IB Exit Ops in Sports

Hey everyone,

I'm intrigued by the possibility of someday leaving banking to work for a professional sports franchise. MLB is by far the most analytics heavy. Does anyone know of stories where people have successfully landed jobs working in front offices? For reference I am interning in banking this summer, will graduate this spring. Looking forward to hopefully some encouraging stories, though I know it's a really tough industry to find a job with decent pay

 

You might already know this, but I'd say one of the best/most successful current examples is Andrew Friedman, the former GM of the Rays and current President of Baseball Operations (essentially a super-GM) of my beloved Dodgers. He started as an analyst at Bear Stearns before moving to PE and after that joining the Rays.

So it can definitely be done, and I'm sure there are other examples too, not that I know of any personally.

 

There are several former bankers in CorpDev roles at the MSG Company as well as one that I know of at Raptor Group (Pallotta's family office/fund), but I don't know to what extent he has exposure to the Celtics or AS Roma vs. all the traditional principal investments.

It can be done, and from what I've seen, it's predicated by personal relationships more than anything else. See if you can find alumni (either of your school or your banking group) who are in the industry. If there are, do the whole get-to-know-you drill just like you did in banking recruiting: coffee chats, phone calls, informational interviews, etc. Same principle applies.

I am permanently behind on PMs, it's not personal.
 

Just do a Marc Lasry: start a fund and get rich enough to buy a team

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Best Response

The problem with pro sports is that it pays pretty crappy until you're really high up in the organization (or are an athlete) because they know so many people are willing to do it for peanuts for a few years in their 20's. A good friend of mine worked for a couple of years at Gillette in marketing right after school (and this was in the late 90's before Gillette was bought by P&G and was one of the top CPG marketing co's so he was on a good track) and went to work for the Celtics in marketing. Good school, great 2-3 yrs working for Gillette and he took something like a 50% paycut (and F500 marketing doesn't pay anywhere near banking so imagine the paycut). He loved what he did, got to hang with the players, etc but he couldn't do it for more than a few years because he didn't see making enough money to have a family until he was in his 40's. He transferred it into working in college athletics and is now the asst AD at a big state school so it can work but the pay can be prohibitively low.

My wife's cousin is going the other route: he played baseball at a big state school and is now a scout within the Yanks org. He was a math and econ major and has the actual sports background which he's saying is pretty essential today: they want the guy who knows the sport and who can dive deep into numbers and stats. He's probably 25 and in some bumblefuck AA or AAA farm team in Florida (? can't remember if he's still there) and expects to bounce around at that level for another 5 years before he moves up. Makes crap money but he doesn't care because he loves it.

I don't mean to rain on your parade at all and getting into pro sports is completely doable but you'll probably make shit money and/or relegate yourself to a shit farm position for a few years. You have to really love the job and not have it be about the money. Maybe try to get an IB group that does the transactional work when owners buy/sell then get into a league office?

 

i was in pro soccer before i got injured, so i'll try to answer to the best of my abilities.

The GM or chairman of the team I was with (or 99 percent of teams) used to be some former business man or agent. Sometimes they are even run by former players. Basically, you don't need to come in as some world renowned businessman. As a GM, you learn on the job. Technically, you can come in with no experience in the business field, but if you can think on your feet, you'll learn the tricks of the trade in no time. The IB skillset is just an added bonus. What I'm trying to say is that you can technically do this job without even a college education as long as you are street smart.

You can be the most qualified person for the job, but you'll never get that kind of job unless you know someone on the inside. While games are going on, you need to be able to find a way to be in the luxury suites wining and dining with major investors,agents, and team officials. Once you can get yourself into the scene, its just a matter of kissing the right ass and showing some competency before you can move up the ladder and make it as a GM.

It's not all glamorous though. It's a lot of pressure, and unless you have the bottle, I wouldn't recommend it. Whenever something is not going right at the club, your phone would be ringing ever 20 seconds. Ultimately, you could be doing your job perfectly, but if your team screws up, it's your ass that investors are going to be after. There are days I remember when I used to go the chairman's office at like 6;30 in the MORNING, and the room would smell like liquor. Lot of these guys are miserable. But when things are going well, you'll be on cloud nine.

Hope this helps..

 

If you want to train under the best, try getting a job/internship under Billy Beane (GM of the Oakland A's, see "Moneyball" by Michael Lewis). He is well known for hiring smart individuals out of the top schools, particuarly those who have a background in stats/math. His disciples have fanned out across the MLB ranks (SD, Toronto, Boston to name a few) and his strategy of sabermetrics is slowly being adopted in the entire game. I interned with the A's last summer (not under Beane, although I did get to meet him), so you can PM me if you have any questions.

(side note: it was well known in the office that Beane enjoyed lecturing I-bankers and other high level business people, so if anything your background would help you)

 

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