In the fall of 1920, Major League Baseball was reeling. One season removed from the disastrous \u201cBlack Sox\u201d scandal, owners were losing a fight against widespread public perception that their sport was crooked. Many looked for some new form of governance, believing a three-man \u201cnational commission\u201d wasn\u2019t up to the task.<\/p>\n
Enter U.S. District Court Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis, who already had a reputation for strict legal views and harsh sentences. He agreed to become the only commissioner on the condition that the owners hand over all power to govern the game. Landis\u2019 contract prohibited owners from reducing his pay, firing him or even publicly criticizing him. He served for 24 years until his death, aggressively exercising his unilateral authority over everyone involved in the sport.<\/p>\n
It worked. Illegal gamblers were forced into the shadows, and baseball grew and thrived. As other sports leagues emerged, the notion of an all-powerful commissioner sitting atop the owners became standard operating procedure. Over the ensuing century, owners and players have clawed back some of their power, but the concept of a commissioner vested with extraordinary authority survives. Everybody understands that a world-class executive leader in that role is critical.<\/p>\n
But as sports reach previously unimagined levels of cultural and economic relevance in the 21st century, the need for an all-everything, all-powerful executive creates a tall challenge. The sheer scale and complexity of major pro sports leagues\u2019 business, financial, labor, competitive and geopolitical interests demand a commissioner with a truly rare combination of leadership capabilities and subject matter expertise. <\/p>\n
Many American leagues could soon be put to the test to find that person. After a long period of stability in the commissioner role, an unprecedented period of transition is coming. No vacancies exist now, but a majority of the North American \u201cBig Five\u201d leagues could be in the market for a new commish soon, and the world has changed dramatically since the last time most of them filled that position.<\/p>\n
Sports Business Journal surveyed dozens of senior leaders across the industry about this challenge, and while every property is unique, there\u2019s broad consensus about how the next generation of commissioner will need to be different.<\/p>\n
They will deal less with labor issues and sport administration than their predecessors, and will need to be more globally oriented, more sophisticated in business and more revenue focused \u2014 all without losing a step in perhaps their hardest and most delicate job, ownership politics.<\/p>\n
\u201cCommissioners will always have headaches,\u201d said Len Perna, founder, chairman and CEO of TurnkeyZRG, which handles searches for many high-level positions. \u201cThe complexity of all the stakeholders will literally make your head ache. That\u2019s why commissioners are underpaid. I\u2019m not kidding.\u201d<\/p>\n
Perna says competitive balance, international growth and rules around external investment from private equity and foreign actors will be the big challenges for the next commissioners.<\/p>\n
\u201cSports has entered the P.E. era,\u201d Perna said. \u201cGrowth is now top dog. Grow fandom. Grow engagement. Grow loyalty. Grow views. Grow revenue. Grow margins. Grow international penetration. Commercial business builders are in. Labor is a sub-specialty that can be retained. MLB aside, most sports in North America have solved their structural labor issues. Players understand that revenue growth is paramount, and the new breed of P.E. owners absolutely understand that growth is paramount.\u201d<\/p>\n
Of course, every league is different. Some deal from a position of strength; others are at a crossroads. Each incumbent will use his or her current leverage to influence the selection of their successor, in ways that might not be apparent from the outside.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe old formula, you came up through a league or a team. But I believe that moving forward, it is going to be more of a major corporate CEO path with media entertainment and\/or tech feeding the leagues.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u2014 \u00a0John Tatum, CEO, Genesco Sports Enterprises<\/p>\n
But all will face a dilemma: How to find all these desired traits and skills in one person.<\/p>\n
Traditionally, the next commissioner in most leagues has been an internal candidate, a long-haul senior employee or close attorney who has developed relationships and expertise over the course of decades, and who offers, by definition, an evolution, not revolution, in their tenure.<\/p>\n
But the question looms: Is that internal candidate \u2014 who may well be the best choice for running the sport as it is today \u2014 best suited for aggressive, revolutionary growth and a change into what owners want the sport to become?<\/p>\n
Maybe not. Some experts believe the ideal leader of the future is a more experienced executive from the outside, someone with a deep expertise in media and corporate strategy and a track record of big wins. That person would likely be further into his or her career than prior new commissioners, or even from outside North America.<\/p>\n
Yet, owners and search consultants won\u2019t overcorrect too far away from the sport itself, Perna said. Revenue growth and financial return is paramount, but the hardest part of a commissioner\u2019s job is still relationships with owners \u2014 the extremely wealthy individuals who simultaneously compete and collaborate, take orders and give orders, and demand perfection and constant improvement. <\/p>\n
Those owners are more demanding than ever, and not likely to trust someone they don\u2019t already know, to one degree or another. Several industry insiders pointed to executives who are not directly in sports, but close to it \u2014 media, technology and consumer-facing companies that do extensive business with sports leagues.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll these team owners are so invested in so many businesses outside of sports that you can see some out-of-the-box candidates emerge there,\u201d said Nick Kelly, the former CEO of Tepper Sports & Entertainment, and former head of sports sponsorship at Anheuser-Busch InBev and Verizon. \u201cTen or 15 years ago, a name like [former Fox Sports CEO] David Hill would have been a shock. Today, those kinds will be in the conversation, certainly.\u201d<\/p>\n
In other words, at the commissioner level, major leagues are closer to a modern Fortune 500 company, and the best preparation for that role may not be in the day-to-day of the sport.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe old formula, you came up through a league or a team,\u201d said John Tatum, Genesco Sports Enterprises president and CEO. \u201cBut I believe that moving forward, it is going to be more of a major corporate CEO path, with media entertainment and\/or tech feeding the leagues.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the following links, SBJ staff looks at seven top North American leagues, what they need next on the commissioner\u2019s throne and who might be in the running.<\/p>\n
MLB<\/a> | MLS<\/a> | NBA<\/a> | NFL<\/a> | NHL<\/a> | NWSL<\/a> | WNBA<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the fall of 1920, Major League Baseball was reeling. One season removed from the disastrous \u201cBlack Sox\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":288803,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[435],"tags":[49,48,28459,462,573,634,459,514,448,8081,39932,82,630],"class_list":{"0":"post-288802","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-in-depth","11":"tag-mlb","12":"tag-mls","13":"tag-nascar","14":"tag-nba","15":"tag-nfl","16":"tag-nhl","17":"tag-nwsl","18":"tag-print","19":"tag-sports","20":"tag-wnba"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288802","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=288802"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/288802\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/288803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=288802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=288802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=288802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}