The Sports Info Business

There are many different roads to success for sports executives and certainly a variety of ways to measure it. I am not telling you how to define it. Some may say success means job satisfaction or longevity with a certain organization while others define success by how much money they make. Many will look at success by how high they climb on the corporate ladder.

Hall of Famer and Former Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda, who I saw and spent a few moments with on Tuesday prior to the All Star game, naturally joked with others passengers as we rode a packed elevator towards the press box. “Going up,” he bellowed. “Always going up!”

The enormously talented friends and staff who worked mid-summer classic in Anaheim these last few days serviced in part, 2,000 credentialed media from around thew world. I worked with and saw a group of sports executives with extra-ordinary longevity in a sport known today for frequent movement of free agent star players.

Folks like Mets VP of Media Relations Jay Horwitz, who began his major league sports career as an SID at Fairleigh Dickenson but has spent the last 31 years in professional baseball. Then there’s current Angels VP Tim Mead, who began his journey the same year as Horwitz but on the other Coast with the then California Angels as the team’s first ever intern.

Then there’s Katy Feeney, baseball’s senior vice president for club relations and scheduling, Bernadette McDonald, MLB VP of Broadcast Administration who said on the field before the game yesterday she has been with baseball for 24 years. Rich Levin, the current senior vice president of public relations for Major League Baseball, is retiring after 25 years come October and I cannot forget Pat Courtney, the Vice President of Public Relations at Major League Baseball and the heir apparent to Levin once he retires.

For me, the game was great but the people and the friendships are much more valuable. That’s how I measure success.

I have always thought the good has outweighed the bad when it comes to working in sports.  That is not to say there is no downside.  There is.  So, I made a list and tried to come up with five reasons on each half of a blank page of why you should work or not work in the sports administration business.

Here is the list I came up with this morning:

Why Work in Sports?

1. Realize a Dream — I never wanted to argue in court before a judge.  I ruled out being a doctor as a kid when the site of blood made me want to faint and being a fireman was for some of the other kids.  However, playing first base for the Chicago Cubs or just as good working as a business leader in sports?  Sign me up.

2. Lasting Friendships — To this day, I continue to speak and see friends I have met from the first day I began working in this business more than 20 years ago.  For anyone that has made sports administration a career, you invest a tremendous amount if time and energy around preparing, selling and promoting the events.  You must enjoy the people you are working for and alongside.  I always have and I am grateful.

3. Live Your Passion — I have had a passion for sports, any sport, since I was a kid growing up in the north side of Chicago.  Any of my long-time friends and family will tell you that.  It has been a passion and I have always felt at home on the field, rink, court — you name it.  Follow your heart and you will never go wrong.  Always.

4. Be a Part of History — I have seen a perfect game, no-hitters, 3,00th hit, 300 career wins.  I have been to the Stanley Cup finals, worked the World Series, been on the field for a Chicago Bears and Seattle Seahawks game.  I have worked college basketball, baseball and volleyball, professional tennis too.  They all add up to terrific memories and some of the events people still stop me and talk about to this day. —- How did Paul Kariya get off the ice and come back from a separated shoulder in Game Six of the Stanley Cup and nail the goal to beat the Devils?

5. Winning a Ring — Missed it by that much — twice now.  As part of the Angels front office in 1986 and then again with the Anaheim (Mighty) Ducks in 2003.  How does one get one pitch away form the World Series and also get to the seventh game of the Stanley Cup and come away with naked fingers?  There has to be one more run in it.  Lakers and Yankee front office employees are spoiled.  Others are lucky enough to have one.  It is something special for anyone that has made the journey with a team.

Five Reasons Not to Work In Sports

During my Dodgers interview, Fred Claire asked me if I liked to Golf. "Sure!" I said. I was then advised to play as much as I could before I was hired. There would be no time for golf.

1. Sacrifice, Sacrifice, Sacrifice — Sports is not a 9-5 job.  If you want this, look into banking.  For a baseball game that begins at 7:00 p.m., employees are at work by 9:00 or 9:30 and do not get home often until 11 p.m. or later.  Multiple that times 162 games (plus pre-and post season commitments and your friends and family do not see you often.  Holidays (fourth of July for example) mean work, not BBQ.  Understand the commitment before you jump in.

2. Your Hard Work Does Not = Wins and Losses — You could put in 20 hours a day and you have no bearing if the team wins or loses.  If you want to feel that you control your destiny more.  Go into sales.  You will be judged by the number of new sales you have closed.  No matter how good of a job you do, remember it is abut the fans (the paying customers).  They come to see the players and enjoy the game.  You are just a small piece of the reality show called sports.

