On this episode of Fired Up, Chris Wright, Chief Executive Officer for Minnesota United, provides great insights on how he ensures community involvement by connecting with the neighborhood – and making a difference in the community.

As the club’s first Chief Executive Officer, Chris was brought on in large part to spearhead the successful launch of Allianz Field, Minnesota United’s privately financed, $250 million soccer-specific stadium in Saint Paul. He oversees the business and sporting sides of the club in his role as CEO. Chris brings with him 27 years of experience with the Minnesota Timberwolves and Lynx, including 13 years as President where he oversaw major projects including the Target Center renovation and the development of Mayo Clinic Square. Joining MNUFC also meant a return to his soccer roots as a player and coach in his native England.

Chris McAdoo:

This is a podcast for sports business pros like you. We go behind the gates and beyond the numbers that keep sports fans coming back for more.

Our host, Chris Wise, is the brains behind Ignite Fan Insights. With a commitment to research and innovation for over 30 years, he knows the right questions to ask and more importantly, what to do with the answers. Get ready for engaging in-depth conversations with sports industry leaders that will inspire you to take action and connect with your fans. I’m Chris McAdoo, and this is Fired Up.

Hey, everybody. Welcome to Fired Up, and we’re live from the National Sports Forum in Atlanta, Georgia. And this episode brings us Chris Wright, who spent 27 years in the NBA to now be CEO of Minnesota United the 23rd expansion team for the MLS. And we are just so stoked to have you here.

Chris McAdoo:

I’m going to hand it over to Chris Wise, general manager of Designsensory Intelligence. Chris?

Chris Wise:

Thanks, Chris. Chris?

Chris Wright:

It’s the first time I’ve ever done a podcast, actually with three Chris’s on the same podcast. This could get really complicated in a hurry.

Chris Wise:

But we’ll all answer. Someone will pay attention. You’ll get an answer. Not the one you want, but anyway.

Chris Wise:

So Chris, tell us about yourself and your career and what makes you tick.

Chris Wright:

English guy, came to the United States when I was 28. I was given an incredible opportunity to actually work for the DeBartolo family. The DeBartolo family had sort of bought a soccer franchise in Pittsburgh, Edward J. DeBartolo was a visionary. Back then, I think he was the first guy, looking back on it that really understood the power of putting multiple sports properties inside of the same building and amortizing all of your costs. Over the number of different events that were inside of the civic arena in Pittsburgh, as he owned the Pittsburgh Penguins and he owned the Pittsburgh Spirit.

Chris Wright:

From there, I went to Minnesota, Minnesota Strikers, and became the general manager for Joe Robbie, who along the way, sort of built the Taj Mahal of football stadiums back then, for his Miami Dolphins and in the end folded the Minnesota Strikers. That allowed me two experiences. Number one was to build something called the National Sports Center in Blaine, Minnesota, that put me in front of the legislator in the State of Minnesota. And we, back in the day, got $14.7 million to build a five sport facility with a view to the footprint being developed for the world cup in 1994.

Chris Wright:

Minnesota was unsuccessful in that bid and that led me to the NBA, when I joined the Minnesota Timberwolves in 1991. 27 years, almost there. And then my owner with the Minnesota Timberwolves got involved with the expansion MLS team. I negotiated that deal for him to be part of the Bill McGuire group. And then after the first year of the MLS team, they asked me to become its first CEO as we built Allianz Field, as we were building a team and building a business to make sense of a $350 million investment in the twin cities.

Chris Wright:

So in short, that’s my career. It’s been an incredible journey, obviously with some incredible highlights and some great learnings along the way from some incredible people.

Chris Wise:

What ignites your professional fire?

Chris Wright:

I think at this stage of my career, it’s so much about people, whether that’s the internal sort of building of a culture and people who represent a brand. I was fortunate enough to be in powerful positions, if you like, inside of the NBA franchise. And you know, in the end, when I left there, I was leaving 140 people that I had something to do with their hiring.

Chris Wright:

I was always a great believer that the person in my seat would always interview everybody who came to work for the franchise. And the reason for that was not necessarily the skill sets that those people had, that was up to the hiring manager. My job was to hire the culture, to hire to what we were trying to accomplish inside of the franchise to best effect what we were trying to do on the outside of the franchise.

