SPORTS NEWS YOU CAN USE

Issue 18--Pro Team Management

The last issue of Sports News discussed facility managers who work for or with teams. This issue will look at major league team administrators.

Landing a job with a major league team is difficult. Most top administrators have gotten their positions by knowing the right people. For example, a 1993 Sports Illustrated article about team owners mentioned that among NFL team owners, two had appointed sons and one had appointed a daughter as team presidents, and among NHL team owners, two had appointed sons as presidents.

Coaches and former players sometimes move into management as well. Two examples would be Isiah Thomas, who is vice president of basketball for the Toronto Raptors, and Pat Riley, who is coach, president, and part owner of the NBA Miami Heat.

Of course, outsiders do get jobs, too. For example, in 1995, when the Arizona Diamondbacks, a MLB expansion team, was being planned, management anticipated hiring 150 full-time and 1,000 part-time employees. Said president Rich Dozer, "We are looking for dedicated, driven people. Everyone will be representing the organization to the public. We want them to interact well with themselves and the public by being outgoing and friendly. We want people who like coming to work and having fun with each other." (1)

Still, Dozer also said that employees of the Phoenix Suns and the America West Arena were going to be given priority. "Our loyal people will get a chance to get ahead in baseball. We've already identified some of the people who will be on our team." (2)

Several examples of administrators with major professional teams:

• Bob Harlan is president of the NFL Green Bay Packers. While he was at Marquette University, he held several intern-style jobs on sports desks at local newspapers. He also was the sports editor of his college paper. During this time, he became friends with a local sports announcer who later recommended him for a job with the MLB St. Louis Cardinals.

Harlan graduated in 1958 with a degree in journalism, worked for a news wire service for awhile, and then in 1959 became Marquette's sports information director.

 

In 1965 he became the Cardinals' director of community relations. Two years later he became director of public relations. He also ran the team's speakers bureau.

 

While Harlan was in St. Louis, his boss got a call from the new head coach/general manager of the Packers who was looking for help in the front office. Harlan was recommended and in 1971 he was hired as the Packers' assistant general manager.

 

In 1975 he was named corporate general manager; in 1981 corporate assistant to the president; and in 1988 executive vice president of administration. In 1989 he became the team's president.

 

Harlan is responsible for business operations including "player contract negotiations, radio and pre-season TV contracts, the team's front office and ticket office, and preseason game scheduling." (3) Bob Wolf, the general manager, runs football operations, and the coaches handle draft choices and personnel moves.

 

Said Harlan, "In my mind, the key thing to do with everything here was find good people in every area. Then, get out of the way and let those people do their jobs." (4) What Harlan does consider his responsibility is fan relationships. He continues to take their phone calls and meet with them at annual events.

• Mike McCaskey is president of the NFL Chicago Bears, a job he inherited in 1983 when his grandfather, the team's owner, died.

McCaskey grew up planning to become a priest. But by high school he had changed his plans and went on to Yale where he studied philosophy and psychology and played football. He joined the Peace Corps after graduation and spent two years in Ethiopia. Upon his return he went to graduate school, studying organizational behavior and earning his doctorate at Harvard in 1972.

 

Then he accepted a teaching job at UCLA. He was there for three years and then went to Harvard to teach.

 

In 1979 McCaskey and his wife started a consulting firm.

 

Eleven days after his grandfather died in 1983, McCaskey, at his family's urging, announced that he would become president of the Bears.

 

He was not welcomed by either the Chicago fans, who saw him as an Ivy League intellectual, or the other team owners, who thought he should have stayed in academia. McCaskey went along for the ride for about ten years, mostly concerning himself with the team's money problems. But when he fired popular coach Mike Ditka in 1993, he began taking control of football operations. Said a former Bears player, Matt Suhey, "He has a very difficult job. He's got to be fair to the stockholders and competitive and fair to the players. It's a tough situation. The public sometimes doesn't appreciate it." (5)

• Tim Leiweke is president of the NHL Los Angeles Kings.

When he was 15, he gained management experience by doing advance work for George McGovern's 1972 presidential campaign.

 

He graduated early from high school then went to work selling life insurance. He has been quoted as saying the insurance business taught him everything he needed to know about sports marketing.

 

His next career move was to work for several teams in the Major Indoor Soccer League. He was assistant general manager of business operations for the St. Louis Steamers from 1978 to 1979, then general manager of the Baltimore Blast from 1979 to 1980, and then president of the Kansas City Comets from 1981 to 1987.

 

He became vice president of marketing for the newly-formed NBA Minnesota Timberwolves in 1988. By 1990 he was also president of the Arena Marketing Corporation. His job was to handle marketing for both the team and its new arena. Some reports suggested that his plans for the arena were too ambitious for the team's president, resulting in conflicts between the two of them.

 

Leiweke then joined the Denver Nuggets as senior vice president in 1991. Shortly thereafter he became the team's president. He was credited with turning the team around after it had the NBA's worst competitive and attendance records for the 1990-91 season. He attracted corporate sponsors and younger fans. He was involved in planning a new arena and television production center.

 

"The concept has been that this is a business, not a sport. Don't get caught up in saying that if [we] win we draw, if we lose, we're dead. Bring some entertainment to it. Control the destiny by owning all the individual properties, in particular your own image makers.

 

"The final piece of the puzzle is what we're trying to do here--interlink and interlock yourself into partners that own what I think is the future of business. That is, the product, the venue, the production, the distribution. Anyone that owns the big four is going to succeed in this business.

 

"We are in a business where we control everything we need to succeed. We don't have any middle men whatsoever." (6)

 

In 1995 Leiweke resigned (or was forced) from the Nuggets and became president of Rocky Mountain Entertainment, a subsidiary of Comsat Video Enterprises (owner of the Denver Nuggets and the Colorado Avalanche hockey team). But he only held that position for two months.

 

Later in 1995 Leiweke became president and CEO of U.S. Skiing and the U.S. Ski Team. Having served as a co-chair of an Olympic Festival held in Colorado, he had some experience with Olympic sports. During his tenure at U.S. Skiing, he was able to attract a number of corporate sponsors and reduce the organization's debt by half.

 

In 1996 Philip Anschutz, the Denver-based owner of the Kings, asked Leiweke to become president of the team.

• Karen Stack is the administrative assistant to Chicago Bulls general manager Jerry Krause.

She played basketball for Northwestern University and then played pro ball in France for a year. She missed her family and returned to Chicago, where she played for the Women's American Basketball Association's Chicago Spirit for two months until the league folded.

 

In 1985, at the age of 23, Stack went to work for the Chicago Bulls ticket office and within a month was hired by the newly-appointed Krause to screen calls, book hotel rooms, track NBA roster changes, and type scouting reports.

 

In 1986, in addition for working for the Bulls, she founded the Chicago Challengers, a woman's team which plays college and foreign teams. She plays on the team and handles its administration. She is also a women's basketball color commentator for SportsChannel.

 

In 1991 Stack was put in charge of the Berto Center where the Bulls train. She handles its day-to-day management.

 

She would eventually like to become general manager of a women's pro team.

 

 

1 The Phoenix Gazette, March 10, 1995.

2 The Phoenix Gazette, March 10, 1995.

3 Steve Prestegard, "His business is football," Marketplace Magazine, May 28, 1996.

4 The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, January 21, 1997.

5 Chicago Tribune, January 26, 1992.

6 Rocky Mountain News, November 6, 1994.

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