, who is now the co-owner and manager of the USL’s San Diego Loyal, is arguably the best American-born player ever. He holds numerous league records, including MLS Cup titles (6), assists (136) and consecutive All-Star appearances (14), along with being second alltime in goals (145). His name adorns the league MVP award, and he won the inaugural Best MLS Player award at the 2006 ESPYs. BIG BUCKS TO THE RESCUE: MLS experienced some of its darkest days in the winter of 2001, when the league appeared headed for bankruptcy. Yet Lamar Hunt, investor and operator with Hunt Sports Group, rallied fellow investors Phil Anschutz and Robert and Jonathan Kraft to rescue the fledgling league, which folded two clubs. Collectively, the three ownership groups kept MLS afloat with 10 teams before eventually stabilizing in the mid-2000s and moving teams toward soccerspecific venues.

CONTINUED ON PAGE 42

Tab Ramos was the first player signed in MLS history.

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1994 FIFA WORLD CUP: The U.S. received the global event with the condition that the U.S. Soccer Federation form a top-tier pro soccer league following the demise of the North American Soccer League in the 1980s. The Cup served as the catalyst for the launch of Major League Soccer in 1996.

IN -DEPTH MLS PREVIEW games to a work stoppage. The new deal expanded free-agent eligibility to 24 years old and five years of MLS experience, an increasing number of guaranteed mandatory charter flights and included a revenue share component of the league’s future media rights deal.

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 40

FREDDY ADU: The international phenom from Ghana was just 14 when he went to D.C. United with the first pick in the 2004 MLS SuperDraft, becoming the youngest player in U.S. team sports history when he debuted that season. He arrived in the MLS that season to much fanfare and over-the-top expectations, with some referring to him as another Pelé. That never happened, but Adu did make two MLS All-Star teams and has carved out a long career that has stretched from the U.S. to France, Brazil and Serbia, among other countries.

DAVID BECKHAM: The longtime English football star, one of the world’s most famous people, gave MLS a celebrity component it had never experienced when he arrived in 2007 with the LA Galaxy on loan from Real Madrid. He quickly became Major League Soccer’s top drawing card, with big names like Tom Cruise, Eva Longoria and Arnold Schwarzenegger attending his first match. Beckham’s global appeal shined a spotlight on the decade-old league, but he still had plenty to offer on the pitch as well, helping the Galaxy win two MLS Cups during his six-year stint. The 44-year-old Beckham is back in the league as co-owner of Inter Miami CF, which begins play this year at a

LABOR PEACE: MLS and its union signed the first collectivebargaining agreement on Dec. 1, 2004, which ensured minimum salary increases, fully paid health insurance and a 401(k) plan for players, among other assurances.

The two sides recently came to an agreement on their fourth CBA, signing a five-year deal through 2024, and the league has never lost

new stadium and practice facility in Fort Lauderdale before moving to new 25,000-seat Miami Freedom Park in 2022.

INTERNATIONAL INFLUENCE: From David Beckham and Zlatan Ibrahimovic to Thierry Henry, Wayne Rooney and David Villa, among others, there’s been no shortage in recent years of international soccer stars launching their 2.0 career in MLS. Even in a brief two-year stint with the LA Galaxy, Ibrahimovic’s impact was hard to miss, both on the pitch — where he scored 52 goals in 56 caps — and in the media through his candid demeanor. While some clubs are now arguably more focused on signing overseas players still in their prime, the stream of international talent to MLS will certainly continue in the future.

The arrival of teenage phenom Freddy Adu with D.C. United in 2004 made history for MLS.

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THE SOUND OF VICTORY: The Sounders’ inaugural MLS match at then Qwest Field on March 19, 2009, against the New York Red Bulls, started to redefine the meaning of home-field advantage in Major League Soccer and set a new benchmark for fan culture across the league. More than 32,000 supporters cheered on the club en route to a 3-0 victory and three subsequent shutout wins. In their first season, the Sounders sold out all of their regular-season and playoff matches, and since then, have consistently boasted one of the league’s biggest supporters sections.

A MEGA TV DEAL: In 2014, MLS signed an eight-year broadcast deal with partners ESPN, Univision and Fox for English and Spanishlanguage rights to league and U.S. Soccer matches. It’s been the most lucrative and expansive league media deal, which included ESPN and Fox paying together $75 million annually while Univison’s fee averaged $15 million annually.

