Before taking over as president of the Seattle Sports Commission, Beth Knox produced victory parades for the city’s championship Sounders (above) and Seahawks teams. getty images
Five months into her new role as president of the Seattle Sports Commission, Beth Knox has yet to go into the office. In fact, the Seattle Sports Commission doesn’t have an office.
For 17 years, the SSC was an arm of the city’s tourism bureau, Visit Seattle, which provided the SSC with an office and funding, and covered its operational expenses. But 2020 brought fundamental change.
The COVID-19 pandemic arrived in the U.S. in Seattle in early March. Not long after, Ralph Morton, SSC executive director for 16 years, left for a new job as senior vice president and managing director at Events DC in Washington, D.C. On April 1, the SSC began its transition away from Visit Seattle and toward becoming a self-sustaining nonprofit 501(c)(6). In the wake of all that change, Knox was hired April 8.
Thirty years of running nonprofits and putting on big events prepared Knox for what could otherwise be viewed as an unenviable task during a year cluttered with historic challenges. She ran Seafair, Seattle’s biggest festival, and led the city’s hosting of the 2018 Special Olympics USA Games. She produced three victory parades for the city’s NFL and MLS championship teams during the last six years and had been an SSC commissioner for 16 years.
“I really am passionate about being involved with things that may have a big impact in our community, and I’m passionate about my city,” Knox said. “The combination really was the driving force behind my decision to take this role.”
Knox’s connections throughout the city and region will be critical for the SSC as it develops new funding sources as a nonprofit entity.
“When we had the opening, Beth’s name kind of rose to the top as one of our most promising candidates for the role and it was a fairly easy decision by the new board to hire her,” said Cathy Cooper, Seattle Sports Commission board chair. “The right person at the right time, with the right connections.”
Al Kidd, president and CEO of Sports ETA, noted Knox’s “desire to make a broader impact than ‘just’ hotel rooms — focusing on the value of hotel stays but also including resident sentiment and local community sports programming.”
“She seems very interested in building a trove of local goodwill in the larger sports leadership community, which will assist her in winning marquee events for the market,” he added. “She has a high level of interest to use sports and athlete currency to positively impact the youth in Seattle.”
Women are increasingly getting bigger roles in the sports commission industry, but also in business generally. Just over 25% of Sports ETA’s 454 sports-focused entities have women as either executive director, president or founder.
Knox’s five months in charge of the SSC have veered from mundane tasks like opening the organization’s new bank account to holding a Zoom interview with representatives from FIFA as Seattle tries to win hosting rights for 2026 World Cup matches. But Knox knows the transition she’s overseeing will have the SSC in a good place whenever the live events business returns to some normalcy.
“It’s the proverbial fire hose, but it’s thrilling to have so much opportunity ahead of us,” said Knox. “I see it as what do we want to take on, what do we want to go after, as opposed to can we dig up something to focus on?”