3. Ownership Change Often Means Change in Staff — Everybody likes to have their “guy” or their “gal” working for them.  When there’s a change in ownership, that often equals change to the front office makeup of the leaders running the business.  The higher up you are, the more vulnerable you become when this happens.  It happened to me and countless others who have been impacted when the keys to the kingdom change hands.  Get used to it.

4. Ready to Change Cities/And Teams To Move Up — The sports business is a transient place.  A few folks start and end their careers with the same company.  When I joined the Dodgers, employees had worked for the O’Malley family for 30 years.   Since Peter sold the team, I can think of only two employees that have been with the team from the “old school.”  One name you know, the other name you probably do not.  Billy DeLury, who has been with the team since the Brooklyn days, was the traveling secretary for a looooong time.  The other person?  Just a broadcaster by the name of Vin Scully.  Look at a successful sports executive and they have moved around town or moved across the country.  It is often what it takes to move up the ladder of sports success.

5. The Competition is Fierce — Never get too full of your accomplishments because your boss probably just received a resume today from a person who is willing and ready to do your job tomorrow.  Based on the visibility and impact sports has had on our culture, the opportunity to work in the business is still a dream for countless folks who want your job.  One known open position often floods a hiring manager with hundreds of qualified applications.  …and a few more that have no business applying.

That’s my Top 10 reasons to work or not to work in sports.  As I said at the beginning, the positive has always outweighed the negative.  Did I miss something or hit the nail on the head?  Leave a comment and let me know.

For those of you celebrating, happy Father’s Day.

This magazine was a bit lighter than the 750 page bound book that arrived via UPS

I expect Sports Illustrated to show up in my mailbox on a weekly basis.  I recently received the SI issue featuring the New York Yankees “Core Four” the front cover followed by the latest issue with Big Ben.  That I expect.  When the UPS man makes a visit with a special delivery, this is not so expected.  So when he dropped off a package which weighed and initially felt like someone sent me a phonebook, I was a bis surprised.

It was only after I ripped open the box that I realized the contents didn’t resemble the yellow pages.  In fact, it was a 750 page, 8 1/2 x 11″four-color bound book from sports auction house Robert Edward Auctions.  Now I remembered.  My best friend’s father, Michael,  was the reason this had arrived.  About a month ago, he told me via email to call the Robert Edwards Auction company just to see the types of auctions they had in the book.

He has always been a great resource of sports information so I just did it and forgot about the package until it arrived.

I used to collect baseball cards and trade them with Michael’s son, Rob.  To this day we joke about how many 1977 baseball cards of Doyle Alexander each of us used to have.  It was Michael who got me hooked on autograph collecting as a kid.  This was a passion and I used to collect all kinds of autographs.  I grew up at a time when this was a hobby, not a business.  I never collected an autograph thinking how much it might be worth one day.  I have never sold an autograph for money.  Never.  It was never about that as a youngster.  I remember rushing out ot my mailbox hoping I would receive a letter from a far off place with a new signature to add to my collection.

One day, Mike showed me part of the autograph collection he had, which was passed down from his father.  It was nothing short of amazing.  The collection was more than just baseball or related to sports.  It included astronauts, President’s of the United States, inventors.  An amazing collection for sure.

That’s why when this sports auction book reached the house, it instantly caught my attention.  I had to take a look at histroy and see what the current day values of classic sports collectables are.  You know items like Babe Ruth’s Bat (sold for $95,000) as well as Babe Ruth’s Rookie Card ($70,000) and let’s not forget World Series Programs — the 1903 World Series Program – Game One at Boston! (sold for $70,000)

There was also one  or two non baseball items that I found interesting.  For example, there was the 2000 Jeep Grand Cherokee Formerly Owned by President Barack Obama that sold for $22,500 as well as Lone Ranger Original Artwork for Card #35 (sold for a more affordable #3,250).

The down-side to all of this was the timing.  The catalgoue that I had ordered from Robert Edward Auctions took a month to arrive and I only had 24 hours to review it before the massive auction ended.  it would have been nice to have it in time to see all the pricing before the auction closed.  Maybe next time they will get the new book to me a bit earlier.

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Picture of Honus Wagner Card from the Auction's Web Site

Specific Items from the Auction.

The Honus Wagner Baseball Card was was put on sale for $50,000 as a starting bid and sold for $250,000.  Here is a description and a link to the specific auction.