L.A. STAR POWER: The first version of El Tráfico, the rivalry between the Galaxy and LAFC, was the most thrilling match to date. On March 31, 2018, the Galaxy stormed back from a 3-0 deficit to best the then-expansion club at StubHub Center. Former international Galaxy star Zlatan Ibrahimovic

netted two goals to defeat LAFC, which was playing just its third regular-season game ever.

STREAMING INNOVATION: In recent years, MLS clubs haven’t been afraid to experiment with livestreaming matches via unconventional means. The Seattle Sounders FC, along with LAFC, have seen contests air on YouTube TV. Most recently, D.C. United brokered a streaming pact with Austin-based distributor FloSports that pulled its matches off of television and exclusively put them on the platform for up to four years. However, technical difficulties, fan outcry and other issues plagued the club, forcing it to sever the agreement less than a year into it.

CELEBRITY OWNERSHIP: No longer do owners just hail from the sports business world like in the early days of MLS. Billionaire hedge fund manager and Carolina Panthers owner David Tepper and Meg Whitman, former CEO of eBay and Hewlett-Packard and now CEO of technology startup Quibi, both formally joined the league with Charlotte and Cincinnati, respectively, in the past three months. Celebrities from entertainment and other sports have also bought in. Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson and his wife, singer Ciara, joined the Sounders FC ownership group, while Houston Rockets star James Harden is a minority owner in the Houston Dynamo and actor Matthew McConaughey owns a stake in Austin FC. RECORD PRICE TAG: David Tepper paid a now MLSrecord $325 million in 2019 to secure a winning bid in order to bring an expansion club to Charlotte next year. The figure is 50% more than the $200 million paid by ownership groups of St. Louis and Sacramento, respectively, both of which are scheduled to begin MLS play in 2022.

It more than doubled the $150 million fee that ownership groups paid for FC Cincinnati and Nashville SC in 2019 and 2020.

Arthur Blank’s Atlanta United has been one of the league’s biggest success stories.

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AGGRESSIVE EXPANSION: MLS has experienced a rapid rise in its number of clubs over the past decade, and the arrivals of Austin, Nashville, Cincinnati, Charlotte, Miami, Sacramento and St. Louis by the 2022 season will put the league at 30, on par with the rest of the major U.S. pro sports leagues.

ATLANTA ARRIVES: The city has embraced Atlanta United FC in record numbers since the club’s arrival in MLS three years ago, setting league records for singlematch attendance (72,548, Aug. 3, 2019), season-average attendance (53,002 in 2018) and single playoff match (73,019, Dec. 8, 2018). The team rewarded those supporters by winning the MLS Cup in its second year of existence.

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IN -DEPTH MLS PREVIEW Soccer their league of choice, and that’s something we’re going to shout very loud throughout the years.

Where does the league stand in terms of additional expansion in the short-term?

There’s no doubt we are very focused on onboarding teams, 25 and 26 through 30, over the next few years.

We’ve never had this many teams join the league and this many stadiums coming online in such a short period of time, so we’re focused on ensuring that Nashville, Miami, Austin, Charlotte, St. Louis and Sacramento hit the ground running and deliver for their fans and hometowns. Onboarding seven stadiums is a monumental effort.

Right now, we’re focused on 30. I’ve said many, many times, the landscape of professional soccer continues to evolve and develop in the years to come but right now, we have no plans Don Garber says he has long aspired for to go beyond MLS to be “a league 30 teams. for a new America.”

N

O PERSON has been more influential in the growth

and stability of Major League Soccer than Commissioner Don Garber. Now in his 21st year atop the league, Garber has reason to smile (two new teams this year and four more in the next two years, plus a recently agreed to CBA that assures labor peace through 2024) and major items that need to be addressed (most notably a new media rights deal to replace the league’s international and national deals that expire in 2022).

Sports Business Journal staff writer Mark J. Burns recently spoke with Garber by phone from his New York offices, where he had just returned from a trip to Nashville to meet with team and local officials to shore up support for a future stadium for one of this year’s expansion teams. Among the topics discussed: the possibility of further expansion beyond 30 clubs, the influence of international players, and what the league will look like 25 years from now.

How do you see the overall health of the league heading into 2020 with 26 clubs and more stadiums coming aboard?

