 |
| SFX Senior VP Donald Dell |
An outstanding tennis player at Yale, DONALD DELL went on to captain the world champion U.S. Davis Cup team in 1968 and 1969. After starting his professional career as a Washington, DC, attorney, Dell founded ProServ, a leading sports marketing and management organization. He is Chair of ProServ and Senior VP of the SFX Sports Group. Dell spoke recently with SportsBusiness Journal N.Y. bureau chief Jerry Kavanagh.
QUESTION: You wrote a book called "Minding Other People's Business." What could be a better description for your experiences in sports management?
Dell: I wrote the book about ten years ago when I was actively involved in running ProServ. We managed a lot of athletes in a lot of different sports. In those days, we did everything for the athlete: negotiated his contract, handled his investments, paid his taxes and put him on a budget. It was a much more comprehensive thing in those days than I'm doing now. I have one client that I'm totally responsible for: STAN SMITH. He's 54 years old and has been with me since 1970. He was my first client with ARTHUR ASHE. With the two of them I started the business.
Q: You have been called a pioneer in sports marketing. I read where you have negotiated over half a billion dollars in sponsorships and endorsements throughout your career.
Dell: Well, I've been around a long time.
Q: Safe to say, then, that the pioneer days of sports marketing are over?
 |
| Dell Got His Start With Arthur Ashe |
Dell: Oh, sure. Let me try to explain. I started ProServ in 1970, and I was there for the first lawyer or manager or agent in professional tennis. [MARK] MCCORMACK was in golf from '60 and I was in tennis from '70, managing and negotiating and handling contracts and investments for professional tennis players. The game had only gone open in '68 -- open tennis was the combination of amateurs and pros playing together -- and in '69 they were starting to have some U.S. Open tournaments on the American circuit. I was right in the forefront of that. It was somewhat lucky in timing because I had just resigned as the Davis Cup captain. I was the youngest in American tennis at the time, and I was the only one who retired undefeated.
Q: You got into the industry by a fluke?
Dell: Yeah, I think it was a fluke because I resigned from the Davis Cup and I was planning to go back to work as a lawyer. I had worked at Hogan & Hartson, a big law firm in Washington. The truth of the matter is, I took Arthur Ashe three times to meet Mark McCormack. Arthur was turning pro in 1969‑70, and I thought Mark would do the best job for him. But after the third time, Arthur said, "I don't feel that close or comfortable talking with Mark. Why don't you manage and represent me? If you do it with me, Stan would join us. We'd be your first two clients and it would really be fun." That is just how the whole concept started. It was a question raised by Arthur.
Q: The USTA earned a record profit of $27M in 2003. Is that an indication of the health of tennis today?
Dell: I think it's growing more healthy. There are more players coming back to it. There are more racket and ball sales around the world. One thing that's changed, you've got to remember -- and nobody really focuses on this -- is that tennis is a global sport. It's not just America, or North America, like hockey. Basketball is global, too, and is growing tremendously. But Europe has almost exceeded America in growth of tennis, growth of television tennis, growth of prize money, and Asia is not far behind.
So, when you ask if tennis is healthy, on a global basis it's very healthy. Most people just focus on America, and they compare American tennis to six other sports. It certainly isn't one of the major four. It's not in that league. Baseball and hockey are not global, I don't care what anyone says. American football is not global.
Q: RALPH NADER sent a letter to BUD SELIG criticizing the advertising patches on the players uniforms during the opening series in Japan. Is sports overcommercialized?
Dell: There's always a question of that. I really don't think it is in the sense that in tennis you're limited to two patches. Baseball is doing more and more behind home plate with the new technology, which may be distracting. The fastest‑growing sport in America today is NASCAR. Those people are certainly overcommercialized, if you want to call it that. It doesn't seem to stop 100,000 from going to the races and television exploding. Tennis and golf have found a pretty good balance. In tennis you're allowed to wear two patches on your clothes and the identification of the manufacturer. They increased it from one patch to two patches about a year ago. But I think beyond that it does become overcommercialized in tennis.
Q: Where would tennis, and sports, be without advertising?
 |
| Good Players + Sponsorships +
Television = Professional Tennis Tour |
Dell: That's the important question. To me, all pro sports are really a product of two things: television and sponsorships. What does a tennis tour take to be successful? Well, first, it takes good players. Good players get you television. Television gets you sponsorships. At the end of the day, if you're going to be playing for these big purses, it's never done at the gate receipts. So sponsorships and television are what make the world of pro sports go round. Certainly in tennis.
If you're going to sponsor something, you want to make darn sure it's televised. If there's no television, you're not going to increase your sponsorship. If the sponsorship doesn't increase, the purses don't increase.
Q: Much has been written about the convergence of sports and entertainment. You have said that they have already converged.
Dell: Yeah. I believe they're more and more entwined every day. Plain and simple, sports is big business and it's a form of entertainment. You go to any football or basketball game, you have cheerleaders. You have music. To me, it's all part of the growth of entertainment. If you go to a Chicago Bulls game, there is not a moment when there's not something going on on the court. Clearly sports being business is an art form of entertainment. They are going to keep converging because they are competing for the entertainment/sports dollar with all other kinds of entertainment: theater, music, movies.
