No, I have no prior history of improving an athletic department. But as I have said for years regarding both modern day D1 athletic departments and FBS football programs, they are hiring the wrong people. Since 2012, I have been arguing that FBS programs need to hire general managers who have more power and authority than head coaches. Slowly, some staffs have been hiring "chief of staff" or similar titles in an effort to allow head coaches to focus on football, but it's too little too late at this stage. They still allow the head coaches to have authority over the chief of staff/GM. And that's ass-backwards.
There are schools with football programs generating $100+ million in revenue lead by head coaches and athletic directors who have absolutely no business background. They've been brought up, mostly, in collegiate sports. College sports today is entirely different than it was just 20 years ago, and that's where all of these guys have been trained. It's why I was a big proponent of Joe Moglia getting hired at Coastal Carolina. He understood this concept.
For your anything of merit comment, let's compare lives and accomplishments, moron.
Last weekend, a Fortune 600 insurance company rented out the entire SkyBar at the Waldorf Astoria in Vegas for their executives and five of their biggest customers. I, even though not one of their five biggest customers, was invited as somebody they are targeting. One of my partners and his wife joined us. The entire SkyBar had no more than 25 people in it all evening. The following morning, that insurance company rented out a penthouse at the Bellagio where their company president, president of their risk division (who lives in Dallas and Martha's Vineyard), and two of their vice-presidents (one of whom lives in San Diego with her wife) met with us. Their president made four comments during the two hours meeting:
1) "You are ripe for an acquisition by an insurance company. Have you heard from anyone else?" And then, not even out of design, two of the vice presidents in that meeting saw me at lunch just hours later with two executives of a Fortune 400 company. I hadn't seen them and one of them came up to where I was sitting and said "Don't do it, it's not worth it" in a joking manner. So not only did they see me meeting with their competitor, but their competitor then asked me what that was about, so they realized I was being pursued by their competitor.
2) "Even though it may not come across like it, but this is a compliment: I don't think you realize just how forward thinking you are."
3) "I'm on the wrong fvcking side of the equation in this. I should have joined on your side looking at these numbers."
4) "Have you protected this? Is any of it patented?"
Then, the following day, we had to delay our flight time since another of our partners wanted us to meet with a colleague of his. That colleague owns 11 car dealerships in Virginia. He asked the same question of if it was protected. He was under the impression that we were looking for seed money, which isn't the case. After seeing our system and our numbers, he said "Well maybe I'll become a partner and help you when you expand into Virginia."
This company has seen 950% growth in the four months since I've invested and became an active partner.
Oh, and the other company that I invested in was just sent a cease-and-desist letter by Safelite, the nation's largest auto glass company. They recently acquired the nation's #2 auto glass company. Safelite is so big with such good branding that they really don't employ a true sales force, so they let everyone go there. The #2 company's top sales rep had never signed a non-compete. Safelite, after buying her company, offered her a one-time $72,000 payment to sign the non-compete. We talked her out of it, had her invest $110,000 of her own money into the other company we were setting up, and now she owns 20% of it. She then went and poached a handful of her old company's top technicians, two sales reps, and a GM. Safelite then sent all of us (the three partners) cease-and-desist letters claiming that we were illegally poaching their employees, which isn't illegal. They claimed that the sales rep (who is now a partner) was privy to trade secrets of the company which she clearly wasn't as just a sales rep in a company valued at over $100 million. They also sent all of us trespassing warnings even though I've never stepped foot on any of their property.
Let me know if you want to hear about the bike company whose founder I talked on the phone with yesterday. They are in the middle of switching to a bigger production facility and headquarters. I will be meeting with them as early as this weekend about equity with them. Or if you'd rather hear about how my position units performed at each school, we can discuss that.
