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| Wild Owner Craig Leipold |
Last December,
CRAIG LEIPOLD sold the Predators, the NHL franchise he had owned since its inception in '97. Four months later, the NHL BOG approved the sale of the Wild by
BOB NAEGELE to Leipold, whose Minnesota Sports & Entertainment holdings also include the Wild's AHL affiliate, the Houston Aeros, as well as the NLL Minnesota Swarm and the management of Xcel Energy Center and the St. Paul RiverCentre. A passionate fan and a proponent of a more fan-accessible game, he served on the NHL's Exec Committee and helped negotiate the CBA with the NHLPA in '05. Leipold spoke with SportsBusiness Journal N.Y. bureau chief Jerry
Kavanagh earlier this month.
Favorites vacation spot: Exuma.
Favorite music: The Beatles.
Favorite author: VINCE FLYNN.
Favorite quote: "The buck stops here."
Favorite hockey movie: "Mystery, Alaska."
Favorite blogs/Web sites: Twitter and MinnesotaWild.com.
Favorite athlete: TIGER WOODS.
Pet peeve: People who don't give you 110%.
Collections: Sports memorabilia. I have a signed BABE RUTH baseball. My most treasured piece -- the first game the Nashville Predators won, the team gave me the puck.
Q: Is this a fantasy job for you?
Leipold: Let me tell you, I wake up every morning and I pinch myself. This job is awesome.
Q: I hear stories about how rabid a fan you are.
Leipold: I am. I love it here. I have five boys, and they all love hockey. This is not a bad gig to have. I'm losing my voice. I've had this thing for about 10 days and can't get rid of it.
Q: Is that from cheering?
Leipold: Not from cheering -- it's from yelling. There's a difference. When I'm watching a game, it's not like cheering. It's yelling and screaming.
Q: What's the best business advice you have received?
Leipold: My father, 30 years ago, told me to be the first guy in in the morning and the last guy out in the afternoon.
Q: What do you know now that would have been helpful to you earlier in your career?
Leipold: To listen more to people. To not overreact to situations. And to not be afraid to ask questions. As I look back on my career, there are things I'd love to have over and I think to myself, "Why did I do that?" And usually it was because either I wasn't listening or I wasn't asking the right questions.
Q: Where do you depart from conventional wisdom?
Leipold: Owning a sports franchise, I would say, is a departure from conventional wisdom. It's a different business, a different business model, although you use the same principles of management. That is, you get the best people that you possibly can and you let them do their jobs. But ultimately the end game is different: You're trying to win something, and the value of the asset is getting larger and larger even though your losses may continue. That's not a normal business model.
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Leipold (r) Has Seen Increase In Wild's
Value Since Acquiring Team From Naegele |
Q: According to Forbes magazine, last season was the NHL's most successful in 10 years. Forbes found that the average NHL team value rose 10% during the past year and that the Wild's value increased 21%. To what do you attribute that?
Leipold: From a league standpoint, I believe that when we came out of the lockout year, we had a product that our fans wanted to see. It was a more exciting product; it was faster hockey. From a franchise standpoint, we now have 327 consecutive sellouts [through November 13]. This is a hockey market. One of the great things this franchise has done is that it has really nurtured and protected the brand. In this market, the Wild represent more than just hockey. It's a culture, a way of life. For the people in St. Paul-Minneapolis, hockey is everything. Here, high school hockey, junior hockey, college hockey are gigantic. And the Wild is like the protector of all the hockey that's going on in this market. It gets down to the value that has been created in the brand -- the Wild.
Q: NHL attendance through November 10 is up 1.2% and the Wild's attendance remains at 102.8% capacity. What effect has the economy had on the Wild?
Leipold: Up to this point, the economy hasn't had a large effect on us. We have 7,000 people waiting to buy season tickets. When we went out with our season-ticket drive back in March and April, that's when the economy was doing fine. We renewed 96% of all of our season tickets. Our season-ticket base sits at 16,500 right now, so the economy has not had a big effect so far on our business. We have a number of suites, 20 of them, which come up for renewal next season. We're looking at all of the issues that are going on in the economy. We are now developing a strategy so that we go out and are prepared for issues that are related to the economy.
Q: NHL Commissioner GARY BETTMAN appeared on Fox Business in October. He said, "Everybody is keeping a close eye [on the economy] because we don't think any business or industry will be immune. Having said that ... we have not yet felt the effects." But he also said, "We know that if this economic situation continues, [if] it gets worse, we are probably going to be affected like everybody else."
Leipold: Yeah, I think that's true. I talked to Gary this week. He's calling all the owners and asking the questions: "What's happening with your market? What are you seeing?" Right now, if we freeze it, our business is just great this year. But we also are seeing things about some of the issues that our sponsors are experiencing, and we're concerned about the future. Fortunately for us, we've been fine in the present.