Chris Wright:

And that’s certainly one of the things that I’m trying to do with Minnesota United. I inherited front office when I went there, which it is a little bit different. And so we’re moving in a direction with a lot of people to really show them what the opportunity is, the growth curve, the difference between the NASL club that they were, to the MLS team that they are today.

Chris Wright:

And again, we’ve got to get it right on the inside. We’ve got to develop a culture that is incredibly inclusive, diverse, supportive, teamwork, resiliency. All of the core values of a franchise that we’re building there, so that the MLS can take its rightful place inside of a very cluttered sports community, which is the 15th largest marketplace, which is the twin cities, with every professional sports league there with very, very good franchises.

Chris Wright:

So what trips my trigger, what gets me excited every morning, is the development of 120 members of staff and looking after the people that we have, that we’ve entrusted with the opportunity to have the MLS grow and take its place in the twin cities community.

Chris Wise:

MLS is growing nicely, would you agree?

Chris Wright:

Yeah, I think we’re on a massive growth curve. I talk about the growth curve all the time inside of our organizations. And we’re big in looking at sort of year over year growth and trying to forecast and be visionaries about where we want to go. And if you take a look at the league as a whole and what Don Garber and Mark Abbott and Gary Stevenson and David Bruce, and all of the great people that are inside of the league office.

Chris Wright:

I mean, if you take a look at 25 years ago and the struggles of the league, and when the Anschutz family, the Kraft family, the Hunts family basically ran the league. And I don’t think that they could have ever thought that this league would be actually the talk of conventions like this from a growth opportunity.

Chris Wright:

And if you take a look at what is going on in Austin and Nashville and Sacramento and St. Louis and Miami, and you can go down the whole laundry list of different major markets that are now being attracted to this sport and building these soccer specific stadiums that are going to be iconic. There is no league in the world that is building the number of stadiums in any professional sports league, anywhere in the world, around what is happening today in the MLS.

Chris Wright:

So the MLS is on this incredible growth curve opportunity. And obviously the game is really taking its place on a very, very national level here in the United States,

Chris Wise:

What made the timing right? Because soccer has been, at least at youth level, pretty significant in the United States and especially now there seems to be so many more opportunities for people to engage in a myriad of sports. What made the time right? What made the time right for MLS today?

Chris Wright:

Yeah, it’s a great question, Christopher, and I don’t think that there’s one very simple answer. I think if you’ll take a look at youth participation as one metric in our sport, it’s growing exponentially and I think that all sports go through ebbs and flows and rollercoaster rides in terms of fan avidity.

Chris Wright:

I think that some of our brethren leagues who are incredible competition for the sports and entertainment followers, dollars, et cetera, have their own unique issues today around how do they either reinvent their sport, or problems within their sport.

Chris Wright:

I think the timing is incredibly right for youth participation. I think a lot of the people who are now having their kids play in the sport are a generation. The millennial generation certainly played our sport. And we have a lock on millennials inside of this country. If you take a look at our attendance, 68% are millennials and 35% of the millennials are female.

Chris Wright:

And so these major decision makers in terms of household income and where they’re going to spend their discretional dollars are inside of our stadiums, they’re part of our fan base. So I think all of that leads to great attendance.

Chris Wright:

I think that that in itself is one thing. I think that the explosion of the different way that content is distributed today is another thing. Millennials want everything here, and I’m holding up my cell phone. Everything is basically either inside of an app or it is being streamed. And it is on the go, these families that are on the go. And I think that our sport plays to that very, very well. And I think a lot of people are accessing content around who and what we are is right there for them.

Chris Wright:

And I think also we’re a lifestyle brand. And I think that when you take a look at sort of whether it be our players, what they eat, what they wear, what they do in the off time, et cetera, those storytelling. Because we are very unique and we’re very international. We have 14 different nationalities playing on our team. I think people get very, very intrigued, very, very quickly about the story behind the story. And I think because we’re a lifestyle brand and we’re willing, and we have accessible players to be able to tell that story in both short form and long form, I think it’s where people go for their news, their interest, et cetera. I think there’s many, many different things.

Chris Wright:

And then the very last thing is that I think a lot of traditional owners in traditional sports are seeing now the future of soccer in this country. And if you take a look at the people who are investing in the game, they are often coming from a sports background, they’re involved in other sports. And they’re saying, “You know what, I’m going to hedge my bet because I see where this thing is going and I’d better be part of it if I’m going to keep my traditional investment.”

