Spoelstra has worked coast to coast, and winters in Hawaii, but he always finds his way back to his well-appointed hillside home in Portland. And why not? Filling a building during a game NBA home schedule is a grind, but it was the innovative Spoelstra who kept the ticket turnstiles spinning for former Blazers owner Larry Weinberg during a decade of regular playoff appearances but zero NBA championships.
Along the way, Spoelstra literally wrote the book on sports marketing and stood as a mentor to a cadre of some of the most talented and successful executives working in the business today. His methods in the late s through the s were seen as revolutionary but today are standard operating procedures. He brought team TV and radio rights in-house, boosted the box office through creative ticket plans, and developed new takes on sponsorships to drive revenue, all born out of his refusal to accept the status quo of how teams do business.
He was the first massive disrupter, and he is still one of the most incredible minds and hearts that I have experienced in the live entertainment business. Spoelstra has been connected to sports all his life. His father, Watson, was a longtime sportswriter for the Detroit News where he covered the Tigers, the Lions and University of Michigan football, giving the young Spoelstra an inside look at the industry. As a kid in Detroit, Spolestra spent his summers at the old Tiger Stadium with his father, arriving at the ballpark early for batting practice and leaving late as he waited for his dad to meet deadline.
One summer as a year-old, Spoelstra went to 50 Tigers home games. I saw Mickey Mantle. Most impressive to the young Spoelstra, oddly enough, was watching Detroit Red Wings star Gordie Howe, who occasionally would take batting practice with the Tigers before anyone came into the ballpark. And all the guys would gather around and watch. Spoelstra played basketball at Birmingham High School where he averaged fewer than 10 points a game as a defensive specialist.
I was rich. After high school, Spoelstra attended the University of Notre Dame, where he promptly flunked out after his first year. He then knocked around, working for GM as an office assistant for top-level management and running notes between executives and union officials during labor negotiations.
He impressed enough to earn a job offer from GM that would allow him to split time between working and attending school. But Spoelstra turned down the offer, worried about the prospect of working for the rest of his career for GM. Looking for an adventure, he decided to travel to Australia. But the trip turned out to be a success given that before he returned to the U.
Spoelstra said he returned home in Detroit with 52 cents in his pocket, and after realizing the need to return to college, wrote a three-page letter to the priests at Notre Dame asking for academic forgiveness. He was re-admitted and went on to graduate in with a degree in communications. Spoelstra then married Elisa, moved to Evanston, Ill. The nascent network held great promise. Sponsorships were sold, ratings were strong and more than local stations bought in after the first year, Spoelstra said.
But then key investors in the venture, spooked by changing federal corporate tax laws, pulled their money out after a year, Spoelstra said. Spoelstra then took a Chicago-based TV ad sales job that had him traveling throughout the Midwest. On one fortuitous trip through Buffalo in , he stopped in to see Norm Sonju, a friend from Chicago who was president and general manager of the struggling Buffalo Braves. Would you come to work for me? Instead, Spoelstra became the new vice president of marketing for the Buffalo Braves, which after a year and an ownership swap, relocated to San Diego to become the Clippers.
Weinberg wanted to meet at his Beverly Hills home, but Spoelstra wanted to get back to his family in Buffalo and begged off the meeting, telling Weinberg he was going home.
How much do you charge? I go out there and we meet at his house at 9 a. It was kind of far-out stuff in its day. He could drive tremendous revenues, viewership and fan engagement. Pintar, D. Lapen, J. Thomas, J. Schiff, S. Brown, E. Water Research Baer, S. Robertson, J. Journal of Great Lakes Research Spoelstra, J. Senger, S.
Journal of Environmental Quality Roy, J. Spoelstra, W. Robertson, W. Klemt, S. Journal of Great Lakes Research 43 6 : Van Stempvoort, J. Roy, S. Brown, J. Schiff, D. Mandalay Baseball Properties. As president and managing director of Mandalay Baseball Properties, LLC for eleven years, Jon created the most profitable minor league baseball teams ever.
One of the teams, the Dayton Dragons, set a record that had never been achieved before—it sold out every ticket to every game during a season.
The Dragons have now sold every ticket to every game for twelve straight seasons. New Jersey Nets. As president and COO of the Nets for three years, Jon dramatically increased ticket and sponsorship sales.
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