Dave Checketts believed that he had experienced just about everything in his decades-long career as a sports executive. As president of the New York Knicks, he hired Pat Riley as coach in 1991, kicking off a memorable decade of championship contention at Madison Square Garden. As the founding owner of an MLS franchise in Salt Lake City with his company, SCP Worldwide, he brokered a partnership with Real Madrid that helped produce one of the first soccer-specific stadiums in the United States and an MLS Cup title in 2009.
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But none of Checketts’ years in the NBA, NHL (as owner of the St. Louis Blues for a few years beginning in 2006), or MLS had prepared him for a Sunday in May 2022 in which Burnley, a club English soccer team, were relegated from the Premier League for the first time in six years, in a tough one-goal defeat at home on the final day of the season.
“I’ve never seen anything like this at a regular-season event,” said Checketts, who had been appointed to the club’s board of directors in 2021. “It was exciting and then it’s over, you’re relegated, you’re out of the major league. The fans were crying. It was a funeral. But because I was back home in Connecticut, I was able to see it from a distance and also understand it as a business strategy.”
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Checketts recalled telling his wife, Deb, “The NBA needs to implement this!”
Now calmer, he acknowledged that American professional basketball lacks the infrastructure of the lower leagues of European soccer to consider promotion and relegation, among other cultural and financial factors that prevent that. But in a recent discussion, Checketts, 67, spoke to The New York Times about the growing connectivity of global sports.
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This conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.
Q: How did your association with Burnley FC come about? A: Our MLS team didn’t do well the first two years. After we got off to a bad start to the third year, I fired everyone. There was a junior partner at our firm, Alan Pace, and I asked him to be interim CEO. Alan fell in love with the sport. When he finalized the deal to buy Burnley in 2020, he called me and said: “The Premier League informs me that I need someone who has been involved in professional sports.” I put up money and joined their ownership group. Q: After relegation in 2022, you experienced promotion, the other side of the coin, with Burnley losing just three games in the second division. How was that? A: The team had a coach who had been there for a decade, Sean Dyche, who was so popular that there was a community bar named after him. But we were losing and Alan fired him with a few games left in the relegation season. Fans went wild on social media; he was ugly. This guy is American; What does he know? Alan then signed Vincent Kompany, who had been a star at Manchester City and was a manager in Belgium. He reduced the roster and opted for young players and a new attacking system. When we won the championship, they organized a parade and I was there. Burnley is very industrial, one of the oldest clubs in the world. The stadium seats only 20,000 people, but it felt like the whole city was there, tens of thousands. Q: JJ Watt, one of two former NFL players — Malcolm Jenkins is the other — who invested in Burnley, was in the deciding game and was able to carry the trophy. Why is English soccer suddenly attracting American celebrities? (Watt’s wife, Kealia, who played in the National Women’s Soccer League, is also an investor.) A: Obviously Ryan Reynolds’ purchase of Wrexham and the ensuing reality series has been a big factor, as has “Ted Lasso” at Apple. But Americans have always had a fascination with England, with anything to do with the royal family. Furthermore, Americans are also used to seeing what they believe to be the best in sports. It is no surprise that with the growth of soccer there is a fascination with the Premier League. Q: If the promotion-relegation dynamic never works out in the US professional leagues, including MLS, is there a sporting entity where it might be viable? A: I think it’s an absolutely great idea to have a leading conference in college football and there could be promotion and relegation, where the bottom three or four would fall, but still get to play major college teams. It would create incredible interest. But you would need a central power source, like a professional commissioner, and the NCAA is not that. Q: Speaking of borrowed from Europe, the NBA is launching a new tournament during the regular season, but the league already has a tournament; It’s called the postseason. Will this work? A: I think if you were to go out, even in New York, and ask, “What is this new NBA tournament about?” I doubt many knew what to answer. It’s a separate tournament, but do the results count toward the regular season standings? Will they go to Las Vegas for the championship in December? Let’s say Phoenix goes to Las Vegas and wins the championship. Are you going home to celebrate? In Europe, they certainly celebrate winning any cup. It doesn’t seem like the American fans need it, but [el comisionado de la NBA] Adam Silver is never afraid to try new things and maybe that will spark some interest. Q: On the aforementioned topic of American fans demanding the best in a particular sport, where is MLS in the process of becoming a true major league on the international stage? A: [Lionel] Messi has made an obvious difference this summer, but how long can he keep playing and what happens after that? How many guys can you give $50 million? How do you get that big streaming deal? For me, the financial aspect was impossible to maintain. (Checketts sold his stake in Real Salt Lake in 2013.) First of all, we play in the summer, so foreign players have to go and play with their national teams. It would also help if the best American players stayed in MLS, but usually the coach of the national team prefers that they go to Europe because the level of the sport is much better. So it’s a tough challenge, but we have the World Cup here in 2026 and it would help if the United States could be really competitive. This could be a defining decade.
2023-09-01 19:31:40
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