We have always said we wanted MLS to be a league for a new America. It was part of our founding brand position that as the country was changing, that demographic shifts were happening that were having more and more Hispanics coming into our country, establishing roots and becoming more influential. Young people that have grown up with the game that are now decision makers, running families and running businesses can now use their influence to get behind the sport they grew up playing and now they love. It’s all at a time when the world is shrinking through overall globalization but certainly through digital connections, and now the sport has grown in ways that have allowed us to ride the wave of

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opportunity. The mark is set this year with the celebration of our 25th season. Clearly, we continue to be a growth story. We will be a growth story for several years to come.

Younger generations have been gravitating toward Major League Soccer and the sport as a whole ...

The thing that drives [millennials’] influence is the fact that they’re young. They’re growing up with different influences in their lives. While they might have played soccer as a kid and now understand it more, they might have engaged with the game because they watched the World Cup or watched the women’s national team compete or they might have engaged through the FIFA [video] game, which remains the most popular game. All of those different touchpoints have created just more ubiquity for the sport of soccer. As the league continues to provide an opportunity for people in local markets to connect with a club in a great stadium that’s centrally located, that will provide them with great memories for years to come, all of that will certainly drive more popularity and drive more value.

Beyond expansion in 2020, what are you most excited about, either on the field or business-wise?

We’ve signed a ton of international players, including four top Mexican players. This is proving this storyline that attacking players in their prime are continuing to make Major League

Where will MLS be in the broader major U.S. pro sports ecosystem in 2045?

People are constantly telling me their view as to where Major League Soccer will be in the landscape of the major leagues and what’s going to happen with other pro sports leagues. I spend no time at all thinking about that. I believe that as it relates specifically to MLS, we will be for sure more relevant and more influential in the landscape here in North America but also the broader global landscape in years to come. A lot of that has to do with the rising popularity of the sport of soccer, the economic value and opportunity that the sport is providing to all stakeholders, and the fact that our demographics are continuing to shift. With so many social factors affecting pro sports overall, there’s no doubt in my mind that soccer will be more popular in the years to come, and certainly Major League Soccer is the driver of the sport here in our country.

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Garber On Growth

Are you currently speaking with any prospective expansion cities, including Las Vegas and Phoenix?

We continue to engage with any city or investor that’s interested in Major League Soccer. Certainly, we’ve been in discussions with Phoenix and Las Vegas. Right now, both markets know we’ve slowed down for the foreseeable future.

IN -DEPTH MLS PREVIEW

MLS at 50: Bold bets on league’s future BRAD SIMS has little doubt that when Major League

Soccer turns 50 in 2045, it’ll be among America’s top three major pro sports leagues in both popularity and relevance, joining the NBA and the NFL. But why stop there?

BY MARK J. “It would not shock me if soccer BURNS was the No. 1 sport in the U.S. in 2045,” said Sims, who is the CEO of NYCFC. “The kids who are now 5, 10, 12 years old, they’re playing soccer, they’re watching soccer and consuming soccer as their No. 1 sport. Twenty-five years from now, they’re then having kids and they have all of the purchasing power.”

Added John Walker, president of business operations for the Houston Dynamo: “In this country where there’s multiple pro sports teams in a city, it’s very likely that in 2045, that the MLS club will be in the top two or three clubs in that market.”

The increase in youth soccer participation in the U.S. and the country’s changing demographics are certainly cause for such optimism. Total outdoor youth soccer participation from 2018 to 2019 increased 4.5% while those involved in indoor rose 2%, according to findings in the 2020 Sport & Fitness Industry Association Topline Report. A subset of casual soccer participants saw increases of 6.7% and 5.3%, respectively, during the same period.

Jeff Berding, president of FC Cincinnati, pointed out that the average MLS fan is “10 and 20 years younger than the average fan” across the other major U.S. pro sports leagues.

There is also is the knowledge that a new national television contract following the 2022 season will distribute more money to MLS clubs than ever before; the current deal with Fox Sports, ESPN and Univision pays roughly $90 million annually.

“What’s going to be important for the next 25-year window is we need the TV money to increase,” said FC Dallas President Dan Hunt.

The 2026 World Cup, to be played in North America, will be another pivotal moment in the future of MLS. Interest in the league will likely be “top-of-mind with most people,” Houston’s Walker said, giving a global platform to some of the league’s best players.

Then there’s the strengthening relationship between Mexico’s Liga MX and the MLS, most notably with the 2020 All-Star Game scheduled for Los Angeles this July between top players from both leagues.

