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| For Donald Dell, a career in tennis was less a calling than a fluke. |
Following a stellar intercollegiate tennis career at Yale, Donald Dell was captain of the victorious U.S. Davis Cup team in 1968 and 1969. After starting his professional career as a Washington, D.C., attorney, Dell founded ProServ in 1970. The firm quickly became an innovative force in career management and the development of corporate sports marketing programs. ProServ was acquired in 1999 by SFX Sports Group, for which Dell serves as senior vice president. Dell spoke recently with SportsBusiness Journal New York bureau chief Jerry Kavanagh.
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 10 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.
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 [Smith] would join us. We’d be your first two clients and it would really be fun.”
And that’s just how the whole concept started. It was a question raised by Arthur.
The USTA earned a record profit of $27 million 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 [basketball, football, hockey and baseball]. It’s not in that league. Baseball and hockey are not global, I don’t care what anyone says. American football is not global.
Ralph Nader sent a letter to Bud Selig criticizing the advertising patches on the players’ uniforms during the opening series in Japan. He wrote: “This overcommercialization is sapping the fun out of being a fan of Major League Baseball.” 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.
Where would tennis, and sports, be without advertising?
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. Tennis and golf are individual sports. And they are a direct product of sponsorships. 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.
Much has been written about the convergence of sports and entertainment. You have said that they have already converged, that sports and entertainment are entwined.
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. The two have come more and more together, and they’re going to keep converging because they’re competing for the entertainment/sports dollar with all other kinds of entertainment.
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.
What about the men?
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 like [Juan Carlos] Ferrero of Spain or they’re fast-court players like [Roger] Federer or [Andy] Roddick on cement or grass. But they’re not all-around players.
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.
Who’s the shrewdest or most creative businessman in sports today?
Dell: David Stern’s 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’s 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.
Who’s the greatest competitor you’ve seen?
Dell: Jimmy Connors. And he was a great competitor for 10 years.
Look for more of this conversation in our sister publication, The Sports Business Daily, located at www.sportsbusinessdaily.com.
