Strategy & Operations

world team tennis

Running a professional Sports Franchise & winning a championship

Challenge

Staffing up and running all aspects of business operations for a professional sports franchise with only a few months remaining before the season

Background

Founded in 1973, World Team Tennis has been a trailblazer in professional sports for almost 50 years though they’ve kept a lower profile than other sports leagues. From its founding, the league boasted a mixed gender format, unique scoring to liven the game, and has been ahead of the curve on equity. Billie Jean King, the driving force of WTT since its founding, took over majority ownership in the mid-80s, and, thereafter the league was female-owned and run for over 30 years. WTT attracts some of the top players in tennis, present and past. For example, during the season in which I was involved, both Serena Williams and John McEnroe played in the league.

My involvement with World Team Tennis began when I got a call from the former CEO of XM Radio. He suggested I speak to the owner of the Washington Kastles, a new team in World Team Tennis preparing for its second season. The Kastles were looking for a General Manager to oversee all aspects of the team’s business operations and needed to move quickly with the new season rapidly approaching.

I met with the Kastles’ owner in March of 2009, and was offered the position, and started immediately. As I would discover, the scale and structure of World Team Tennis presented both challenges and opportunities. 

The first major challenge was that since the economics of the league did not support a year-round staff, I would have to hire a team (primarily comprised of college interns and entry-level staff) to prepare for the upcoming season.

The second major challenge was that the entire World Team Tennis’ season takes place over three weeks in July. There is no time to gradually ease into the season. I was completely new to World Team Tennis with a season quickly approaching and had never even seen a WTT match, so I faced substantial personal obstacles. I would have to find ways to anticipate issues without reference to any first-hand experience.

The flip side of this predicament was the incredible opportunity World Team Tennis presented since it lacked the rules, structure, and rigidity of other sports leagues. We had the chance to reimagine an experience unique to the city of Washington, DC and to World Team Tennis. Fortunately, we had a visionary owner who wanted to take World Team Tennis to a higher level and was willing to push the envelope for us to get there.

Solution

My mantra for this opportunity was to learn quickly and act decisively. The first step was getting a handle on all of the components required to have a successful season, determining the lead times for each, and identifying any work or infrastructure that was already in place.

With most of the necessary positions unfilled, I went to work building the infrastructure for a successful season. The longest lead time was building the pop-up stadium in the middle of Washington, DC. When I started, permits were already in place, and we began breaking ground in late spring. Fortunately, I worked with a freelancer who was expertly overseeing this process.

The next most pressing need was developing and executing a revenue generation plan. We had three general revenue targets — sponsors, VIP / season tickets, and individual ticket sales. All three required a marketing strategy and developing marketing materials. One of the first, and most important, hires I made was bringing on a creative designer with whom I had worked at XM Radio previously. We closely collaborated to lock in messaging and brand assets, and subsequently around-the-clock to continually churn out collateral materials.

I hired interns and temporary staff to handle incoming and outgoing ticket sales, sponsorship sales & activation, street teams to generate awareness, community relations/outreach, and content creation and distribution. Further, I directly engaged a local PR firm to flood the city and the local tennis community with a constant flow of Kastles-related stories and news.

As we moved closer to the season, we ramped up our sales activity. Simultaneously, we transitioned our focus to the gameday experience which included locking in a stadium staffing plan (our entire 25 person staff were expected to work each match), game entertainment, sponsor activation, and pre-match VIP activities.

During the season, we shifted into high gear. We saturated our digital channels with fresh content every day to generate interest. We ran ads broadly in small and large city newspapers to drive ticket sales and purchased outdoor advertising to raise awareness. Our street teams were out daily in high traffic locations including the Kastles’ tennis ball mascot shaking hands in the summer Washington heat.

A little luck never hurts, and we made the most of it. When John McEnroe got into an on-court scuffle during one of our home matches, we leveraged the national and international press coverage to generate buzz and ticket sales for our next match. While the team started the season slowly, a late season push found the Kastles in the playoffs for the first time.

Results

The season ended with a bang. We advanced through the playoffs, and the league awarded us the opportunity to host the finals at our home stadium in DC. We packed the house full with fans hoping for Washington’s first professional sports championship in years. On the brink of defeat, the Kastles saved three match points before winning the championship.

On the business side, the season was an enormous success. We operated on a different scale than the other teams in the league. We led the league in ticket sales, sponsorship and overall revenue. 

DC also appreciated and celebrated the Kastles’ contribution to the nation’s capital. The Mayor awarded the Kastles’ owner the key to the city in a celebration at City Hall with players and fans.

The buzz around the championship also cemented the Kastles’ place in the DC sports landscape. The miraculous championship victory proved to be the beginning of a dynasty as the first of five Kastles’ championships in six years.