Ten players from Liga MX signed with MLS during January’s transfer window, including Mexican superstar Javier “Chicharito” Hernández, who joined the LA Galaxy.

“You know we’ve made a big step when the stars of Liga MX are willing at a high rate to start coming to MLS,” Hunt said. “Before it was really a trickle at best.”

As for further expansion, Walker called for being measured in any acceleration.

“The commissioner has stated about taking a deep breath,” he said, “but I cannot imagine that deep breath lasting 25 years.”

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BUILDING BOOM MLS’s expansion means a slew of new soccer-specific stadiums are on the way. Here’s what is coming soon.

NAME (YEAR OPENING)

TEAM

COST

CAPACITY

Inter Miami CF Stadium (2020)*

Inter Miami CF

$60m

18,000

New Columbus Crew Stadium (2021)

Columbus Crew

$300m

20,000

Austin FC Stadium (2021) Austin FC

$242m

20,500

West End Stadium (2021)

FC Cincinnati

$200m

25,500-26,500

Miami Freedom Park (2022)

Inter Miami

$966m

25,000

Nashville Fairgrounds Stadium (2022)

Nashville SC

$275m

27,500-30,000

Railyards Stadium (2022)

Sacramento Republic FC

$300m

20,100

St. Louis MLS Stadium (2022)

St. Louis expansion team

$250m

22,500

* The club will play there until its proposed stadium opens in 2022.

Source: SBJ research

MLS CLUB JERSEY SPONSORS TEAM

GAME JERSEY SPONSOR (PARTNER SINCE); PREVIOUS SPONSOR(S)

Atlanta United

American Family Insurance (2017)

Austin FC*

Yeti (2020)

Charlotte FC*

Ally (2020)

Chicago Fire

Motorola (2019); (Valspar 2016-18; Quaker Oats 2012-2015; Best Buy 2008-2010)

Colorado Rapids

Transamerica (2015); Ciao Telecom (2014)

Columbus Crew

N/A; (Acura 2017-19); Barbasol (2012-2016)

D.C. United

Leidos (2014); Volkswagen (2008-2013)

FC Cincinnati

Mercy Health (2018)

FC Dallas

AdvoCare (2012)

Houston Dynamo

MD Anderson Cancer Center (2019); BHP Billiton (2014-2017); Amigo Energy (2007-10); Greenstar Recycling (2011-12)

Inter Miami CF*

TBD

LA Galaxy

Herbalife (2006)

LAFC

YouTube TV (2018)

Minnesota United FC

Target (2017)

Montreal Impact

BMO (2012)

Nashville SC

Renasant Bank (2020)

New England Revolution

United Healthcare (2011)

New York Red Bulls

Red Bull (2006)

NYCFC

Etihad Airways (2011)

Orlando City SC

Orlando Health (2011)

Philadelphia Union

Home: Bimbo (2011); Away: Artesano (2020)

Portland Timbers

Alaska Airlines (2010)

Real Salt Lake

LifeVantage (2014); XanGo (2007-2013)

Sacramento Republic FC*

UC Davis Health (2020)

San Jose Earthquakes

Intermedia (2020); Sutter Health (2016-18)

Seattle Sounders

Zulily (2019): Xbox (2009-18)

Sporting KC

Ivy Funds (2013)

St. Louis FC*

N/A

Toronto FC

BMO (2007)

Vancouver Whitecaps

Bell Canada (2011)

* Expansion team that has yet to play in MLS.

Source: SBJ research

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SPORTS BUSINESS JOURNAL

SBJ Social Climbers ZLATAN IBRAHIMOVIĆ maintained his overall No. 1 spot in MLS’s social media rankings and kit sponsors made up four of the 10 brands that gained the most

estimated media value, according to data from MVPindex measured Feb. 5, 2019, to Feb. 4, 2020. MVPindex is a social media valuation for the sports and entertainment industries, offering real-time analytics on more than 90,000 athletes, entertainers, teams, leagues and brands. Additionally, Bastian Schweinsteiger, who retired at the end of the season after three seasons with the Chicago Fire, generated $22.2 million for brands that appeared in his posts, replacing Ibrahimovic as the player who delivered the most media value.

jona2santos

mls player rankings Rank (change*) Player (2019 team) 1 (-)

Zlatan Ibrahimović (LAFC*)

2 (-)

Bastian Schweinsteiger (Chicago Fire)

3 (-)

Jonathan dos Santos (LA Galaxy)

