bill wippert
Whoever first wrote the aphorism, luck is the residue of hard work, might have had someone like Brent Rossi in mind. Thrice so far in his career he’s been in the right place at the right time, but only after toiling to get there.
A Canadian, he applied to graduate sports management programs south of the border and settled, out of three, on Old Dominion. While there, Comcast Spectacor won the contract to oversee construction of a campus arena, and that led to Rossi landing a job with the arena company, first on-site and then in the home territory of Philadelphia.
Several years later, as the company prepared to move Rossi from a slot in Philadelphia to a more obscure market to run a small arena, a job opened in marketing with the company’s 76ers, which he landed.
And six years ago, when the new owners of the Buffalo Sabres, Kim and Terry Pegula, started Pegula Sports and Entertainment to oversee their holdings, it may not have appeared as a too formidable task to Rossi, by then a Sabres marketing executive.
“Three months in Kim said we should know they might bid on the Buffalo Bills,” Rossi remembered of the 2013 meeting. “We were like, ‘Sure, Kim.’”
Of course, the Pegulas did buy the Bills in 2014 for $1.4 billion, and Rossi now finds himself leading marketing for an entity that has an extensive portfolio with an NFL team.
His career truly started in southern Ontario when Brock University came to his high school to pitch its sports management program. Until then he didn’t know such degrees, well enough jobs, existed.
Brock’s pitch found a receptive audience in Rossi, who earned his undergraduate degree at the school.
Now he advises students to do what they can to get their foot in the door and outwork everyone. As Rossi discovered, good things often follow.
— Daniel Kaplan
Age: 39
Where born: Welland, Ontario, Canada
Education: Brock University, bachelor’s degree, sports management; Old Dominion University, master’s degree in sports management
Family: Wife, Jill; children, Keira (10), Richard (9)
What gets you fired up? Innovation.
What do you wish you could tell yourself 10 years ago? Don’t stress the little things.
Profession other than your own you’d most like to attempt: Oenology.
Guilty pleasure: Watching HGTV.
Something that your friends would consider “so you”: Compiling and debating top-five lists.
Charity supported: The United Way (I’m on the board).
Person in the industry you’d most like to meet: Dana White.
Ideal day off: Spending time with my family.
Most thrilling/adventurous thing I’ve done: Zip lining across Niagara Falls.
Forty Under 40 class members would be surprised to know that I … : Won three chess championships in my youth.