Q: Looking ahead, are you optimistic about the business health of the Wild in this economy?
Leipold: I've got to answer that two ways. Am I optimistic about this game and the future of hockey and the people in New York who are managing the game for us? You bet I am. There's tremendous amount of upside for this franchise and for the league.
Am I optimistic in this business environment? You know, this downturn has happened so quickly and so dramatically, it's really hard to respond. If we've reached the bottom, we're going to be fine and we're going to get out of this thing pretty quickly. If we're not at the bottom yet -- and we don't know whether we are as an economy -- then I will tell you that I'm very concerned about what next year and the following year will look like, as I think any business person would be concerned.
Q: As far as advertising and sponsorships, have you seen any pullback?
Leipold: There have been sponsors that haven't renewed, but we've picked up a lot of new sponsors. As I've said, we really locked in our sponsors before June. So, we're pretty well locked and loaded for this year, although there are some opportunities that are still out there. Our concern is for next season, and we'll start working on that in December-January-February. We're just now starting to look at what next year will look like, and obviously that gives everybody in sponsorships and ticket sales a little bit of heartburn, wondering what next year will look like.
Q: What is the NHL's biggest challenge?
Leipold: To be able to project our game on television and project the kind excitement and speed and physical aspects of our game that everyone sees when they're in the arena.
Q: TV cannot match the excitement that the fan attending the game gets. Isn't that particularly true for hockey?
Leipold: I think that's true, although in the Canadian markets and in the northern markets, our TV ratings are at all-time highs. I believe that high-definition [TV] is going to help our game, probably more than any other game, because of the size of the TV, the sharpness -- you can see the puck now on the ice. So, I think our future is going to be better. But we still have our challenges on TV, as we've always had, and that's probably the thing that we talk about the most and where our opportunities lie.
Q: What effect, if any, do you anticipate on sports and sports business from the OBAMA administration?
Leipold: Wow, it's only been less than a week. I haven't thought a lot about it.
Q: Do you have any suggestions for the President-elect?
Leipold: I'd like to get him out to some hockey games. I understand he likes basketball, but let's get him out to some of the Capitals games and see if he can't be as excited about hockey as he is about basketball.
Q: Speaking of basketball, you first tried to buy the Bucks and then the [NBA] Kings before buying the expansion Predators in '97. Why the shift from NBA to NHL?
Leipold: It was a time I was kind of kicking tires and checking what was available in the market. And at that time, I knew basketball better than I knew hockey. As I wanted to get into sports business, I gravitated toward basketball. I didn't realize that those opportunities just weren't out there at the time and that hockey was. I'm just thrilled to death that, as it turned out, it was hockey. I think it's a strong sport. We've got the new CBA that protects all of our franchises.
Q: You have pushed for a more fan-friendly NHL, including the rule changes to promote a more entertaining game and increased fan access. How can the game be improved for the fan in the arena and for the fan at home?
Leipold: First of all, we need to do a better job of getting our players recognized and known in the community and involved. The players are willing to do this. And when a fan has an interaction with a player, you've got yourself a fan for life. Even though we're a team sport, we have to continue to profile our individual players. We've tried to do that in the last couple of years, particularly as we get in those new young superstars.
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Wild Introducing Mascot
For First Time This Season |
Q: What's the Wild's best new fan initiative?
Leipold: For the first time, we have a mascot: Nordy. We've never done this before because this market is all about hockey. You don't need a mascot to get the fans going. But frankly the purpose of the mascot is to do things in the community. I'll be spending this afternoon in Minneapolis Children's Hospital with our mascot. It's an outreach program. We'll be going into schools with reading programs. In the summertime when the players are back at home, the mascot will be the face of the team in the community. It's a way to connect with our fans in ways that we haven't done in the past.
Q: That doesn't sound like it was a painful decision.
Leipold: Internally there was a lot of discussion about it. We even had focus groups with some of our fans about why we were doing this. The jury is still out: whether our fans will look at this as a gimmicky thing, or whether they will recognize this as part of our outreach program and in the long term is going to be great for the community.
Q: How do you feel about the new NHL policy that requires owners to disclose any and all business and financial relationships between each other?
Leipold: It's fine. It's a good rule. I'm surprised we didn't have that in place in the last 10-15 years.
Q: Are there any NHL franchises, or other sports franchises, whose business practices or business model you admire?
Leipold: Anyone that has won the Stanley Cup in the last five years is a franchise I admire. It's a very hard thing to do.
Q: Do you have a timetable on getting to the Stanley Cup?
Leipold: Every NHL owner is in it for one thing: to win the Stanley Cup. That's why I'm in it. I'd love to do it as soon as possible.
Q: Any regrets?
Leipold: Lots.
Q: Any you want to talk about?
Leipold: No (laughing). That's why they're regrets.
