In my opinion, the sports and media industry that I spent more than 30 years participating in as a proud member has become an industry where it is every man and woman for themselves.
Whether I talk to some of my older peers or young people in the business, I cannot find a single person who is really happy in their work environment. I continually hear comments like, I don’t respect who I work for directly, and/or my company just looks out for itself and the bottom line but not me.
I watch companies cut people and costs across the board and then spend these savings stupidly, to hire celebrity actors in a commercial that will not sell the product, or overpay a broadcast talent who will not make a significant difference in whether the consumer will watch the sporting event or show, and these are just a few examples.
I humbly suggest that cutting people and costs, the denominator of the business, is very easy to do as a manager. But growing the numerator, growing sales and market share, is the tough challenge. This is not done by machines but by creative people, understanding the habits, emotions and soul of the people. This has taken a back seat.
So what happened? After the 2008 financial crash, the procurement departments took over. They looked at media and sports sponsorships as a commodity. They argued that buying these assets was no different than buying costs of goods sold. Leverage the asset, delay payments to maximize use of money and do all of this with fewer people.
I humbly suggest that cutting people and costs, the denominator of the business, is very easy to do as a manager. But growing the numerator, growing sales and market share, is the tough challenge. This is not done by machines but by creative people, understanding the habits, emotions and soul of the people. This has taken a back seat.
In addition, people still on the front lines of this business tell me that they are so busy and need to look at so many options that there is no real time for training and developing young people. They get thrown into the fire and hope they don’t burn.
I know the cynics out there will say, Ponturo is holding some grudge or looking for some attention, but I think those who have worked and negotiated with me know I don’t really do the “dance.” I am straightforward and try to tell it like it is.
I am writing this because I was very fortunate. I started working in this business before the term “sports marketing” even existed. As I tell my students at NYU, it was before ESPN, Fox, Facebook, Twitter and just about everything else.
As a 30-year-old hired away from the New York agency business to be the director of media of
Anheuser-Busch, little did I know the special ride I was about to enjoy.
All of us at A-B from 1982-2008 felt we were part of something special. We were in it together. We were empowered, we respected our leadership, and we knew we would be taken care of financially.
No one told us what hotel to stay in or what restaurant to entertain at because they were all our valued customers. How do you tell a hotel you are too expensive for our employees, but by the way, would you carry our beer? Maybe it was because we did all our media and sports marketing activity in-house with the Busch media and sports marketing teams, 150 people planning, buying and implementing $500 million of assets every year. We worked hard but we were part of a family and part of something and proud to work many long hours a day to achieve our goal.
Believe it or not, no one, including me, was under an employee contract. We worked each day knowing if we did not perform, we would not be around. This empowerment, this respect, this family attitude, took our business from a 22 to 50 market share over this period of time.
So bottom line, let’s not lose respect for the people side of this business, and remember the days when we did each other a favor because you knew it would be returned somewhere down the line. We built real friendships and partnerships, and we built a $60 billion-plus sports industry that was just a small blip 30 years ago.
Make the next generation of smart minds be part of something, and understand what their company actually stands for in a productive and winning way.
The people are the company, and we all need to feed them emotionally as well as just providing a hallowed pay check. Create a culture where people will be knocking down your door to be hired, because we all want to be part of something special.
Tony Ponturo (tonyponturo@gmail.com) is the former vice president of global media and sports marketing for Anheuser-Busch, and someone who loves the business.