Description:  Every T206 Wagner naturally has a great story, sharing the Wagner legend that is now part of classic American folklore, and every Wagner also has an additional story relating to its provenance. Collectors have always been fascinated with all aspects of the history of Wagners: how they were discovered, where they have been purchased, when, for how much, where they have been, how they have happened to survive. This is a particularly interesting card in that it has never been up for auction, or been photographed, or even been seen before in the modern collecting world. To Wagner scholars, it would appear to be a newly discovered card. That conclusion, however, would not be accurate. Despite having never been seen before, this is not a newly discovered Wagner. It has been known for many decades and may even be one of the earliest known of all Wagners. It has simply not had occasion to be seen or made its whereabouts known in any way in modern collecting times. It has been the prize possession of two private family collections going back many decades. We have taken the liberty of calling this example "The Connecticut Wagner" simply because that is the state in which it was long ago purchased by our consignor. The card has actually been consigned by a father-son collecting team, who had (and still have) a great interest in vintage cards, and were very active in the 1980s, even setting up at local card shows to sell new cards to make money to buy old cards for their personal collection.

I have been an adjunct professor at the Long Beach State Sport Management Program for a few years now.  I originally started teaching the marketing class to different learning teams and that has grown into me overseeing the internship experiences for all students within the program.  Although it is part-time, I love the opportunity to give back and mentor students who wish to make sports management a career of choice.

I also teach one of the three classes.  Recently, I tried an experiment with a learning team.  I offered each of the 26 students an opportunity to speak in front of the camera for 30 seconds.  They could sat whatever they wanted to about themselves and to market themselves to future employers.  The only restriction was that the message needed to be held to a maximum of 30 seconds.

I also told them I would post the videos on this blog.  That was it.  Now, I knew that all 26 students would not jump at the opportunity.  However, I was rather surprised that only four chose to sit down and deliver their personal message.  I taped their raw messages and only added their names into the video itself.  Unscripted, here is how they chose to present themselves.

The first step in making things better is admitting you have a problem.

So, here goes.

Hello, my name is Charles Harris and I have a problem.

“Hello Charles”

I, am a news junkie.  That’s right, I need to know what is going on in the world.  From Gilbert Arenas getting suspended for the rest of the NBA season to President Obama’s State of the Union Address last night, I digest this and much more.  Every day.

I started thinking how much media I consume in any given day.   I started to make a list.  The list includes printed newspapers I still receive to my home this day (let’s see if I but the new Apple iPad here eventually), news online, TV related news, magazines and more.

In no particular order….

Los Angeles Times

Wall St. Journal

Orange County Register

Sports Illustrated

NBC Nightly News

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart

New York Times

Yahoo News

No, I do not feel like I am going to get asked important questions by clients at any moment nor am I preparing to appear on the game show Jeopardy. There are several reasons I guess. The top reason is just plain knowledge.  Learning and knowing what is going on in our world.  Another is sharing.  With the advent of all of this new media, I like sharing and finding people that find value in information they do not know about.  I post it to one of my two Twitter Accounts, Twitter.com/sportsinfo or Twitter.com/Coast2CoastExp and if it is event related I am probably adding it to a master calendar called SportsCalendarPro.com I absolutely include items in my free, monthly business newsletter to interested folks.

I tried going the way of most people, by dumping my subscriptions for the printed version of newspapers for the online version and in some cases it has worked.  My wife was happy for a while since she hates the newsprint in the home and secretly dumps it herself whenever I am not looking.  But it is back in a few different forms.  The process starts when I am eating breakfast.  I must read something when I eat breakfast.  Again, a habit I blame on my father but not a bad habit.

But there are so many more types of media I am not even mentioning.  I read links to what people post on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. I look for news that I feel my clients can benefit from and pass this on to them.  At the end of the day, I am not a site aggregator myself but a knowledge base.  For me, for my family and for the people I interact with on a daily basis.  If that is a problem, I guess it is one of those good problems to have in life.

Have I made things better?  You tell me.

It may be November, but 2010 is just around the corner.  Where does the time go this year?

My guess is, part of your energy has gone into finalizing schedules, planning budgets, checking on event availability and things like this.  Even if you do not work in the sports industry and are planning an event for next year, you need to know what may conflict with your own agenda.  Ever plan a fundraiser and it lands on….. a March Madness game? the World Series?  Your home team’s biggest event of the year?

For that reason, I have developed a 2010 master calendar.  The main focus is on sporting events things like College football bowl games, the Super Bowl, Wimbledon but also includes events like published sports conferences from a variety of groups.  Additionally, there are a handful of non-sports events like  The Sundance Festival, CES (technology trade show) the Academy Awards as well as general U.S. holidays.  In all, there are more than 50 events so far and I am adding more as they are listed.