Chris Wright:

They’re used to that investment in sports. I think a lot of people are seeing that. Inside of our own group, Glen Taylor, owner of the Minnesota Timberwolves, Minnesota Lynx is part of our group. Bob Pohlad, owner of the Twins, is part of our group. And so when I say that I really have firsthand experience of that, even inside of our own ownership group.

Chris Wise:

Impressive numbers on attendance. Before you moved to the new stadium, you were doing very well. Now you’re in the new stadium, you’re at 103% of that average capacity. How do you do that?

Chris Wright:

It’s another long-winded answer to what might appear to be a very simple question. First of all, I think sports is moving in a completely different direction today. And I think you’ve got to be nimble. And you know, when I first got to the club, I think we were selling soccer, MLS, MN, UFC. And it really wasn’t enough inside of our market because we are a cluttered market.

Chris Wright:

So if you’re going to be successful, particularly the in stadium experience, I think you’ve got to have a purpose. You’ve got to have a why. You’ve got to have, why do we even exist in this marketplace to be able to compete? And are all franchises in all sports, thinking about it that way today, what is your value proposition? And so we actually put a group together to really analyze that.

Chris Wright:

And in the twin cities market, there are 251 languages that are spoken. And so that means that first, second, third generation people have come from all over the world to live in the twin cities. That is the single biggest opportunity then that we have. And the reason for that is that they all come from nations that have a national team. They have their club teams and they have probably their favorite teams around the world. That could be Barcelona, Manchester United, Liverpool, who knows.

Chris Wright:

But in our city where they have decided to live, we have got to make sure that we become their club. And so our why, our purpose became, through the beautiful game, through the global game of soccer, we’re going to inspire and unite our community of 251 languages. So that means then that as we build a stadium, as we build attendance, as we build the experience inside of the stadium, we have got to put all of these things together, that when they, whoever they are, from whatever country they are from, understand this is their home. It’s safe. It’s inclusive. It’s diverse.

Chris Wright:

The food and beverage story tells the story of their nation, is their comfort food inside of the stadium. And from a staffing standpoint, from an environment standpoint, do we have good folks from their communities and their countries as our staff? Proud to say that we have just over 200 part-time staff are part of our fan experience squad.

Chris Wright:

And by the way, our nickname as a team is The Loons, state bird. Our staff are called Loonaticks, The Loonaticks. And it’s all about gratitude with attitude, because that’s what soccer people really, truly are. 45% are female, 55% are male. We have over 25 languages spoken on our staff and our staff are from over 15 different countries. All of that comes together to create the experience around the game.

Chris Wright:

So now, that leads us to being working in all of those communities as well. And so when we tell the story in all of those communities, it’s very, very easy for us to sort of gather great data, number one. Number two, be able to encourage them to attend. And then number three, to get to a point whereby we’re selling out every game. 14,500 season ticket holders last year. We increased that to 15,000 this year. 7,000 people on our wait list, which we call the preserve. All of our premium is sold out. We’ll sell out every single game again this year.

Chris Wright:

And you know, right now we have it rolling along, but we’ve just got to simply do all of the right things to make sure it’s sustainable.

Chris Wise:

So you nurture a culture of culture, as far as…

Chris Wright:

Everyday. And to a degree, my job is I’m the culture officer of the club. I did a session yesterday, a convention here, and it was all around, are you putting your people first? And if you’re not paying attention to that and to their growth and to, do you have the right people in the right seats on the bus, et cetera? You’re going to lose in the end. You’re not going to be everything that you could possibly be.

Chris Wright:

But that certainly translates into the stadium experience as well. You’ve got to pay very specific attention to making sure you’re hiring the right people who can deliver on the experience that fans, quite honestly today demand

Chris Wise:

Demand. And we want to be cognizant of everybody’s time here. We’re at just about 20 minutes or so. I want to ask a question, I think is one that you can speak to so specifically. Is you were talking about the differences between, quote unquote “Traditional American sports” versus the beautiful game. I’m coming from a soccer family.

