Peacock ‘just a St. Louis guy’

In 2008, Dave Peacock was a key member of the executive team at Anheuser-Busch that was faced with responding to an acquisition bid from a large competitor. His team’s efforts to counter the deal failed, and the barbarian at the gate, InBev, broke through.

Peacock remained on board and worked as president for the newly constituted company until 2012. Now, he finds himself defending another cherished St. Louis institution, the NFL Rams, as co-chair and the most visible member of a governor-appointed stadium task force.

Dave Peacock presented the vision for a new St. Louis football stadium on Jan. 9 Photo by: DILIP VISHWANAT / ST. LOUIS BUSINESS JOURNAL

Who the barbarian is in this case is not as obvious as it was seven years ago.

Perhaps it’s Inglewood, Calif., which is proposing an NFL stadium with designs on the Rams moving there to play. Or, perhaps it’s Stan Kroenke, the team’s owner. While Kroenke has not formally engaged with Peacock’s state-commissioned task force that last month proposed a new St. Louis football stadium, the two met informally at the NFL commissioner’s party two days before the Super Bowl.

“It was mostly social. He couldn’t have been nicer,” Peacock said of the talk with Kroenke, a conversation he described as lasting between 10 and 20 minutes. “I would also call him supportive of what we are trying to do.
“It was clear he was aware of what we were doing,” Peacock added. “I’d call him very informed based on our short interaction.”

Eric Grubman, NFL executive vice president and the league’s point man on the Los Angeles and St. Louis stadium development pursuits, invited Peacock to the party.

Peacock, 46, is a known quantity in NFL circles. Marketing fell under Peacock’s domain for years at A-B, and he personally negotiated the 2011 deal to bring A-B back as the league’s beer sponsor, one of his last acts in a 20-year career at the company.

Clearly, he left on good terms. When A-B InBev found out that Peacock was being written about in SportsBusiness Journal, the company emailed this unsolicited comment from CEO Carlos Brito:

“During his time leading our commercial sales and marketing divisions at Anheuser-Busch, Dave’s passion for our brands’ involvement in sports, especially our NFL team and league sponsorships, was very evident. Dave was also always very passionate about St. Louis and looked for every opportunity to support the community and help the region to grow. It, therefore, does not surprise me that Dave is playing a leading role in helping to define St. Louis’ future as an NFL city.”

Peacock left A-B when Brito wanted to post him in New York, or out of the country. A father with three young children, he declined. And maybe as importantly, he did not want to leave St. Louis.

Peacock is known around St. Louis for his dedication to the city as much as for his success leading one of its landmark companies. Dan Dierdorf, the pro football hall of famer who spent his entire NFL career with the St. Louis Cardinals, knows Peacock from their shared country club, from their membership on the Pro Football Hall of Fame National Advisory Board, and simply from around town.

“It is very obvious when you talk to Dave, he is personally invested in this,” Dierdorf said of the Rams’ St. Louis stadium efforts. “This is more than numbers on a piece of paper and different formulas and ‘Who is going to pay this percentage?’ This has become very personal for Dave, and he has really committed.”

No different is Joe Buck’s take. The Fox broadcaster and another famous native of the city, Buck got to know Peacock through corporate appearances at A-B. “He is just a St. Louis guy who doesn’t want to see our city lose a football team for the second time in our lifetime,” Buck said.

The Cardinals left St. Louis for Arizona in 1988, with the Rams relocating from Los Angeles to the city a few years later.

A Peacock spokesman said the former beer executive is not getting paid for his task force work. What he’s providing, however, is his experience in navigating complex deals that shape the landscape of business in St. Louis and well beyond.

Peacock managed the transition from the historic Busch family ownership of the company to the new, foreign-based ownership interests of A-B InBev, overseeing thousands of layoffs and a hit to the local psyche. Having a local executive in his position was important at the time.

“Most of the senior executives, especially the ones who were tied to the Buschs, left within a few months,” said Ben Stein, editor of Beer Marketer’s Insights. “Dave stayed.”

Today, Peacock sits on various corporate and civic boards, including chairing the St. Louis Sports Commission, which attracts amateur athletics to the city. He also has various startup companies, including a smoothie franchise.

Of course, none of that matters much stacked against the Rams. The task force is proposing a nearly $1 billion downtown stadium. The proposal envisions about $400 million of public money, $450 million from the team and league, and the remainder from seat license income.

No Rams official attended the unveiling of the proposal last month. That led to speculation Kroenke will ignore the task force and keep his sights on Los Angeles. Bob Ciapciak, a partner with Edward Jones, the local money management firm that holds naming rights to the Rams’ current home, disagreed.

“Stan Kroenke and [team chief operating officer] Kevin Demoff have always negotiated in good faith, and we fully expect that they will continue to do so in the ongoing stadium discussions,” Ciapciak said. “They have been excellent business partners, and we look forward to continuing our relationship with them for a very long time.”

Peacock has another angle: the new stadium and downtown development positioned as restoring a historic American city and healing the wounds caused by the racial turmoil in nearby Ferguson, Mo.

“Our plan has a great narrative to it, a great story,” he said. “With what happened in Ferguson … the league and team can be part of that healing and positive momentum coming out of that event.”