National Post (National Edition)
NEW YORK ADVENTURE
How two Torontonians and former MLSE sports execs are conquering NYC.
EVERYWHERE AROUND THE WORLD, NEW YORK MEANS SOMETHING, IT OCCUPIES A SPECIAL PLACE IN THE WORLD AS A CITY. THERE IS AN OPPORTUNITY FOR US TO EXPAND OUR BUSINESS BY ATTRACTING A GLOBAL FAN BASE, BECAUSE PEOPLE CARE ABOUT NEW YORK.
David Hopkinson leaned into his computer screen on a Zoom call, broke into a grin and said how “grateful” he was that he didn't get what he “wanted” in life.
What he wanted was a crack at running Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment Ltd., the giant sports business conglomerate that owns the Maple Leafs, Raptors, the arena they play in as well as soccer's Toronto FC and other assets.
It would have been a great story, too. Hopkinson, known as “Hoppy,” is a Toronto native, an east end kid. Way back in the 1990s, he worked in ticket sales when the Raptors were an expansion NBA franchise, cold calling a hockey-loving public to pitch them on basketball.
He was a master at it, along with everything else his bosses at MLSE would toss at him over the years as he scaled the company's ranks toward the pinnacle he coveted: the chief executive's job.
But Hopkinson didn't get that gig. Michael Friisdahl, a former Air Canada executive, was hired as CEO in 2015 and remains there.
“I had wanted that job badly,” Hopkinson said.
Had he got it, he would probably still be in Toronto, parking in the same spot and living not far from where he grew up. By not getting the job, he became Friisdahl's right-hand man, and a shining star all the same, which is why Real Madrid, the world's most valuable soccer brand, scooped him away two years ago to become its global head of partnerships, thus beginning his “Spanish adventure.”
Now, Hopkinson is on to his next adventure as the new executive vice-president and president of team business operations at Madison Square Garden Sports Corp. (MSGS), which owns the NBA Knicks and NHL Rangers — the most valuable franchises in their respective leagues, according to Forbes magazine.
He has an apartment near Central Park, that is, if he ever gets there. He is currently quarantining in Toronto after flying back to Canada from Spain over Christmas, and is biding his time doing yoga, pushups, eating boring food that makes him wonder why he left Madrid and meeting on Zoom with his MSGS colleagues. His wife, Lawrie, and daughters, Claire and Miranda, are staying in Madrid to finish out the school year.
Hopkinson, however, isn't worried about being lonely in New York. Tom Pistore, “TP” for short, is his best friend, a former colleague from the MLSE years and another Toronto sports business guy with an apartment in New York currently sitting empty.
“I think it is a riot, both of us ending up in New York,” Pistore said.
Pistore left MLSE in February 2019 and a month later joined New York Arena Partners, which is building the future home of the New York Islanders. He was named president of commercial operations for UBS Arena last June.
The arena is the centrepiece of a US$1.3-billion development in Belmont, N.Y., that includes a 250-room hotel and 350,000 square feet of retail, and Pistore's main focus is on the commercial side, everything from sponsorship and seat sales for all types of events and concessions to marketing and community involvement.
The idea is to build and maintain an arena that Pistore said is “great” for both hockey and performers, one that will stand out in the crowded New York sporting and entertainment marketplace.
“We are the challenger,” he said. “The Knicks are the gorilla, in my mind, they are going to be the single-biggest sports entity in North America in five years' time.”
Pistore and Hopkinson met in 1995 in the Raptors' ticketing department. Pistore was the ambitious-as-hell intern from the city's west end, and would climb the MLSE ladder alongside Hopkinson, culminating in a four-year stint as senior vice-president of sales and service.
Further adding to the intrigue is that the CEO of Oak View Group, one of the three partners behind New York Arena Partners, is Tim Leiweke, Michael Friisdahl's colourful predecessor at MLSE.
Leiweke's job was the one Hopkinson coveted but didn't get, thereby triggering a happy chain of unforeseen events the now well-travelled sports executive is, in hindsight, deeply grateful for.
“You need to be careful with what you want in life,” Hopkinson said.
By not getting the Toronto gig, he ultimately uprooted his family to Madrid. On that front, his youngest daughter recently informed him that she is now an “international” person and will not be moving back to Canada anytime soon.
As a family, Team Hopkinson had a blast overseas. As a professional, “ambition” is what he learned about most during his time with Real Madrid. In other words, how to think big, and not Canadian big, but globally big.
At MLSE, the corporate rallying cry was to dominate the national market, not hard given Toronto is the centre of Canada's professional sporting interests. But nobody cares about Toronto in Spain, Hopkinson said, let alone its sports teams.
Soccer fans worldwide, however, care about Real Madrid. Its website can be accessed in 11 different languages and Hopkinson had employees reporting to him from the Americas, Asia and Europe.
The Real Madrid branding strategy wasn't domestic supremacy. It was world domination, and it is the kind of ambition he hopes to bring to New York.
“Everywhere around the world, New York means something, it occupies a special place in the world as a city,” he said. “There is an opportunity for us to expand our business by attracting a global fan base, because people care about New York — and the New York Knicks can make the connection.”
With apologies, hockey fans, specifically Rangers fans, the great frozen game may still be a few more decades off from global domination.
Hopkinson started his new job on Nov. 1, and had been working remotely from Madrid. He always planned a return to North America when the right opportunity knocked. He just didn't know the opportunity would present itself so soon.
To help weigh the pros and cons of his latest move, he tapped his closest confidantes for advice, including, naturally, his old pal, Pistore, who is currently camped out in Mississauga, Ont., working remotely for UBS Arena until the pandemic “cools” down so he can return to New York.
Pistore knows Hopkinson as a charismatic leader, a bold salesman and an abysmal Fantasy Football League team manager. He knows him as a “gamer” and a terrible golfer. More than anything, he knows him as a friend.
They both have daughters, both are 50, or soon to be, and have known one another for 25 years, which made it impossible for Pistore to offer Hopkinson completely unbiased advice about a potential New York move.
“I told Hoppy I couldn't tell him to come to New York, because I couldn't take the friend part out of it,” Pistore said.
Instead, he told him the truth: Hopkinson was never going to be the boss of Real Madrid. Spain was always going to be temporary. New York, however, could prove legendary. Basketball, like soccer, is a global sport. MSGS is a publicly traded company.
Of course, Hopkinson didn't need that much convincing. Do the math: should the Knicks, a terrible NBA franchise for years, ever get consistently good (they haven't made the playoffs since 2013), and perhaps even win the championship, he could be the executive growing them as an international brand, and who knows where that might lead.
For now, though, the challenge is getting him and his family to New York.
“I am changing cities, and as a family, we find it exhilarating,” he said. “I am going to walk to work. I am going to be a New Yorker. It is amazing where life can take you.”
General Motors Co. is changing its corporate logo for the first time in 56 years, giving it a new lowercase script that is designed to look more modern. The new logo, which GM will use in all of its corporate communications, is part of a national marketing campaign starting this month themed “Everybody In” that GM will use to promote plans to sell an electric vehicle for every lifestyle and price point, GM chief marketing officer Deborah Wahl said in a video conference. The new logo will be the fifth in GM's history. While it keeps the blue box GM has historically used, the “M” in GM is styled to look like an electric plug. The automaker's retooled consumer outreach is laying the groundwork for a wave of EVs coming soon to its showrooms. Bloomberg