Executive Q&A: Peter McLoughlin

Peter McLoughlin, president, Seattle Seahawks, Seattle Sounders FC, First & Goal Inc.

In September 2010, Peter McLoughlin succeeded Tod Leiweke as president of Paul Allen’s Seattle sports operations. McLoughlin is responsible for all financial and business aspects of the Seahawks football team and Sounders soccer team. As head of First & Goal, he also oversees CenturyLink Field, CenturyLink Event Center and the WaMu Theater.

GROWING UP: Princeton, New Jersey, was a special place because we had Princeton University right down the street. We went to every football game, hockey game, spring baseball games. I sold programs. I grew up playing youth hockey at Baker Rink. I was a Boy Scout. It was an idyllic place to grow up.

PARENTAL GUIDANCE: Pretty basic: hard work, education, follow your passion. My dad [a marketing executive] ingrained in us early on that whatever it is you were going to do as a job had to be something you woke up every day wanting to do. The other great life lesson he and my mom gave me is when they said, Were going to help you get through college in four years and then youre on your own. Dont come home. Dont ask for any money. I was a sportswriter for The Harvard Crimson and thought, Ive got to do something in sports, because thats whats going to motivate me to get up every morning.

EARLY CAREER: I graduated in 1979 and was fortunate to get a job at NBC as a production unit manager. I did that for five years and then became a sales planner for NBC Sports, where I began to learn about ratings and about where the revenue came from in broadcast television. I did that for 18 months and then decided, Im ready to sell now, but the president of network sales said I might want to consider going to work for an advertising agency or a client. I took his advice to heart and ended up getting a job at Anheuser-Busch in St. Louis.

THE BEER BIZ: Anheuser-Busch was a superb company. When I got there in 1985, we had about 35 percent of the beer market in the United States, and by the time I left, 21 years later, we had 48 percent. We wielded about a $600 million [sports marketing] budget and sponsored everything.

THE BLUES: In 2006, I left to become CEO of the St. Louis Blues. I grew up playing ice hockey, and its not every day that someone in sports marketing gets the opportunity to be CEO of a sports team. I learned that running the entire business requires a lot of knowledge about how the economics of a sports team work. What are the revenue streams and how do you manage them? What are the expenses and how do you manage them?

COMING TO SEATTLE: Having gotten a solid foundation through the NHL, the fact that the collective bargaining agreement with the [NFL] players was expiring and a new agreement had to be negotiated was a positive thing because it caused me to immerse myself in the economics of the league. Im also lucky to have the best owner in sports in Paul Allen. Hes passionate about his teams. Hes totally committed to the Seattle community.

THE NFL MODEL: Theres so much money being spent by the broadcast networks to televise the games. The NFL Network is a great success, NFL Sunday Ticket on DirecTV is a very lucrative business, and with the growing popularity and the growing ratings, more and more marketers are spending more and more money. That allows the league to distribute significant dollars to each team, which allows us to be on equal footing from a competitive standpoint, and thats the league motto: equality on the field. Its a great model.

SOUNDERS FC: The Sounders are a phenomenon. And the fans in Seattle are the reason. Ill never forget sitting at home in St. Louis and watching the first Sounders match on ESPN2. My mind was boggled at the number of fans holding their scarves, singing and chanting. And when I realized the game was being played at the football stadium, I was really knocked out. Now that Im here, there are so many reasonsthe history of soccer in Seattle, the interest in the game among families and second-generation players in the community, the promise to the community when the stadium was being built that it was going to be a two-sport facility. [Owners] Joe Roth, Adrian Hanauer, Drew Carey and Paul Allen and the management team here developed a phenomenal approach to the community, to the fan base.

THE MLS MODEL: Major League Soccer is what they call a single entity league. Basically, the revenues flow through to the league, players are paid by the league, except for the designated players, so its a little bit of a different economic model. But were No. 1 among equals, if you will. Were averaging over 36,000 fans per game in a league that averages 17,000. We lead the league in merchandise sales. Its not unlike the NFL in terms of the distribution of revenues that come in at the league level, but then each team keeps its own ticket revenue and merchandise revenue, food and beverage, broadcast.

AUDIENCE APPRECIATION: We really have two very different fan bases. We have 90,000 season tickets that we sell between the two teams, so call it 58,000 Seahawks and 32,000 Sounders. We really want to treat them as two individual experiences, two individual brands, two individual cultures.

BIGGEST CHALLENGES: People all across the organization should be aligned through a common set of objectives. Thats achieved by communication: Heres where were going, heres why were going there, heres how we plan to get there. Ive always had a management belief of communicate, communicate, communicate. And then I really am focused on the fan experience and customer service, whether its season ticket holders, corporate partners, suite holders, anybody whos aligned with us, spending money with us. I want them to feel good about that investment and feel like theyre getting a return.

DIVERSIONS: This job is fun. I travel a lot for league meetings, I go to the home and away Seahawks games, [and] all the home Sounders games. There are a lot of community things and charitable things my wife [Kelly] and I participate in during the evenings. We like that. I do like to plan on two good vacations with my family, one with our [five] kids and one without. And once in a while, Ill hack it around on the golf course.