Prior to the 2019-20 season, Chris McGowan, President and CEO of Vulcan Sports Entertainment, discussed the team's 50th anniversary festivities, the passing of Paul Allen, working with Jody Allen, sponsorships, jersey releases and the team signing multiple figures in the organization to long term deals this offseason...
Your general thoughts going into the 2019-20 season after a successful 2018-19 campaign.
Chris McGowan: Excited. It's fun to be around a team that has energy and excitement in the market. I get to spend a large portion of my time taking to fans and sponsors, everyone was chomping at the bit for this season to start. That's a fun thing to be a part of. I've been a part of teams where there wasn't a lot of energy around the start of the season and that can be a little bit of a drag, but we're all really excited to see how things are going to transpire. We've obviously got some new faces in the organization as well, so seeing how it comes together is going to be really exciting.
It's also been almost a year since Paul Allen's passing and subsequently, Jody Allen moving into the ownership role. How has the transition from working with Paul to working with Jody gone thus far?
Chris McGowan: Obviously when you go through a tragedy like we went through, you just never know what the transition is going to be. From my perspective, you couldn't ask for a better transition. We just dove in under Jody's guidance and leadership to continue pushing forward with running a great to work with. She's super available and passionate about the success of both teams and challenges me and Neil and everyone else at the Seahawks to continue running a first-class organization representing out fans. We have a tremendous fan base here and in Seattle, let's win, go have fun. It's always great working for people who give you that as the marching orders. The transition is tough any time something like this happens, but from why perspective, it's been a really smooth transition. We're in good hands.
You also assumed the role of CEO of Vulcan Sports Entertainment around this time last year. How has that transition worked out?
Chris McGowan: It's been a little bit of a transition for sure. As part of the role I do have to go to Seattle, working with the Seahawks organization, helping guide them in their business as well. As a result, I got to Seattle quite a bit and I get to go to a bunch of NFL games, trying to figure out ways we can operate and take advantage of synergies of having two amazing platforms in the Pacific Northwest. It's been a lot of fun and fortunately they have an amazing staff, an amazing culture, it's not like one of those deals where you have to jump in and turn an organization or a franchise around. It's part me helping and guiding, part me learning a new sport and how another successful organization has been ran. It's been interesting. It's been about a year and I've enjoyed it. My job is to bring the organizations together and that's kind of what I've been focusing on the last year.
The team will be celebrating their 50th anniversary this season, what are some of the events and activations you're looking forward to?
Chris McGowan: Everything we're doing, there's a level of excitement to it, whether it's around the wine launch -- it felt really Oregon, which is really neat. Obviously celebrating with special uniforms and a special court, that is going to be different and unique, but I think what I'm most looking forward to are the Decade Nights. You forget how impactful and how long this team and franchise has been a part of Portland and to use the 50th to celebrate that is going to be a lot of fun. Bringing a lot of familiar faces back and knowing our fan base the way I know, they're going to really enjoy that as well. There are new fans of the Portland Trail Blazers but there are also fans that have been fans for generations and they've seen ever iteration of our team. Using the 50th anniversary -- it's a lot of years in one town -- to celebrate that, I'm looking forward to know nights. They're going to be a lot of fun.
It's also been a year since the team partnered with Biofreeze, with the jersey patch being the most visible part of that partnership. A year in, how has that partnership worked out?
Chris McGowan: From a partner perspective, Biofreeze has been amazing. It's a great link to sports because it's a product that is endemic in sports, so I think that's natural. And to the level that you can have natural partnerships, I think it's really good, especially with a partner which is that visible and that prominent in our operation, to be on the jersey, that's big time. They have that natural connection which is something I've always been proud of. The people at Biofreeze are great, they've very, very sophisticated from a sports marketing perspective, a lot of them have backgrounds in other sports brands, so they really hold us accountable at a level that makes us better as an organization. How do we take what's been a huge investment on their behalf and produce great returns and results for them? We meet with them regularly, they come to a lot of games, we've developed a really strong relationship. We're really lucky to have them and they've been really satisfied and happy as well. And as you can see, they're getting involved with other franchises with what they did with the Warriors' practice facility. They do a lot with other teams, they're big in baseball, so it's just fun to have a partner that is of that scale in Portland. It really helped us raise our game, and it's been received well. I think because it's such a natural tie in, fans have bought into it as well and have been supportive of the program and the partnership that we launched.
It seems like the response to the new "Classic" jersey has been overwhelmingly positive.
Chris McGowan: I can't remember negatives on this one. Going retro, people really gravitate toward that here -- that's why we're always reluctant to do drastic changes to our uniforms because, in my opinion, they're a little iconic and our fans are so connected to it, so we really take it seriously if we are going to make changes to the uniforms. Inevitably when we do there are going to be some detractors our there and that's what makes Rip City really fun, people are passionate about everything that we do. But we are mindful of what we do to those uniforms, but this one has been really positive.
Neil Olshey, Terry Stotts, Damian Lillard and all received contract extensions this offseason. Does it have any benefit for the business side to have those guys locked in for the foreseeable future?
Chris McGowan: For sure. First of all, those are four amazingly talented people, whether they're on the court or off the court. It just makes sense to lock people like that up for as long as you can. For us, it's stability, the organizational stability is an important thing for us. The key people that are driving the organization are going to be here for a long time. I think it's a good message to not only the fans but sponsors, to people in the city, that the people who are driving the Blazers forward want to be here and are going to be here by nature of some of those longer term deals that are signed this summer. Stability is good and typically stable organizations produce good results on and off the court. That's certainly what we model ourselves off. It's also a great testament to Jody, what she believes. She is the one who ultimately decides those contracts. There was a lot of activity this summer and she's been completely supportive.
What impact did making the Western Conference Finals have on the team from a business perspective?
Chris McGowan: Only four teams playing and the exposure you get as an organization is incredible. There's just so much interest, especially in big time games both nationally and internationally. It does great locally, it certainly helps us sell more tickets, have more sponsorship conversations but it just puts our franchise on a stage that's so immense, connects people from all over the world, literally, to the Trail Blazers. That ultimately is great for our business, our franchise to be out there as much as we were in those big time games. To me, I view what it does in terms of relevance beyond Portland when you're playing there. We are a smaller market, it's really late when we're playing our games in a big part of our country, so it takes people a little bit of time to get connected with what's going on here. We've used that as motivation in the past, maybe people were sleeping on us a little bit, but I don't think that's going to be the case anymore because we've certainly had a lot of success the last couple years.
Did the team turn a profit last season?
Chris McGowan: We're in a great place financially. We have the ability to be profitable every year, which is what the goal is.