XFL Seeks Chief Football Officer

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GDAWG
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XFL Seeks Chief Football Officer

Post by GDAWG »

https://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/SB- ... 01/21.aspx
XFL In The Market For Top Football Ops Role
The XFL 3.0 is hunting for a Chief Football Officer, a senior exec who would oversee all football operations under the new ownership of Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Dany Garcia and RedBird Capital Partners, per sources. CAA Sports’ executive search team, led by Joe Becher, is running the search. RedBird founder Gerry Cardinale is taking a personal interest in the search, while RedBird partner and former Browns President Alec Scheiner is also heavily involved. Former Bills and Sabres President Russ Brandon is advising RedBird on XFL matters, sources said.

The search has been underway for about two months, and it’s not clear how far along they are. Sources said the job is similar to a commissioner, but with a narrower portfolio and less autonomy than that title typically confers. XFL 2.0’s commissioner, Oliver Luck, is currently embroiled in a bitter legal battle with former owner Vince McMahon over unpaid salary. The XFL declined to comment.

Another detail uncovered in my reporting: XFL 2.0 Chief Marketing & Commercial Officer Jordan Schlachter is back working with XFL.

The new owners intend to start play again in 2022, giving whoever gets the job about a year to reconstitute teams, coaching staffs and the rest of the on-field product. In an interview in October, Garcia foreshadowed a league that sees football operations as just one of many equal divisions.

"There’s a traditional aspect, because football is football, but at the same time we’ve overlaid additional revenue streams, identified additional revenue opportunities, identified various ways to connect with all the participants around the XFL chain,” she told Yahoo Finance.
Rangersking669
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Re: XFL Seeks Chief Football Officer

Post by Rangersking669 »

The fact that CAA is running this talent search is a really really big deal. They have major clients all over media and sports and are one of the most notorious agencies out there. Among sports clients alone you have the Mannings, Adrian Peterson, Tony Romo, Derek Jeter, Cristiano Ronaldo, LaDainian Tomlinson They hold their share in the music industry too, with too many acts to name but for a few examples: Beyonce, Mariah Carey, Ariana Grande, Lady Gaga, Shakira, Kanye. Current NFL players include Matt Ryan, Philip Rivers, CeeDee Lamb, Tyrann Mathieu, Josh Allen, Aaron Rodgers, Derrick Henry. The XFL is gonna get somebody good out of this and I can't wait to see who it is. Also, I don't mind seeing the league put the chief football officer in a more restricted role to diversify leadership and also to not spend too much money on just one guy. There's no need for one guy to be at the top of the helm anymore, as Pollack can help guide the ship alongside him in addition to other execs at the same level.

In addition the executive search team just recently helped Olympique de Marseille hire their new director of football which was a pretty high profile signing(akin to the GM in American sports) for a team with an extended history of success
Last edited by Rangersking669 on Thu Jan 21, 2021 6:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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johnnyangryfuzzball
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Re: XFL Seeks Chief Football Officer

Post by johnnyangryfuzzball »

Russ Brandon?

One need only look at how much the Buffalo Bills have improved WITHOUT his presence to see how unnecessary he is.
Rangersking669
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Re: XFL Seeks Chief Football Officer

Post by Rangersking669 »

johnnyangryfuzzball wrote: Thu Jan 21, 2021 6:10 pm Russ Brandon?

One need only look at how much the Buffalo Bills have improved WITHOUT his presence to see how unnecessary he is.
Advising for an executive search is just a liiiitle different than running an actual football team though, and at the end of the day he wasn't the guy making the football decisions most of the time. Also, it's debatable how much of that can really even be attributed to him just because he was there the entire time
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Joker
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Re: XFL Seeks Chief Football Officer

Post by Joker »

Not a surprise that the search for executives is happening. Maybe the biggest surprise is the XFL is not going with the previous staff by default... that is they are not afraid to switch directions.
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Rangersking669
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Re: XFL Seeks Chief Football Officer

Post by Rangersking669 »

Joker wrote: Thu Jan 21, 2021 6:21 pm Not a surprise that the search for executives is happening. Maybe the biggest surprise is the XFL is not going with the previous staff by default... that is they are not afraid to switch directions.
I mean they can't exactly get Oliver Luck back, and that's who they're looking to replace with this role. They didn't just want to hand it off to Doug Whaley exactly
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Re: XFL Seeks Chief Football Officer

Post by GregParks »

I grew up in Western New York so I'm familiar with Brandon's time with the Bills. He seemed to do very well with the organization in business aspects, but the longer he was there the more his responsibilities expanded; I'm not so sure he was as successful in those endeavors. Plus, he left the organization embroiled in some controversy. FWIW, his time with the Bills did overlap with Doug Whaley's time as GM. Not sure if that makes it more likely Whaley will have a role with the XFL, but worth noting.

I recognize Alec Scheiner by name but nothing more.

I do like the idea of having a Chief Football Officer instead of an all-encompassing CEO like Luck was. There are few who could check all the boxes needed to check for that job. It would be easier, I'd imagine, to find someone whose sole responsibility is the football department. Vince McMahon has always been a "buck stops with one" type of guy, so it's no surprise he gave Luck so much power.

I'm glad Rangersking669 mentioned the importance of CAA being a part of the search. That struck me in my first reading of the story, too. I believe they helped negotiate WWE's mega-deals with Fox and USA, impressing WWE so much that they poached Nick Kahn from the group to become their president and Chief Revenue Officer. We know how important a TV deal is to the future of the XFL so I'm hoping they're also leading the TV deal search.
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Re: XFL Seeks Chief Football Officer

Post by Rangersking669 »

GregParks wrote: Thu Jan 21, 2021 6:38 pm I grew up in Western New York so I'm familiar with Brandon's time with the Bills. He seemed to do very well with the organization in business aspects, but the longer he was there the more his responsibilities expanded; I'm not so sure he was as successful in those endeavors. Plus, he left the organization embroiled in some controversy. FWIW, his time with the Bills did overlap with Doug Whaley's time as GM. Not sure if that makes it more likely Whaley will have a role with the XFL, but worth noting.
The guy definitely deserves some share of the blame but not all of it...yeah the controversy definitely is bad. At the least he's not the frontman running the search. Whaley is almost certainly a candidate but they would be irresponsible if they didn't go through with a thorough search like this
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Re: XFL Seeks Chief Football Officer

Post by Tank55 »

Part of Luck's value was being the face of the league rather than McMahon as they sought to distance themselves from 2001. That's not really needed here. CFO makes a lot of sense.

Pretty excited that things are finally starting to move.
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Rangersking669
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Re: XFL Seeks Chief Football Officer

Post by Rangersking669 »

Tank55 wrote: Thu Jan 21, 2021 9:11 pm Part of Luck's value was being the face of the league rather than McMahon as they sought to distance themselves from 2001. That's not really needed here. CFO makes a lot of sense.

Pretty excited that things are finally starting to move.
Yeah he did a great job, but it's definitely time to move on now and also to not have to pay 7 million dollars to one man, which is almost as much as an entire team's player payroll
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