Dave Elmore, founder and owner of the California-based Elmore Sports Group, believes some interoffice competition is not only healthy but vital to the operation.
Elmore’s group owns five minor league baseball teams covering nearly every classification of affiliated play, along with the ECHL’s Utah Grizzlies, in addition to a variety of sports travel, event staffing, facility management and
concessions companies. Across that broad portfolio built up over a decorated four-decade career, Elmore routinely challenges his staffers to develop new ideas, particularly in key areas such as community outreach, ticket sales and sponsorship. Awards are presented regularly to top-performing teams, in essence gamifying the sharing of best practices.
“There’s a lot of competition among the teams, but everybody is also in better contact with each other. It’s a lot easier now to promote and support the best ideas, have them rise to the top and then spread across the rest of the group,” Elmore said. “We have gone out of our way to develop a culture where we take care of each other and treat each other like family.”
In addition to the Grizzlies, Elmore Sports Group owns the Colorado Springs Sky Sox, San Antonio Missions,
 |
Elmore poses with former Sky Sox manager Glenallen Hill.
Photo by: Elmore Sports Group |
Inland Empire 66ers, Idaho Falls Chukars and Eugene Emeralds. Elmore’s son, D.G. Elmore, owns the minor league Helena (Mont.) Brewers.
The community service component is particularly critical to Elmore.
“We try to help give voice to institutions that wouldn’t have another outlet,” Elmore said. “A group that wants to set up a booth at one of our parks for a game doesn’t necessarily have another opportunity to do that elsewhere. The $1,000 or $2,000 they might raise wouldn’t even be on the radar in a lot of places. But for that particular group, it might mean the difference between making their goal or not.”
The 81-year-old Elmore is one of the oldest owners in the industry, but retirement is nowhere on the horizon. In fact, the group recently took over management of a soccer complex in San Bernardino, Calif., near its Inland Empire 66ers, is in the midst of a multimillion-dollar renovation of the facility, and has started a club team there.
“My wife keeps telling me to slow down, but I just can’t,” Elmore said. “This has been such a pleasure to me.”