Here is the question of the day.  It is simple and is one question only.  I would sincerely welcome your feedback.  Please take a moment to participate!

This week, we had our monthly board meeting at the Orange County Youth Sports Foundation (OCYSF).  I have been apart of this 501c-3, non-profit group since my time with the (then) Mighty Ducks and I am proud to say the group has had a positive impact on on the lives of many.

First, some brief history…..OCYSF is a non-profit organization based in Southern California.  The board is comprised of businessmen who are devoted to athletics and our county’s youth.  The Foundation distributes scholarships and grants to young athletes in Orange County and provides assistance to tax-exempt, sports related organizations.  The Foundation also assists individuals who have medical needs related to or associated with athletics.

It is a great group of folks that have fun and make an impact in the local community.  Some of the members include former USC star and NFLer Mike Salmon, gold medal Olympic Swimmers Janet Evans and Brian Goodell, basketball coach Danny Rogers, former Major Leaguer and Angel Tom Murphy and of course one of the organization’s founders Paul Salata (USC , San Francisco 49ers but also well known for Irrelevant Week)

There are three areas where the group concentrates its time.

1) Youth Scholarships — Each year, we hand out scholarships to worthy high school student athletes that have excelled on and off the field.  The awards include a scholarship dinner with parents and a check that helps, in a small way, to pay the growing expenses of college education.

2) Grants — OCYSF also provides dollars to local youth sports related organizations.  For example, a Santa Ana Little League had no funds to replace threadbare uniforms and was seeing its dispirited participants prepare to disband. The struggling league was left out of the Southern California-wide disbursement of the surplus funds of the 1984 Olympic Games, funds earmarked to aid youth sports. Consequently, the league was losing its battle to remain self-sufficient.  OCYSF stepped in to help bridge the gap.

3) Annual Banquet – This is where it all started.  The history of the group began with an annual banquet in 1971 by honoring race car driver Dan Gurney.  In those days no one was raising money, just having lots of fun.  Today, it is all about making an impact for children.  The list of past honorees is impressive:  Peter Ueberroth, Tommy Lasorda, Jim Nance, Pete Carroll, Carson Palmer…. It goes on and on.  The event is a smash hit which roasts the honoree.  The banquet draws 500 during a tough economy and as many as 800 when times are good.

I got involved with this group because I always believed that senior sports management professionals needed to be attached to their community.  With the Anaheim (then Mighty) Ducks, I always encouraged each leader to adopt one organization and sit on its board, serve as an honorary chairman or some sort of involvement that matched with our overall business and community goals.

I try and reserve personal stories for the weekend, but since I had already posted them, I will add this one to the blog today.  Sometimes, the personal stories are the best ones.  You tell me. On Sunday, I attended the afternoon get away day game between the Los Angeles Angels and the Oakland A’s.  My buddy called me and asked if I wanted to attend and four of us enjoyed a warm afternoon game at Angels stadium

Here is a shot from our seats.  John Lackey was going for his 100th career victory while the A’s, at this point, were playing for pride.  I have to admit, I always watch the scoreboard the beginning of any game and root for the pitcher who keeps his no-hitter going the longest.

Oakland starter Brett Anderson lost his no hit bid in the fourth inning and while Lackey did not start off strong, he got better as the game progressed.

The reason why I think the game deserves a blog entry is due to a young man in our group.  I have written quite a bit about my baseballl life, both as an executive for the Los Angeles Dodgers, a little bit about my internship experiences with the Angels and not much working as the baseball SID at UC Irvine.

This also includes a cross country trip after college where I saw baseball stadiums and professional games  for a summer. If I dared to count, the total number of games I have seen over the years is well into three figures.  How many hundreds of games I have seen I could not tell you.  More than a thousand?  Certainly possible.

Now, I don’t ever write about my family, but when my son walked away with two game used baseball today, I hope it is a game he will never forget.  That wasn’t a typo.  Two game used baseballs.  Here is how it went down.  In the bottom of the first inning, he walked down a row Mark Ellis, who had caught the final out of the inning was running towards the dugout when my son screamed out, “great catch!”  Ellis then kindly tossed the ball near the rail and my son had his first ever baseball from a Major League Baseball Game.

Ryan Sweeney was then heading towards the A’s dugout, the same path that Ellis had taken the previous inning, when my son jumped tot he same spot and called out to Sweeney.  Ker-plunk.  There was his second ball and in the same game!  ”

That kid has two baseballs!,” someone shouted from behind us.

