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Tom Glick Featured in Sports Business International

Sports Business International
November 2008 — There are times when the biggest questions require the fewest words. And it was precisely one of those times when, in February this year, US sports executive Tom Glick became President and Chief Executive of English football club Derby County. The question was, quite simplya|.why?

At the time, Derby were engaged in a record-breaking season in the world's richest football league. The problem was that the record books mark Derby County down as the worst team ever to play in the FA Premier League.

For the ghoulish, their record ran: Played 38, Won 1, Drawn 8, Goals For 20, Goals Against 89, Points 11. And just to rub salt into a gaping wound, The Rams finished 24 points behind the second worst team in the league, Birmingham City.

Fast forward to the beginning of the current season and to a restaurant in the East Midlands on the evening of the opening day of the season. Glick and his colleagues had booked tables with their families in the hope, if not expectation, of celebrating a wining start to the season at home to Doncaster Rovers, a team which has only recently been playing non-league football.

This being Derby County, the day hadn't gone to plan. They started the 2008-09 season in much the same way as they had ended 2007-08. By losing.

So that question again. Why Tom? Why, oh why? Naturally, it is something that the youthful Glick has been asked over and over again since arriving in the UK in the latest stage of a career journey which has taken him from Minor League Baseball's Colorado Springs Sky Sox to Pride Park, Derby by way of stints as VP for team marketing and business operations for the NBA and chief marketing officer for Nets Basketball via the Lansing Lugnuts and Sacramento River Cats.

His resume is that of the ultimate sports business professional, someone who has never shirked a challenge. He knows exactly why he is at Derby County and the agonies of last years's relegation have done nothing to diminish his enthusiasm for the opportunity.

His General Sport and Entertainment Group, which represents a number of investors including Glick himself, paid a reported A{pound}50 million for the club, with Adam Pearson its former owner remaining chairman. "There's and old saying that it's not where you are but where you're going and there's an element of that in all of this," says Glick.

In fact, there's not much he and his General Sport and Entertainment colleagues haven't seen and experienced before. "We have had the good fortune to have worked in some great places with great managers. We've been involved in start-ups, taking new teams to market, turn-around, big league clubs and the Commissioner's office at the NBA."

And making the Derby decision was never going to have been taken lightly. It was the result of the most careful and detailed planning.

"We made the decision to come to England and to Derby in particular, very carefully. The most important thing to understand is that this is what we do-we love it. We've been doing it for the last 20 years, we can't think of doing anything else and we don't like to do it average. We like a challenge. "We tool a decision going back about two years that football in England is the cutting edge. It has positioned itself extremely well for the present as well as the future and it is going to be at the epicenter of football-which is the world's game. As operators we said; we'd like to be a part of that and we think we can contribute to it," he explains. Glick's group eventually examined more than 20 clubs in England- within and outside the Premier League- before doffing their collective cap at Derby County, a club which had known great times since winning proposition to the top level of English football under the legendary Brian Clough in the late 1960's. Those were County's glory days, days of League Championships and European Cup semi-finals. But they were days which weren't to last.

Yet according to Glick, the chance to move into Derby County to look after the interests of a team of investors, "simply jumped off the page." And the major reason for that lies with the support the club receives. Even when the team had become something of a joke in the Premier League and was busy setting its unwanted points record, it was also setting records of a rather more positive nature.

The season was Derby's best ever for attendance with, on average, 32,500 out of 33,500 tickets to each game selling out. The last seven home games of the season, played after relegation had become a mathematical fact of life, were each sell-outs.

"The support was incredible," says Glick. "In everything we do here we are sewing seeds to be harvested in the future but we realize that it is very difficult to invest in support. At Derby there's a superb core already in place.

"The second thing which persuaded us was the facilities. Facilities are expensive and time consuming to pull together if you have to get land, get permissions and to figure out how to fund them.

"It means hundreds of meetings over a long period of time in order to put that together. But with Derby that was all in place. We have a wonderful stadium as well as the academy and training ground which are tremendous assets."

But perhaps more important still was the potential and General Sport and Entertainment left nothing to chance.

Glick needed to know that any investment was likely to develop over the years and that meant being confident that the local market is not simply emotionally inclined to support his ambitions for the football club but economically capable of doing so. Derby, he said, ticked all of the right boxes.

"Derby has a very strong and forward focused economy in terms of technology and aerospace, there is a good standard of living in terms of household economy it has the highest hi-tech concentration of any city in the UK and is the second fastest growing city in the UK.

"The most important thing, however, is that it is nowhere near reaching its full potential. It is a great club and it is performing reasonably well but it is not performing to greatness yet and that is where we want it to be. To be a part of something that is already at the top is not as interesting for us because we like to dig in and say, how do we make this better?"

If Derby County's position could be likened any US sports franchise it might most accurately be that of the NFL's Green Bay Packers back in the early 1980's. "This was an historic team which had a good facility but was operating in a small market," Glick explains. All of a sudden they infused some talent, brought in some great management and said this is a great brand. They put some thought against it and some character into it and the next thing you know, come the 90s they have gone from bottom to the top.

"They've reinvested in the facility, reinvested in the fans, created a museum and have become the pinnacle of what is right in the NFL in a small market environment."

Interestingly Green Bay Wisconsin is roughly the same size as Derby and it is one of the hothouses of NFL passion, a city where people put their season tickets in the wills to pass them down the generations.

While it's still a little early to predict a similar ethos among Derby County fans in a generation's time, Glick and his team have already started the groundwork. "In this market the club gets a lot of attention but we are focused on fan development in a lot of different ways," he explains.

