(06/02/08)
Leiweke’s the one - AEG chief leads list of winners as Sports Exec of Year

“We’ve succeeded many times and failed a few,” Jakob said. “However we have always taken a lot of pride in tackling tough innovations.”

Originally appeared in SportsBusiness Journal

Nearly three decades after he joined the sports business as an assistant general manager for a now-defunct St. Louis indoor soccer team, Tim Leiweke reached the industry pinnacle last week, winning the Sports Executive of the Year at the inaugural Sports Business Awards.

"It's not about any one thing for us," said Leiweke, the globetrotting visionary behind such momentous projects as London's O2 and L.A. Live. "This is really kind of embarrassing for us. We try not to get focused on awards. It's a great tribute to AEG, but we firmly believe our best days are still ahead of us."

Leiweke joined a list of distinguished executives that includes MLB Commissioner Bud Selig (2006), EA CEO Larry Probst (2005) and Nike founder Phil Knight (2003). He did it on the back of a string of deals that stretched from Los Angeles to Beijing, but his biggest feat, bringing David Beckham to the U.S., was so significant it lifted not only his stature but that of MLS, which won League of the Year.

"We've gone through so many, many challenges over the years," said MLS Commissioner Don Garber, whose league expanded by three teams, opened two new stadiums and collected TV rights revenue for the first time in 2007. "This is a great statement about dedicated ownership, passionate fans, sponsors that believe in a sport and broadcasters that are willing to take a risk on this sport."

"We had the right creative minds and the right partners to accomplish this," said Ralph Santana, Pepsi's vice president of sports and interactive marketing. "We always strive for things that will make people in the industry say, 'Wow. Look what they did.' So I guess this says we were successful doing that."

Octagon broke through a similarly crowded field to clinch Agency of the Year, giving it another achievement to cap off a year that was highlighted by the return of one of its signature clients, Bank of America.

"You think you have a great plan and your clients will tell you if you are winning or losing, but this really puts it over the top," said Octagon CEO Rick Dudley.

In a moment that took few by surprise, Fox Sports, which broadcast almost all of the marquee sports events in 2007, took the Sports Media of the Year award.

Accepting for the network, Fox Sports President Ed Goren gave a nod to News Corp. bosses Rupert Murdoch and Peter Chernin, who opened their pocketbook aggressively for high-profile broadcast rights.

"Anyone that has tried get a company to invest billions of dollars knows how difficult it can be," he said, before singling out David Hill "as the straw that stirs the drink … usually an alcoholic one."

The self-proclaimed Worldwide Leader in Sports wasn't overlooked either. ESPN Digital Media rode its expansive depth and breadth to win Sports Online of the Year.

Offstage afterward, John Kosner, senior vice president of ESPN Digital Media, said, "We didn't rest on our laurels last year. We continued to seek out innovations, made acquisitions and looked to keep serving fans. This is definitely a powerful validation in what we're trying to do."

On a night filled with surprises, the greatest may have been when Wake Forest University's Ron Wellman won Athletic Director of the Year. The recognition came for his work during one of the toughest years in his career, which included dealing with the sudden death of men's basketball coach Skip Prosser.

Accepting the award, Wellman said, "We all know athletics are filled with upsets, and you're seeing one of the biggest ones tonight."

The Boston Red Sox added another title to their recent domination of baseball, collecting one for their organizational competence by winning Professional Sports Team of the Year.

"We had a saying after we won in 2004 that any group of schmiels could win once, and we wanted to prove that the organization was strong enough, deep enough, resilient enough to come back and do it a second time," team President and CEO Larry Lucchino said. "We hope that sometime down the road after this becomes a well-established tradition we have the great good fortune to come back and do this again."

Not everyone was as confident.

When Sportvision COO Mike Jakob found out he was seated at table 48 for the ceremony, he thought there was no way Sportvision would win the award for Sports Innovation/Technology of the Year. But he found himself onstage moments later.

"We've succeeded many times and failed a few," Jakob said. "However we have always taken a lot of pride in tackling tough innovations."

Staff writers Eric Fisher, Daniel Kaplan, Terry Lefton and John Ourand contributed to this story.