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Catching Up With BBB Architects & Stadium Consultants Int’l Senior Dir Gary Green

Green has used experience as a coach and
broadcaster in career with BBB Architects
GARY GREEN began working with BBB Architects and its subsidiary SCI in '89 with no background, degree or expertise in architecture. What he did possess was the experience of coaching and broadcasting hockey at facilities all over the world. He had worked in buildings where concourses were too short, sightlines were a problem or the away team’s coach had to walk across the ice to his bench. Since then, Green has helped the firm create bids and venues that address the unique challenges of sports events, all while continuing his career as a radio and TV broadcaster. Staff Writer Preston Bounds caught up with Green to discuss his varied career in sports business.

Hometown: Tillsonburg, Ontario
Childhood sports idols: GORDIE HOWE, JOHNNY BOWER, FRANK MAHOVLICH
Favorite venues for hockey: Madison Square Garden, old Chicago Stadium

Q: How does a former hockey coach get involved in the architecture business?
Green: I like to joke that I can’t even draw a stickman. But I do understand facilities from having been a coach and having been a broadcaster for a longtime. I understand revenues. I understand the difficulties and challenges that sports facilities have.

Q: So you help SCI craft a bid that is going to appeal to a sports client?
Green: I thought in 1990 we were on the right track at looking for creative new ways to make these buildings better. Engineers can make them structurally better, architects can design them. But my friend WAYNE GRETZKY was making $300,000 a year. He wasn't going to make $300,000 a year forever. There was an understanding that the athletes were starting to make money that was going to exceed the revenues that were capable of being generated at the older facilities. What owners who have worked with BBB have really loved is that they don't tell you what you have to have, they ask what you need and they really listen.

Q: How does that approach figure into a project like the MSG renovations?
Green: We are extremely creative. I mean, you take a look at Air Canada Centre’s bunker suites. That was space that was previously used underneath the seats to store chairs, but what we created there was valuable real estate with suites underneath. What you see at MSG is the next level of that, with fabulous suites that are right there, just a matter of a few rows from the playing surface.

Q: In a recent piece for Grantland.com criticizing the architecture of Yankee Stadium, Citi Field and New Meadowlands Stadium, Peter Richmond wrote, "The architecture of most of our national stadiums is now, officially, an afterthought. The revenue jones has reduced design to irrelevance." Thoughts?
Green: Let’s say, for example, that you went out and spent $100 million on an iconic roof. Would you want to have to pay for that? I mean, where’s your revenue from that iconic roof? I don’t want to tell people that they’re wrong, but let’s live in the real world. You want to create buildings that are comfortable, that are going to service the needs of everyone that comes to that building. You want to make it a good experience for them and a pleasant place to work. But it won’t be a pleasant place to work if it can’t survive.

Q: What is the biggest difference between doing sports commentary on radio and TV?
Green: On television, you can let it breathe. As an ex-coach, you didn’t exactly go to broadcast school. But your producer and your play-by-play guy taught you the ropes. And DAN KELLY’s line to me was, “Here’s what you need to know, kid. You’re the hockey expert. I’m the play-by-play guy. When they drop the puck, I tell them, 'Here’s who’s got the puck, here’s who it’s going to.' And when the whistle blows, I shut up, you talk. But when they drop the puck again, shut up.”

Q: Have any secret for how to balance two careers?
Green: Have a very patient wife when you get off the NHL Network at 2:00 in the morning. (Being an analyst) on NHL Network has been one of the greatest challenges that I’ve had in all my years of broadcasting. On the road and in the booth, you prepare for two teams. When you come to do a show on NHL Network, you might have a Saturday night where you’ve got 14 games going on. You need to know what’s going on with 28 teams. So the challenge is the research.

Q: What is a sports business story you are following closely?
Green: Labor disputes, especially when you were as personally involved in it as I was back in our lockout year. As much pain as we had in the NHL for that year, we’ve got a better game and a more viable product because of that. 

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