4 (-)

Jozy Altidore (Toronto FC)

5 (c 4)

Josef Martinez (Atlanta United)

Rank (change*) Team 1 (-)

LA Galaxy

2 (-)

Atlanta United

3 (-)

Seattle Sounders

4 ( c 1)

LAFC

5 ( c 4)

Austin

Roman Torres (Seattle Sounders*)

7 (d3)

New York City

7 (c 3)

Justin Meram (Atlanta United*)

8 ( c 4)

Vancouver Whitecaps

8 (d3)

Sebastian Lletget (LA Galaxy)

9 (d2)

Orlando City

6 (-)

9 (d1) 10 (c 7) 11 ( c 11) 12 ( c 11) 13t (c 2) 13t (d7)

Kendall Waston (FC Cincinnati) Ronald Matarrita (NYC FC) Jonathan Mensah (Columbus Crew) Amro Tarek (New York Red Bulls) Dax McCarty (Chicago Fire* ) Dom Dwyer (Orlando City)

Brands that received the most media value

mls team rankings

6 (-)

Sporting Kansas City

11 (-)

Portland Timbers

13 (c 5) 14 (c 5) 15 (-)

Brand

1

Adidas*

2

Audi*

3

New York Red Bulls San Jose Earthquakes Philadelphia Union

jona2santos Somos Campeones!!!! Viva México Cabrones!!!!!!!!!!

Change in followers players Rank Team

16 (d2)

Houston Dynamo

17 (d1)

D.C. United

Impressions

Brand Value

17,985,711

1,283,702,123

$4,544,643

2,548

3,505,871

484,480,602

$3,526,143

Herbalife

906

4,843,319

290,873,980

$2,055,245

4

AT&T*

967

768,335

179,438,509

$1,827,108

5

Target*

687

821,454

166,726,603

$1,685,560

6

Heineken*

1,496

1,505,575

190,272,690

$1,241,798

7

Red Bull

2,514

1,672,841

220,366,026

$1,071,980

8

American Family Insurance

557

2,335,678

115,997,125

$914,479

9

Bank of Montreal

1,453

1,723,348

128,923,152

$881,924

10

Advocare

1,348

919,186

105,073,851

$641,018

* Official MLS partner Top brands in MLS by social media brand value, February 5, 2019 - February 4, 2020, from posts by league, teams, and players.

Followers gained (total followers)

1

Zlatan Ibrahimović

5,963,152 (69,039,589)

2

Myer Bevan

733,205 (738,352)

3

Carlos Vela

505,820 (2,378,803)

4

Jonathan dos Santos

442,055 (4,395,414)

5

Anibal Godoy

268,691 (583,341)

Montreal Impact

Posts Engagements 12,392

Toronto

10 (-)

12 (d4)

Rank

Most valuable partnerships Rank

P artnership

Posts Engagements

Impressions

Brand Value

1

MLS-Audi

1,034

1,921,064

381,132,875

$3,165,246

2

MLS-Adidas

1,054

2,214,324

407,584,858

$1,800,328

3

MLS-Target

425

692,465

157,567,815

$1,638,197

4

MLS-AT&T

439

265,439

140,838,409

$1,624,296

15 (d2)

Carlos Vela (LAFC)

18 (d1)

Chicago Fire

5

LA Galaxy-Herbalife

667

3,386,411

200,159,590

$1,404,100

16 (c 5)

Alejandro Bedoya (Philadelphia Union)

19 (c 4)

Minnesota United

6

MLS-Heineken

357

809,477

137,033,985

$932,984

20 (c 6)

Inter Miami

7

386

1,852,804

81,916,517

$677,296

21 (d8)

Real Salt Lake

Atlanta UnitedAmerican Family Insurance

22 (-)

FC Cincinnati

Rank Team

8

Zlatan IbrahimovićSamsung

21

226,891

46,767,675

$559,163

23 ( c 1)

New England Revolution

1

LA Galaxy

9

12

928,838

63,809,311

$453,299

24 (d3)

Columbus Crew

2

Inter Miami

Bastian SchweinsteigerT-Mobile

25 (d5)

FC Dallas

3

LAFC

314,879 (1,168,867)

10

25

1,466,305

106,209,140

$426,979

26 ( c 1)

Nashville

4

Atlanta United

205,832 (1,775,190)

Bastian SchweinsteigerAdidas

27 (d2)

Colorado Rapids

5

New York City FC

101,647 (3,296,646)

17 (c 12)

18 (c 1) 19 (d7)

20 (c 17)

DaMarcus Beasley (Houston Dynamo*) Gyasi Zardes (Columbus Crew) Raul Ruidiaz (Seattle Sounders) Zack Steffen (Fortuna Düsseldorf)

* No longer with the club.