One of the guys with us, the pitcher on our softball team and a sports industry executive didn’t miss a beat.

“Now, what would be really impressive, is if you caught four baseballs and gave each of us one as well,” he joked.  From what we saw that was not going to happen.

It wasn’t like there was a crowd of 11,000 in the ballpark either.  The scoreboard showed a paid crowd of more than 38,000.

From the next inning on, the kids around us finally caught on and crowded around the same spot for the rest of the game.  No one else in that section went home with a ball.  Somehow, my son managed to take home two souvenirs and a baseball memory that will last a long time.

“I will never forget this game for as long as I live,” he told me later.  ”That was the best.”

And I have a great memory and a picture to prove it.

For regular readers of this blog, you may have noticed a new widget I placed on each blog entry.  It is a retweet widget related to the social networking site, Twitter.  It easily allows you, if you like an article, to click on it and to resend it through your network on Twitter.

It looks like this and is not located to the right of each entry.  What you may have noticed is that the numbers are low of the RT’s.  This is because it was just installed.

If you like the article, it is a fast and easy way to spread the word.  There are two other widgets which you should know about as well.  If you are  not signed up for

Twitter, you can go here and create an account.

The RSS feed allows for each of my blog posts to come directly to you.  So you don’t have to come to this web site each time.  When a new post is made, the RSS feed pushes it directly to you.  Just make sure you have an RSS feeder set up.  It is terrific for people on the go, but don’t forget to come back to the site.  Why?  I put up a lot of useful links on the right hand rail.  Recruiters, conferences, jobs, sports management programs, they are all listed with live links.

Finally, there is the share button.  It is a lot like the like the retweet for Twitter button, but if you click on it, it allows you to share it with others on a much larger scale.  I believe there are about 50 different social media platforms where you can forward any one of these blogs.  The goal on this blog and for all of social media is to be able to share information easily.

Moving forward, this blog will stay mainly with sports themed topics.  You can find more of business topics on a new blog on my business site:  Coast 2 Coast Experts — www.coast2coastexperts.com or just click on the link.  There is a new blog site up and running.

One of the reasons why I initially started this blog was to provide current Sports Management students with additional industry resources.  Since then, it has grown to much more than that.  People now visit from around the world, current sports executives, sports marketers looking to reach new audiences as well as those interested in working in this business.

Tonight, I return to teach another class at Long Beach State in the Sports Management Program there.  I have been doing this for a few years and it never gets old.  When I begin class tonight, I will be bringing with me, a supplement to the Sports Business Journal (SBJ). This weekly magazine, often looked at as the bible for the industry, came out with a special issue this week and takes a closer look at Sports Management Programs.

The title is a bit frightening if you are currently enrolled:  ”A Degree of Uncertainty.” — Under neath that the subtitle reads — “More colleges with sports management programs combined with fewer industry jobs means challenges for both schools and their students.”

In today’s world, this is an understatement.  First of all, consider the number of colleges and universities that are offering a degree in this business today.  The SBJ breaks down the number of schools PER STATE that offer some sort of degree’d program (undergrad, graduate etc).  Consider this:  Florida and Pennsylvania have 23 schools in each state that have a program, followed by North Carolina with 22 and  Illinois with 20.  California has but 11 and I only found two states that did not even offer a program, Utah and Wyoming.

The bottom line?  Sports management programs have become very popular.  Think about the number of students in each program and now you have thousands of new graduates entering the work force and the competition for jobs is stronger than ever.  A degree in a sports management program does not guarantee you a job in this field.

So remember these few things

1) Differentiate yourself.  Figure out how you are going to stand out  not only from your classmates, but from other graduates.

2) Get the Experience.  One of the most valuable components of a degree’d program is experience.  Internships allow you to gain experience and exposure within a sports organization.  Choose your internships wisely and then work like a dog to stand out.

3)  Network, network, network.  It never ends, not even after you have the job.

My old friend Derrick Hall, now president/CEO of the Arizona Diamondbacks, whom I helped take over my position with the Dodgers when I began a different journey, said it very well in the same issue of the Sports Business Journal.

“The number of students now enrolled and competing for entry into the sports world is overwhelming.  My advice for students is to be realistic and do all they can to get a foot in the door.  Though they may have aspirations of becoming a team president or general manager, it will take time and patience.  They just need the opportunity to prove themselves at any level.  They need to understand that the pay is low and the hours are long staritng out, but if they are seeking this career path for the right reasons, these will not be hurdles.”