After graduating from high school in Corpus Christi, Texas, Peter Holt served two years in the U.S. Army, including a tour of duty with the infantry in Vietnam, where he was awarded a Silver Star, three Bronze Stars and a Purple Heart. Upon his return home, he worked for an investment banking house before joining his family’s business. As the great grandson of Benjamin Holt, who invented the first crawler-type tractor a century ago and started the Caterpillar company, he is CEO of Holt Cat, the largest Caterpillar dealership in the United States.
Holt, though, has made his own mark in Texas in another venture. As chairman and CEO of the San Antonio Spurs, he has presided over two NBA championship teams since he bought out the club’s two largest shareholders in 1996 and became the principal owner of the franchise.
Holt spoke recently with SportsBusiness Journal New York bureau chief Jerry Kavanagh.
Favorite movie: “Gone With the Wind”
Favorite actor and actress: Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn
Favorite piece of music: I’m a ’60s guy. I like the Beatles and Elvis.
Favorite quote: Live life one day at a time.
Favorite sporting event: Basketball, of course
Favorite vacation spot: Hawaii
Basic business philosophy: Operate ethically. That means more than just, you know, telling the truth and that kind of stuff. It’s how you treat others, how you treat your own employees, how you deal with your competitors and, in our case, with the Spurs, the players and their agents. We try to be as transparent and as open and as ethical as possible in all our dealings.
Best call you have made: Keeping everybody together in the Spurs organization. Continuity and stability.
Biggest challenge: Fielding a championship team on a year-to-year basis and staying financially healthy in a small market.
Pet peeve: I’ve gotten old enough, I’ve let go of most of ’em.
Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, quoted in the Plain Dealer, told Cleveland Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert, “It’s very difficult coming in [to the NBA] to try to gauge what’s different in this industry vs. what’s worked for you in other businesses. There will be far more scrutiny than you’ve ever had to experience in any other business.” Did you find this to be true?
Holt: Absolutely. I come out of the Caterpillar machinery business, which most people don’t even know exists. It’s about as low-key a business as there is. And then to step into the basketball business … well, we were prepared for things to be, kind of, you know, on the sports page. I’m talking mostly about the players and the coaches and that kind of thing. In our case, remember, we’re the only major league team in San Antonio, and we’ve been here since 1973. And so from the very first meeting when I became an owner, it’s been front-page stuff. You’ve got to get used to it. It is very, very intense at times.
Any parallels or constants in how you run your two businesses?
Holt: One, it’s a people business, whether it’s the Caterpillar machinery business, which is a distribution business, or whether it’s the basketball business. Now, the basketball business, I have to admit, I have some employees there who make a lot more money than anybody in the Caterpillar business. But overall, it’s just managing people.
And secondly, yes, we do a lot of focusing on what we call values-based training, about how we want to operate and who we really are. And we talk about that a lot both in the Spurs and in the Caterpillar business.
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| Tim Duncan (left) and David Robinson have been big on the court and in the community. |
Of all the teams to get involved with, why the Spurs?
Holt: Remember, I live in San Antonio. They were the obvious one. … The timing was right. I had just sold another business. The two largest shareholders at the time with the Spurs wanted to sell.
Any interest in ownership of an MLS franchise in San Antonio?
Holt: I’m always interested in sports franchises. We have a WNBA team. We have a minor league hockey team. MLS is something we’d certainly look at. We’ve talked to the mayor and a group about it. So, yes, any sports franchise in San Antonio we’re interested in. Will we invest? I don’t know.
Do you favor an age minimum in the NBA?
Holt: I go round and round about it. Yes, I favor some kind of age thing. I just think it’s a positive thing overall for the league and for the individuals who would be affected.
In the last 25 years, just seven franchises have won an NBA title. Among them, only San Antonio is not a top-10 market. What’s been the key to the Spurs’ success?
Holt: First, it always comes down to certain players: David Robinson and then Tim Duncan, and then the combination of the two. Secondly, we’ve been focused on continuity, if that makes sense. David never played anyplace else. Tim has now been here eight years. I think that’s one of the longest [tenures] with one team of anyone still playing. [Coach Gregg] Popovich came aboard the year I took over and is still in place. So, we do believe in stability. We think you can build a program around certain players and our head coach, and the key is to just keep feeding that system.
You said that without the luxury tax, you couldn’t be in business now, that you would have had to move the Spurs out of San Antonio and that you would not have been able to retain Duncan. You said that the labor contract in 1999 saved the small markets.
Holt: There’s no doubt about it. In 1999, remember, we weren’t in a new arena but we had the potential to build one. We’ve now got it built: the SBC Center. But if you look at the pro formas and numbers — even moving into a new arena and with all the benefits you get from the suites and the economic benefits — as a small market there was no way we could compete long term if the system that had been in place before ’99 had stayed in place. And we would have most likely lost Tim, or would have had to give away the store to keep him and then not ever be able to go out and find any other players to put around him.
That CBA expires June 30. Do you anticipate any problems reaching agreement on a new one?
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| The SBC Center has helped the small-market Spurs, but the 1999 CBA was vital, Holt says. |
Holt: Well, I don’t want to say I anticipate problems. I just think it’s going to be hard negotiations. I think that the union membership wants certain things and we the
owners want certain things. I’m on that labor committee. The negotiations we’ve had so far have been positive from my point of view in the sense that neither side seems to be asking for too much. So, we continue to meet, and that’s always a good sign this early in the negotiations.
For all the team success, this season only one Spurs player, Duncan, is among the top 25 in jersey sales at the NBA Store and on nba.com. And the Spurs are not among the top 10 teams in merchandise sales. Do you care? Do the Spurs need more flash?
Holt: Oh, I’d love to be in the top 10, of course. But remember what market we’re in. I think we’re the third-smallest now, or something. At one time we were the smallest. We have the type of players … most of ’em don’t have the flash. Knock on wood, also, some of ’em haven’t had the troubles of other players. So, I think we’ll always be a little bit under the radar and always be a little bit low-key.
What’s the biggest crisis facing sports today?
Holt: It’s the image issue. I don’t think there’s any doubt about it. The image issue of our players, the image of the league itself, the image of professional sports, and kind of in that order. We have roughly 400 players in the league, and 99 percent of them are good guys. And yet they get hammered on a daily basis.
Look for more of this conversation in our sister publication, SportsBusiness Daily, located at www.sportsbusinessdaily.com.
