Arthur Blank is a great man, a great executive and is the owner of the Atlanta Falcons. When he bought the team, he and I met and discussed the differences in owning a business vs. owning a public trust like a sports team. He is a compassionate man, a great leader and someone who cares deeply about his team and the community. He is also hyper-competitive. For the first years of his ownership tenure in Atlanta, things went very well and he was lauded for running a tight ship with consumer trust.
Now the team is mired in a losing streak. The team’s best player and former league MVP is in jail and the new coach of the team resigns after a national TV game the week that Michael Vick goes into prison. You see things in sports ownership that you never see in running a real business. Things can spiral out of control pretty fast in sports all under the white hot heat of media coverage. I empathize with what is happening in Atlanta and I am sure Arthur Blank is in pain but he is also a true leader and will be able to rebuild this franchise doing the right things the right way.
Keith Olbermann once wrote that being an anchor on SportsCenter was just like any other job, except that the last hour of each day was on national television. Athletes, sports management folks, team owners all have full time jobs, and yes, they do have a measure of the public trust.
There are people who work for noted companies in all industries who end up making major mistakes that land them in jail, and I’m sure every day critical employees of companies resign in the middle of something to go do something else.
It’s just that there aren’t Cable TV networks dedicated to that industry like there are in sports (and entertainment!) because in most cases people aren’t paying to watch those folks work. Athletes, like everyone else, have regular jobs, but they have the added pressure that at the most critical time of their work day, there are thousands of people watching them work!
Surprised there isn’t as much backlash from his “fried chicken” comment about Michael Vick on Monday Night Football.