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Change in followers teams Followers gained (total followers) 540,522 (4,560,171) 401,839 (723,552)

Top partnerships in MLS by social media brand value, February 5, 2019 - February 4, 2020, from posts by league, teams, and players.

F E B R U A R Y 24 - M A R C H , 2 02 0

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OPINION

H

UGGING IS STILL in vogue, and we need more of it in sports. It’s a gesture that has meaning for both the organization and the customer.

In 2005, I wrote an SBJ column about showing love to your fan base and coined the term “communicaring.” Prior to writing that column, I had read “Hug Your Customers” by Connecticut-based clothier Jack Sutton Mitchell and had spent a day Impact with him at his store in Greenwich. Reading that book and

BY BILL SUTTON spending time with Mitchell had a significant impact regarding my thinking on customer retention and satisfaction. Since that time, Mitchell revised the book and authored two others. I had a pleasant surprise when Jack reached out to me recently after meeting one of my former students. He sent me a package with the revised copy of “Hug Your Customers” along with “Hug Your People” and “Selling the Hug Your Customers Way.” While I hope you pick up these fantastic books to read and share with your organization, I thought I would offer a few of the most salient points to get you thinking and hopefully implementing a communicaring approach with your prospects and customers.

Use technology and data to stay personal. Do you know as much about your customers as you do about your inventory? Mitchell speaks of having a game

plan for every customer. In the retail case, this would involve knowing what clothing they have, knowing where the holes are in their wardrobe, favorite color, preferred brands and styles, and so forth. In sport organizations, the ideal game plan would include: n Names and birthdays and other special dates of family members (or account holders). n Favorite player. n Concessions preference and spending history. n Merchandise preference and purchasing history. n Attendance patterns. n Ticket purchasing and location history. n Sharing/reselling behavior. n Parking/tailgating/transportation preferences.

The more data the better, but make sure that while you are able to aggregate it to assess trends and patterns, that you realize it is just as important to personalize the data to enhance your knowledge and the depth of your relationship with your customers.

Does your online approach offer a warm wireless hug? Mitchell relies on his sales associates as his primary relationship builders with all clients, including online inquiries from out-of-market prospects. It is his belief that for the sales associates to perform at their peak they must always be in the loop. Mitchell sums it up very simply: “Our online purchasing system mirrors our hugging culture, allowing our customers to communicate not with a machine, but with a real person who knows them and cares about them (or in the case of a new pros-

Mitchell’s books offer a “communicaring” approach to winning customers and keeping them happy.

There will always be a need for sellers because … the prospect needs to be asked, educated, convinced and appreciated.

Bill Sutton (billsuttonandassociates@gmail.com) is director emeritus of the Vinik Graduate Sport Business Program at USF, dean of Elevate Academy and principal of Bill Sutton & Associates. Follow him on Twitter @Sutton_ImpactU.

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Sharon Sutton

The sales ‘hug’ is crucial to lifting team, customers

pect, wants to build a relationship). Machines can do a lot of things, but they can’t care, so we are betting our business model on the fact that people will always prefer people.” This may raise some eyebrows among you dear readers, and maybe you will seek to modify it, but as for me, I have always espoused a belief that there will always be a need for sellers because in the majority of cases the prospect needs to be asked, educated, convinced and appreciated. People can do that far more effectively, and with lifetime value implications.

Winning and success is a process — you must plan, prepare and practice. These are Mitchell’s 3 P’s, and the way he explains them makes a lot of sense for anyone working in the sport industry. Plan: It’s a foundation of basic knowledge you possess.

It is the script and sales materials you have been given augmented by observation and experience. Prepare: Taking that knowledge and creating a game plan or playbook that will assist you in calling your plays.

Practice: Working to perfect your craft and using the art and science of data to begin actual play. As Mitchell so accurately points out, “you don’t try out plays for the first time during a big game.”

Winning or being successful requires a defined mindset and also a passion to win. I was chuckling to myself as I read Mitchell’s sport analogy. Saturdays in his stores are referred to as “Game Days” — you need to be at your best on Saturdays. Saturdays in December are even busier, as those days are referred to as the “Playoffs” and the Saturdays preceding Hanukkah and Christmas — the absolute busiest days — are his “Super Bowl.”

