After 15 years at the Oakland Athletics in a similar position, David Alioto became last year the Vice President, in charge of Business Operations for the new San Jose Earthquakes, with the amazing task of starting from scratch the whole organization.
We met him in his office in San Jose yesterday to talk about the first year of the San Jose Earthquakes, version 2.
The Bay Soccer: Compared to what you expected one year ago, would you say you reached your objectives?
David Alioto: Our first goal when we started the franchise, was to put the Earthquakes where it was going to be a long term success. What I mean by that is that the Earthquakes have always been on shaky ground in their history here, in San Jose and we needed to have a franchise that had quality owners that believed in this market place and willing to invest in this market place.
So, when I look at those goals, the long term goal is to get a soccer-specific stadium, but the short term goal was to get the Earthquakes up and running and start cementing the future of the club. That started with John Doyle and Frank Yallop. Getting the two right people to run the soccer operations side. That was critical for us and I think we couldn't be happier with those decisions.
We needed to build a front office from scratch and the talent that we have here in this front office is second to none in the MLS. It's very young and energetic staff but very high performing.
But I think the most important thing if I look at the year is that both on and off the field, we got better at everything we did as we want along.
In the beginning, there were some difficulties playing professional soccer at Buck Shaw stadium. It was small and had some things that didn't work. We made some really quick changes and by the end of the year, especially the last game of the season, we came out with this phenomenal atmosphere where you thought we had won the world championship with people celebrating...It was a giant party.
So, our goals are obviously to drive revenue from the business side, but we're branding a franchise, we're building a fan base and people want to come back and we think we accomplished all those goals.
The Bay Soccer: You mentioned bringing Frank Yallop back...How long did it take to convince him to come back?
David Alioto: About 32 seconds! Frank had great memories here, but he is also the kind of coach who has respect from everybody and that was one of the things we liked about Frank: how much respect he had around the league, the soccer community but I think Frank also had respect for the San Jose market, for the fans here, and I think this was a time that he remembered as being a great experience for him and his career and being good friends with John Doyle, I think that really helped and us insuring him that he would be in an environment where he could really coach the way he wants to coach and we would allow him to do that and once again when you look at the end of the first year, I think that's an unqualified success. I think that Frank would say the same, that it was exactly what he was looking for and I think that he's really happy.
The Bay Soccer: You worked for the A's for 15 years in a similar position before joining the Earthquakes, but here, you had to start a new organization from nothing...Did the challenge look scary at times?
David Alioto: Well...Some people thought I needed my head examined when I left a secure environment in baseball for the soccer world but, first of all, I haveroots in soccer that made me feel otherwise, but I think, more importantly, this is a legacy job and the A's job was just a job where I was just in a chair that somebody else would take after me and there wouldn't be anything great that would come out of this position while the Earthquakes' job gives m an opportunity to put an impact on a franchise that, 15 or 20 years from now, when I'm off and retired, sitting in the garden with my grandkids, I'll be able to take a look and take a lot of pride at what we accomplished here. That goes from the new stadium, building a training facility, how we perform on the field...just the whole thing, because you built it from scratch, you get to take ownership at that. Not that I didn't love working at the A's. I did, but it was a totally different type of job, I was only focused on raising revenues. here, there are other goals and it's a totally different community, because people eat, drink and sleep their soccer and I didn't see that same type of fans.
The best thing I can say to show the difference is that in 15 years at the A's, I probably had 3 or phone calls from concerned season ticket holders and here, I think in the first 6 months, I probably had 300 to 400 calls over everything that you could possibly imagine. And I continue to get those...So just it's just a different environment.
The Bay Soccer: You brought Frank Yallop and some players from the old Earthquakes and also a few staff members like Jed Mettee (Director of Broadcasting and Communications). Was it important for you to start with people who had the experience of the first Earthquakes?
David Alioto: Well, actually, one of the things we looked at is how successful the old Earthquakes were on the field, but not quite as successful off the field, so, we knew that we had to create a new business environment and I think that Jed Mettee actually fitted to this new business environment more than he did to the old environment and we brought back another person who was a ticket sales rep. and who is our ticket sales manager, Todd Hoggan, and both of them are young and were not too set in their ways. We have a way of doing business that we built at the A's and transferred over here and we're lean and mean but very creative, we move ligh, we have very few decision makers so we can make decisions quickly.
We looked at the success on the field and that's why you see John Doyle and Franck Yallop...What they did with the old Earthquakes was just fantastic but unfortunately, it didn't translate into revenue...That's the name of the game in sports, how you drive your revenue. Winning is the most important thing but if you win and don't drive revenues, that can leave you a little bit short. I think th old Quakes' front office did a great job, I'm not being critical, I'm just saying, in this day and age, revenue, revenue, revenue is what it's about.
The Bay Soccer: Fans are still traumatized by what happened a few years ago. Do you think the club is now financially safe and there's no reason to think it will happen again?
David Alioto: Let me just tell you the difference between the old Earthquakes and the current Earthquakes. the old Earthquakes were owned by a group that owned 4 other soccer teams and their priorities were: who would they favor. The LA Galaxy was kind of their jewel of a franchise and somehow the Earthquake were kind of pushed off to the side. What we have here is local ownership. Lew Wolf, John Fisher, Mike Crawley, are all local people and have long term plans for the club.
The Bay Soccer: What differences do you see between the business of baseball and the business of soccer?
David Alioto: Soccer fans follow their team through the season, come to multiple games. There is at least a core group that comes back to almost every game. Baseball fans come to one or two games in the season, there is more turnover.
From the team's point of view, when you loose a game in soccer, you're depressed the whole week. Teams take matches one after another, trying to win each of them. In baseball, if you loose a game, it's not a big deal. Everything is scheduled, you know weeks in advance which game you really want to win.
The Bay Soccer: In the middle of the season, a few games were not sold out. Were you worried about that?
David Alioto: No, we had 2 games scheduled early in the day that were not sold out, it happens...Overall, we filled 96% of the stadium's capacity, which is better than any other sport in the Bay Area. And we are honest with the numbers. We could have said it was sold out when it was not as, apparently, some other teams do and our return season ticket sales for the coming season are good.
The Bay Soccer: What is the status of the future stadium?
David Alioto: With the economy on a turndown, it may be better to start construction now, because prices are going down.
The Bay soccer: Do you think there is a chance it could be ready fo the 2010 seaon?
David Alioto: No. not before 2011 or 2012.
The Bay Soccer: Let's finish with a more personal question: Did you play soccer yourself?
David Alioto: Yes, I played in high school and my two sons play as well! Sometimes I leave work to go back to a soccer field and then go back to work!
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