Q: The composer John Cage said, "I can't understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I'm frightened of the old ones." What's been the best new idea in sports business?
Dell: I think a lot of the stuff DAVID HILL at Fox has done creatively with football, and with hockey, and some of the things he's done in baseball. I think he's the most creative producer in network television.
Q: You're referring to technology?
Dell: The technology has been fantastic for sports. How many times do you hear people say, "Well, I like to go to the game, but you can see so much more on television." Take the Kentucky Derby. You go to the race. You see the race. It's over. But if you sit at home, you see it replayed ten times in the space of an hour. To me, the biggest thing that's really changed and improved in the sports world is the technology of television.
Q: Who are the best tennis players of all time?
Dell: You've gotta go with MARTINA NAVRATILOVA. And probably on a slow court you go with CHRIS EVERT. But on all surfaces, Martina was the best. Chrissie could beat her pretty good on a slow clay court. But if you were on cement or grass, Martina's left‑handed serve and athleticism just really carried the day. Although I think if SERENA [WILLIAMS] wants to focus on her tennis, she can be a great, great player in the line of five or six years. The problem is, she has so many different interests and distractions that she may be a little bored with tennis. But the Williams sisters are phenomenal athletes.
Q: What about the men?
 |
| Dell Puts Rod Laver At The Top
Of All-Time Tennis Greats |
Dell: I think ROD LAVER was the best who ever played, closely followed by JACK KRAMER. The reason I say that is because they could play all surfaces. Laver won the grand slam not once but twice. Today's players are either slow‑court players or they are fast‑court players. But they are not all‑around players. Laver was the best player on all surfaces over a 10‑year period.
Q: You wrote that Arthur Ashe embodied the traditional qualities of what makes a tennis champion: He was elegant, graceful, calculating, and most of all, a gentleman. Have those qualities been lost in showtime?
Dell: We have gotten away from those qualities. One thing that should have been added in there was that Arthur was tremendously competitive. But Arthur believed you did it with your racket -- the wins and losses -- not with your mouth. He believed that very strongly. And he lived his life that way. More and more there's the hype of the guy, you know, doing the dance in the end zone. But if you notice, the NFL is trying to get away from that.
And I think the worst aspect of hockey, and one of the reasons it doesn't grow faster, in my opinion, is the fighting. I think it looks absolutely absurd to be watching two guys hitting each other with their gloves off, pummeling each other, while the referee is standing right next to them. How many times do you see that? And they all say, well, it's the culture of the sport. Fine! But I think it lessens the values and the interests and the appeal of hockey.
Q: Incentive clauses: do millionaire players need them?
Dell: You know, I don't think so, but it's funny: The average pro athlete -- let's say, hypothetically, he's making a million dollars endorsing Product X. If he wins a tournament, he gets an additional $50,000 bonus, or something like that. Players are funny like that. It does motivate them and they do remember the bonuses, almost more than the endorsement income because it's so big at the top that they're almost numbed by it. But they love ranking bonuses in tennis or tournament bonuses. And the best one of all is royalties. If you have a name line with the royalty, then everything you sell is a bonus.
Q: What is the smartest move you've made in sports business?
Dell: Getting into tennis. That led to a lot of other things in my business world. And the training I got in law school, which I never dreamed I would use in sports, has helped me tremendously. It helped me in recruiting, in negotiating, in drafting and analyzing and revising documents.
Q: Who is the shrewdest or most creative businessman in sports today?
Dell: DAVID STERN is awful good. First, he has great vision and forethought. But he has the phenomenal ability that when he says no to you, you don't realize he has really turned you down until maybe a couple of hours later. And he always makes you feel good in the process of saying no. Plus, he's got a very tough job in controlling those owners. They're horribly difficult to control. He controls the owners and, in turn, he's gotten control of the players.
Q: Smartest player?
Dell: Arthur Ashe and IVAN LENDL. They were different styles. If you remember, when Ashe played JIMMY CONNORS in the finals of Wimbledon, he was a 16‑to‑1 underdog with the bookies in London. And he won that match in four sets. He had a strategy that he wrote on a piece of paper and which he read as he changed courts. Lendl was very smart, too. And he maximized his ability. He was smarter than he was talented. He just worked so hard and was disciplined.
Q: Who is the greatest competitor you've seen?
Dell: Jimmy Connors. And he was a great competitor for 10 years.
Q: BILLY MARTIN said, "There is nothing greater in the world than when someone on the team does something good, and everybody gathers around to pat him on the back." What do you consider the best thing about sports?
Dell: Ironically, one of the great things about sports is teamwork, which is much more prevalent in team sports than it is in tennis.
Q: What are you reading now, and what books have meant the most to you?
Dell: I like to read a lot of novels, sort of fast‑action novels. Vince Flynn has a bunch of books that I've read. I read a few Patterson books and Ludlum and Grisham. Word of Honor by Nelson DeMille. I read a lot. I read every night and when I travel. And when I get tired of those kind of books, I'll go read something historical. I love politics.
Q: Favorite piece of music?
Dell: I love Barbra Streisand. I listen to a lot of her songs all the time. And Whitney Houston.
Q: Favorite actress?
Dell: Ingrid Bergman.
Q: Favorite movie?
Dell: Casablanca.
Q: Have a pet peeve?
Dell: Traffic in Washington, DC.