“What about 2030?” is a chapter in the revised “Hug Your Customers.” I have to admit I read it first, despite it being the final chapter. It deals with something that is present in every organization: complacency. Or as author Jim Collins put it: When good is good enough, it becomes the enemy of excellence. For example, if a salesperson (or an organization) is rated a 10 in 2019, unless they continue to improve and innovate, they may decline to a 6 by 2025 and perhaps a 3 by 2030. Why? Because the competition and other innovators will improve and find new ways to attract attention and interest and alter purchasing behavior. Everyone must continue to raise their personal bar, which then lifts the organization to new heights.

The beauty of Mitchell’s message is its simplicity. Demonstrate to your customers that they are valued and appreciated by figuring out a “hug” that is personally meaningful to them. Reading Mitchell will offer you a plethora of ideas — but then it is up to you.

SPORTS BUSINESS JOURNAL

FACES & PLACES

PREMIER PARTNERS SUIT UP

FROM THE NBA ALL-STAR GAME above:

NBA Commissioner Adam Silver spent some time on the TNT “NBA Tip-Off show presented

by Autotrader,” with Shaquille O’Neal, Ernie Johnson, Kenny Smith and Charles Barkley on Feb. 16.

At the 62nd annual Daytona 500 on Feb.16, NASCAR’s four Premier Partners toasted the 2020 season and were gifted custom-designed helmets honoring their positions in the sport. From left: Peter Intermaggio, SVP, marketing communications, Comcast; Jim Dinkins, president, Coca-Cola North America; Melissa Halicy, marketing director, Geico; and Ricardo Marques, Group VP marketing, core and value brands, Anheuser-Busch.

CHICAGO GREATS below left: Celebrating the NBA All-Star Game’s visit to Chicago, basketball superstars (from left) Dwyane Wade, Mark Aguirre, Candace Parker, Isiah Thomas, Cappie Pondexter and Tim Hardaway swapped jerseys after taping “Open Court: Chicago Greats,” hosted by Matt Winer (center). The roundtable show premiered on Feb. 16, on NBA TV.

SHOWTIME WITH KEVIN GARNETT below right: Showtime Basketball announced on Feb. 15 — coinciding with NBA All-Star Weekend — at The Ace Hotel in Chicago that the network will premiere a new basketball documentary based on the life, career and legacy of NBA champion and 15-time All-Star Kevin Garnett. From left: Garnett; Stephen Espinoza, president, sports and event programming, Showtime; Brian Dailey, SVP, digital and content strategy, Showtime, and host and event moderator Kristine Leahy.

Turner Sports (2); Esther Lin / Showtime; NASCAR; Philadelphia Eagles; Christy Seaver (3)

WEDDING JOURNEY The Philadelphia Eagles’ latest Eagles Entertainment original project, “Sincerely, Patience,” is a three-part docu-series that follows the wedding journey of a Philadelphia couple who fell in love amid the tragedy of the Pulse nightclub shooting in 2016. Patience Carter, a survivor of the shooting, wrote to the Eagles with a single wish — to exchange wedding vows at Lincoln Financial Field with her fiancé, Alex Murray, whose sister was killed at the nightclub. At the screening of the series: Murray; Jen Kavanagh, Eagles SVP of marketing and media; and Carter.

NATIONAL SPORTS FORUM left:

Please submit photos for review of industry conferences, parties, product launches and openings showcasing the people and personalities at the event. Include the event date, location, names/titles of those featured along with credit information. The photo specifications are as follows: 300dpi, tiff, jpeg or eps color images. Submit digital phaotos for review at: photo@ sportsbusinessjournal.com or send color prints to: Faces & Places, c/o Street & Smith’s SportsBusiness Journal, 120 W. Morehead St., Suite 310, Charlotte, NC 28202.

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Sports Business Journal Publisher and Executive Editor Abraham Madkour conducted a “fireside chat” with Atlanta Falcons and United owner Arthur Blank during Day 2 of the National Sports Forum on Feb. 10. middle: Brent Schoeb, San Francisco 49ers chief revenue officer, accepts the Business of Diversity in Sports and Entertainment Redlick Trailblazer Award from Ohio University’s Christina Wright (left) and the PGA Tour’s Laura Waters-Brown. right: SMU students Erik Severson and Brendan Barry (center), joined by CocaCola’s Aaron Kail and Amanda Windsor White, accepted the Case Cup award. SMU team members Parker Richey and El Yellin are not pictured.

