Kansas City Chiefs COO Mark Donovan recently did a roundtable with several other NFL executives on the state of the NFL's business.
One particular passage from Dononvan in the roundtable caught my eye. He talked about working with Chiefs owner Clark Hunt and how his operation positively affects the way Donovan can do his job.
"One of the advantages [the Kansas City Chiefs] have is a new building, new team of management, football and non-football, and an owner who is not risk averse. He’s given us the opportunity to look at every single operating mean and say: "Don’t tell me it’s because you’ve always done it that way. What can we do differently? Could we invest here? Could we sell this? Could somebody else do it for us? Could somebody else do it better?" It’s fundamental business.
I highly encourage you to check out the entire story and I think you'll learn a little more about Donovan and his thought process. Over the last year, I've really started to see the differences Donovan has made within the organization.
However, those differences apparently aren't noticeable to everyone.
Michael Silver of Yahoo! Sports ranks all the NFL's owners every year. Here's a passage from Clark Hunt's ranking:
One of Hunt’s peers describes him as "an absentee owner. They were fifth in marketing at one point under Lamar; you won’t see that again."
So which one is it? Donovan's hire was lauded by some because they see him with a bright future in the league. He did a lot of innovating things with the Eagles. I've heard privately from others within the Chiefs that are very impressed with Donovan.
I suppose we'll have to wait to see what the Chiefs look like on the field. Fielding a competitive team makes Donovan and other marketing executive's jobs much, much easier.