"Our aim is to engage with the community in different ways and always to set a good example. That means that we support a lot of good causes including a programme to engage with kids who might otherwise be on the street.

"There's be Active With The Rams, a programme aimed at girls between the ages of 11 and 16, and we also work extensively with Derby's Asian football clubs, one of which won its national championship last year. Everything we do is based on the core values of the club and centred on accessibility and inclusiveness."

These Initiatives are, of course, only one part of the picture. Glick believes the football management at the club is in good hands under director and key investor Adam Pearson and manager Paul Jewell and investment has been made in a range of areas including scouting where there are now three times as many scouts linked to the club than had been the case.

"It is all to do with raising expectations, about getting people to focus on what is possible," says Glick. That approach also extends to commercial matters. Glick and Tim Hinchey, his VP Commercial, have focused on the local business community as well as the commercial world beyond Derbyshire, and brought a little US innovation to bear.

This season, while that team carried the name of Bombadier, a locally based international engineering, aerospace and railways manufacturing company, on its shirts, the club has scored a first in English football by signing a Presenting Sponsor in the shape of BuyMobilePhones.net, a locally headquartered company selling mobiles online.

The deal sees the brand linked to the club throughout the current season across every element of marketing and other activity and the club's supporters will benefit from a series of special offers ranging from season tickets to branded phones.

"In football there have normally been two major assets available for sponsorships- the shirts and the naming rights to the stadium," Glick explains.

"We have always looked for identifying and creating additional inventory which can really work for sponsors and the Presenting Sponsors designation was just right for BuyMobilePhones.net. It extends our inventory and gives them what they want."

The introduction of the first Presenting Sponsor in English football is just one of the initiatives introduced from the US sports business, in particular the NBA where teams have offered the designation for several years.

It's not the only example of US business practice being put into action. Ahead of every home match, Glick and his colleagues have evolved a pre-match routine which, some might suspect, requires as much energy as those carried out by the players.

It is 90 minutes before kick-off that they seize the chance to meet and greet as many members of the business community as humanly possible before the whistle goes.

It's hectic, it's unusual and it's a strategy that seems to be working. These people are proving that hands-on works and ahead of the new season, somewhere north of 40 new partnerships were put in place.

"That's our approach. We like to get around to say hello to as many people as possible- to sponsors, their guests and of course, to fans. And they've been very receptive because they haven't had anything like this before," Glick says.

"I've never had so much fun before. We expect it to be an amazing ride and something to enjoy along with our supporters."

As the club's marketing campaign suggests, aThe Journey Starts Here' and Glick is confident that there are plenty of people coming along for the ride. He expects to shortly begin pitching potential partners for the naming rights to Pride Park, County's 11-year-old stadium and one of the few new-builds not to carry a sponsor's name.

His attitude to the task he faces is typified by the challenge set for staff just after his group took over the club.

With seven home games remaining and relegation to the Coca Cola Championship confirmed, he was determined that the aSold Out' signs should be up for every single remaining match. And while the Manchester United and Arsenal fixtures would more or less take care of themselves, those against the lesser lights of Fulham, Reading, and Sunderland might be expected to take a Super-Human effort.

To focus the effort of every member of staff, the logo of each remaining opponent was painted in the wall of the club's office. As ticket sales hit 33,500 for each game a red cross was painted through the logo by one of Derby's celebrity personalities. It was a ceremony that sparked a celebration, created a new photo opportunity and, most important, provided a focus for the efforts of all concerned.

As a motivational technique it would appear simply if not blindingly obviousa|but it worked. And those full houses, with fans celebrating every single positive passage of play as if they'd actually won the league, created the atmosphere which is essential to fans' buy-in and the record number of season tickets sold for this year's season in the second tier.

But while they may have forked out for season tickets, English football fans are notoriously demanding. Although Derby seems to have thrown off the ghost of last season and started winning again, does Glick feel under pressure to deliver success instantly?

"The fans have been wonderfully supportive since we arrived and although I know they are desperate for success, most seem concerned that the club is built properly so that we can sustain success when it is achieved. If we are promoted back to the Premier League this season that's great. If not, the fans know we'll be right back at it again next year," he expands.

He believes that Derby County has the potential to become a fixture in the upper echelons of the Premier League and confirms that manager Newell will have funds available to strengthen his squad as, and when, it is necessary.

All of which begs one major question. Investors in any business tend to have an exit strategy and English football clubs with genuine potential are relatively hot properties, even in these troubled financial times.

So, were a cash-laden Sheikh to come knocking on the doors of Pride Park with an offer in excess of £ 300 million or £ 400 million would Glick recommend selling the club?

His answer is short and to the point."(Even under those circumstances) we've no interest in selling. This is a labour of love." The Journey promises to be of the long-haul variety.

CV: Tom Glick, President and chief executive, Derby County

Glick took over operations at Derby County in February this year when US-based General Sports and Entertainment group purchased the club and installed a new board of directors. Formerly Chief Marketing Officer for the New York nets where he oversaw and managed the marketing business operations of the organization. Glick was also involved in developing the business and strategic marketing plan for the Frank Gehry-designed Barclays Center in Brooklyn that will be the new home of the Nets. Prior to his stint with the Nets, Glick worked at the NBA as Vice President, Marketing & Team Business Development, a period in which the league se back-to-back attendance records and reached new heights on team sponsorship revenue. Glick previously served as Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing of the Sacramento River Cats of the Pacific Coast league, a Triple-A baseball league. Glick and his wife, Maria, have three children.



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