Chris Wise:

So I’ve been in this for a long time, but how would the culture that you have ingrained, that you have been a part of, that not only values but encourages and takes action on inclusion, diversity, bringing in people and responding to their needs for wherever they’re coming from. How would you say to someone else that’s looking to do that, or is in the process, what’s the process that you go about to find those right people?

Chris Wright:

I mean, it starts with on the front end being very deliberate about your vision for your club. And I think everybody’s maybe got a mission statement or a vision statement, but really do they live it every single day? And do they really put it into practice?

Chris Wright:

And the session that I was in yesterday, it was amazing. I had a lineup of people and saying, we taught the game, but we really don’t walk it at all. It’s all about whatever is right in front of me as my job that I’ve got to get done. And nobody’s really thinking inside of my club, and I’m not going to name any of them, but they’re not really thinking about what you’re talking about today.

Chris Wright:

I asked a question at the end of the session, and I said, “Who fills up your emotional gas tank?” At the end of the day, who is it inside of your organization professionally, who is it personally? Where do you get this incredible feeling that I’m going to contribute to society every single day? So if you’re not doing that with your staff every single day, then it’s going to dissipate and it will never get the traction that you need.

Chris Wright:

So what we did was very, very simple. We brought 72 stakeholders in our club together at a place called the Brave New Workshop in downtown Minneapolis with a guy called John Sweeney, whose specialty is improvisation. And we said, okay, we’re not coming out of here until we know what our why and our purpose is. We’re not going to come out of here until we know what our core values are. And we’re not going to come out of here until we know how to reinforce them every single day in the workplace and then in our stadium when we build it.

Chris Wright:

And so we took the learnings from that and we built out a two year strategic plan. And the very last question that I asked people in that session was, I want you to write down right now, what we have done in this market. What the impression of our club is in the market. How have we taken our place in the market after the last game of the first season in Allianz Field?

Chris Wright:

And now can we go and build a strategic plan, with pillars along the way, with tactics along the way that allow us to basically deliver on whatever that promise is. And I think that that level of strategic planning around vision and what you’re trying to create. I think everybody’s got a strategic plan, everybody’s got tactics as how to get to revenue goals, how to present corporate partnerships, what we’re going to do from a media campaign standpoint. But do you really have a plan inside of your company that basically allows you to go on this journey to build a vision for what you want for your character, your foothold, the impression of your franchise is in the marketplace in a certain period of time.

Chris Wright:

That’s what we did with Allianz Field. That’s how we launched Allianz Field. With that as a background to everything that we were doing.

Chris Wise:

So that’s your touchdown for everything?

Chris Wright:

Everything, everything, everything. And so you asked about hiring. And so we’re operating in a very, very depressed area of the twin cities. We built a stadium in an area called the Midway, it’s right between the city of Minneapolis and the city of St. Paul. A lot of homelessness in that area. A lot of people who are out of work. We do over half of our job fairs inside of that community.

Chris Wright:

And so 35% right now of our staff actually walk to work when we opened the stadium. Now we’ve got to go deep into training. We’ve got to go deep into what our expectations are. We’ve really got to show some of these people, really what the job expectations are. But unless you, when you’re talking the talk, walk the walk, then it’s fruitless what you’re doing.

Chris Wright:

So we really believe in what we’re doing. We believe that we are changemakers. We believe that we are going to make a big difference in the community. And that is at the essence really of everything that we’re trying to accomplish.

Chris Wise:

Great stuff. Man, thank you so much.

I think my takeaway on this, the most powerful thing that any of us can take away both personally, professionally, and as part of an organization is understand your why. Understand. Build that foundation and then act on it. Like you just said, everybody likes to talk, but to actually put your boots on, to actually go out there and do the work that it takes to follow through on that why is what matters. And it’s what makes a successful organization sustainable.

Chris Wright:

Right.

Chris Wise:

I love it. Chris Wright of Minnesota United, thank you so much for joining us. This has been Fired Up.

Chris McAdoo:

Thanks for listening and if you like what you heard, be sure to subscribe. And if you really like what you heard, please leave us a five star review and tell all your friends. Also, thanks to the good people that power Fired Up and Ignite Fan Insights. At NASCAR, the National Sports Forum and the Association of Luxury Suite Directors.

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Fired Up is hosted by Chris Wise and myself, Chris McAdoo. Thanks again for listening. Tune in next time. And as always y’all stay fired up.