F E B R U A R Y 24 - M A R C H , 2 02 0

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CLOSING SHOT Wade Boggs warms up before the final exhibition game prior to the Devil Rays’ first season at Tropicana Field.

Before The Dome Became A Home Thirty years ago, a new stadium opened in St. Petersburg, Fla., with eyes on an MLB franchise. After having a devil of a time landing an existing club, Tropicana Field finally welcomed an expansion team in 1998.

EVEN BEFORE Tropicana Field opened

30 years ago — March 3, 1990, to be exact — it was already prone to hardluck moments.

The current home of the Tampa Bay Rays was, in essence, built on spec.

Despite those perilous circumstances, two years before the domed stadium opened, civic leaders thought they had pretty much solved their big-league vacancy problems.

What gave them that idea? Wellreceived overtures to relocate the Chicago White Sox, who, at the time, resided in Major League Baseball’s oldest stadium. Sox owners Eddie Einhorn and Jerry Reinsdorf delivered an ultimatum to Illinois legislators: Build a new ballpark or we will flee. The Illinois legislature did just that, approving a ballpark on the last day of the 1988 session.

Sorry, St. Pete.

Construction continued on the $138 million domed stadium ($272 million adjusted for inflation). St. Petersburg taxpayers paid for the future ballpark, then known as the Florida Suncoast Dome. It opened with a concrete

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F E B R UA R Y 24- M A R C H 1, 202 0

floor and bare necessities because city leaders wanted to wait for a definite baseball tenant before designing and investing in the field, locker rooms and other features.

Their first big-league sports tenant wasn’t a baseball team; it was the NHL Lightning, who played three seasons there in the mid-1990s.

Baseball agonies persisted: nearmiss flirtations with the Seattle Mariners and the San Francisco Giants and a failed expansion bid in the early 1990s. The Suncoast Dome filled its calendar with concerts, Davis Cup tennis and Arena Football League games.

Rick Mussett, a retired St. Petersburg city government administrator, was there for all of those ups and downs, including the successful 1995 expansion pitch that — finally — resulted in the arrival of the Tampa Bay Devil Rays three years later. The

franchise dropped Devil from its name in 2008.

“A lot of people said it would never happen,” Mussett said. “It happened.

And we got a lot of good years out of it.”

Interior catwalks supporting the roof are frequently in play. According to the Rays, 179 batted balls have hit the catwalks during games, creating unusual ping-pong uncertainty for fielders, baserunners and batters.

“I don’t have as much of a problem with the ballpark as some people seem

“A lot of people said it would never happen. It happened. And we got a lot of good years out of it.” to have,” said Dewayne Staats, the Rays’ TV play-by-play announcer who has been with the team for its entire history. “Every park has its issue or two or three or four.”

On the plus side, Staats said the park has good sight lines and is a comfortable place to watch a game.

With a knowing laugh, he noted that it’s easy to get in and out of The Trop, in part because it’s never filled with 40,000 people. Last year the Rays closed the upper deck and reduced capacity to 25,000.

The team’s current lease ends in 2027. A perennial attendance doormat, the Rays seem to have spent almost as much time trying to escape The Trop as they have spent playing there.

The latest pitch to keep the team in the Tampa Bay area is a hybrid plan to secure new ballparks in Tampa and Montreal and divide the Rays’ home schedule to strengthen support and revenue.

When SBJ asked Staats about the dome’s approaching anniversary, he said, “I had some rough idea [it was coming up].” He then paused, adding, “Nobody’s throwing a big party, though.”

Erik Spanberg writes for the Charlotte Business Journal, an affiliated publication.

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Peter Muhly / AFP via Getty Images

BY ERIK SPANBERG

NEW YORK 2020 18 - 21 May

BIG CITY, BIGGER IDEAS Leaders Week New York is back to unite the US and Europe’s most senior sport business executives in the heart of Manhattan.

The world is changing and sport has to change with it. The fight for consumer attention is greater than ever, the media landscape continues to transform, and the availability of new tech creates fresh opportunities.

At every event across Leaders Week you’ll find industry pioneers exploring the trends impacting the future of the sport.

Visit leadersinsport.com/LWNY to find out more.