Sporting Kansas City President & CEO Jake Reid spoke to local and national media on Wednesday, addressing the current suspension of the 2020 MLS season and the beginning of individual player workouts at MLS training facilities. His full remarks are below.
On what Reid learned during his experience working for the New Orleans Hornets in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005…
Interestingly enough, I think there was a lot to learn from the impact on the team and the city. Clearly a hurricane impacting the region is (different) than a global pandemic. It’s interesting looking back because that was the start of my career, so I was on the sales team there. I think transparency from the organization is important. As a kid out of college, you don’t know anything. You’re nervous and you don’t know what’s happening. Are we going to have jobs? Are we going to have a team? I give the New Orleans leadership team a lot of credit being transparent with us. We ended up moving to Orlando for three weeks to sell for the Magic, then we ultimately landed in Oklahoma City.
I’ve tried to channel that (transparency) with our group now. The unknown is the scariest part for folks, and we don’t have a lot of answers right now. I’ve told everyone that there’s no playbook for this. We’re trying to figure out as we go and make the best decisions for the organization. In our case, you have MLS driving a lot of the decisions. Two tragedies are enough for my lifetime, so hopefully this is the last time we have to go through this. Certainly there will be some lessons learned, and hopefully I can channel that to our team as we try to get through this.
On the various return-to-play scenarios MLS is considering…
I’ve lost track of the scenarios we’ve been through. It’ changed so much, even if you go back two weeks ago. We didn’t have state reopening plans or phase-out timelines. Now you’re starting to see all of that now, particularly in our region amongst others. I want to give MLS a lot of credit here. This is a scenario in New York that is completely different than anywhere else in the country aside from maybe Seattle. The league (in New York) has been really good communicating throughout this process and pulling teams in for feedback. I’m on multiple league calls every day and serve on multiple committees where we’re trying to navigate certain things. Ultimately what we’re trying to do is put all possibilities on the table so that once we know we can jump one way or the other, we’re ready and we’re not trying to figure it out from scratch. We’ve (considered) everything from return to play in all markets behind closed doors to a regional strategy consisting of one, two or four cities in areas that maybe aren’t as impacted. There are a lot of scenarios out there, and we’re obviously at the mercy of (COVID-19) as it progresses or hopefully declines. Ultimately the governments are really driving the process from the state and local level, and we’ve been in constant communication with them as well. We want to be prepared so that when we get the approval on something, we’re ready to go.
Our thought is to get back to playing as soon as we can but safely. You’ve seen individual workouts start this week, then hopefully we’ll get into group workouts, which will then transition into full training and closed-door games. That probably makes the most sense, and again, that’s not any directive, that’s just me looking at the political nature of it and the timelines. We’d all like to get back to delivering sports to fans via broadcast rather than in-person to start off. I think we’ve all agreed that’s a scenario we would be supportive of. When you look at Kansas City, I think we could be ready to play closed doors and do group trainings in a month to six weeks. You’re not going to have that on the coasts. Part of the challenge from the league level is figuring out what the best route is for the entire league because every market is going to be so different to this thing.
On the economic impact of not playing matches or playing games behind closed doors…
You’ve got a model in MLS where we’re more heavily reliant on local revenues than maybe the NFL, where you’ve got a massive TV broadcast. IF you play closed doors in the NFL, you’re still going to have a significant portion of your revenues coming from national broadcasts. We’ve got a great deal with ESPN and FOX, and they’ve been awesome partners. We’re just not at the same magnitude. It’s significant for us locally as a team. We’re looking at a significant loss if we aren’t able to play games this year, and that’s not any breaking news. When you cut off our revenue streams and cut off our ability to play games where we’re still having all of the expenses that come with running a building and paying players and staff, it’s a challenge. But I give our group credit—they’ve been very supportive throughout this process and the league in general has the understanding that as soon as we can get back and start realizing some of the broadcast and sponsorship revenues, we can kind of check the box on some of those. It’s going to be a significant impact on us and the rest of the league.
On Sporting players beginning voluntary individual workouts on Wednesday…
It was kind of like kids on Christmas getting together under the Christmas tree. Everyone was very excited just to be there. It was very well received and I’m very excited for the guys to get back out there and start doing workouts outside of their home. Listen, we’ve got a long road back through this thing. But anytime you can get some positive momentum like we did today with guys getting back to the soccer pitch and running around, it was a great start. It’s exciting to have something to grasp onto.
I give Peter Vermes and his staff a ton of credit. They’ve been the league leaders on this thing, and frankly they’ve set the protocol for the rest of the league to follow. Kudos to Peter and company to put this thing together. Basically think of four quadrants on the pitch divided up equally. The guys can then do their own individual workouts (within each quadrant). There’s a million protocols that go into it all, but ultimately safety is at the forefront of everything from them showing up and social distancing on the way in to coordinating the times they’re coming on and off the pitch. Even to the extent that if one guy kicks his ball into another quadrant, the other player can’t kick it back. We’ve really tried to eliminate all contact and cross-contamination with any of the guys. The most important piece is making sure that the players and staff are safe throughout this process. If we don’t get this part right, going to a smaller group session down the road is going to be even more delayed. So far so good.
We haven’t done testing yet. Once we get to the group workout stage, testing will be completely critical. We can’t go into group training until we have testing. With the individual workouts, we’re keeping every distanced and do not have testing.
On whether MLS has considered Kansas City as a potential neutral site to host MLS matches once play continues…
We’ve had good conversations about being in the mix if that’s the route they go down. Facility-wise and infrastructure-wise, we’re in as good of a position as anyone. When you’ve got the downtown hotels, we’ve got plenty of hotel space if we needed it. Between Children’s Mercy Park, Swope Soccer Village and Compass Minerals National Performance Center, we’ve got plenty of surface to train and play on. That’s not even counting the fields at Wyandotte and Overland Park. We can definitely do it, and we’ve had excellent conversations with the league. We’re certainly in consideration if they decide to go to a multi-city type of setup.
There’s the standard check list. Can you host training? Do you have game-ready facilities to play in? We check all of those boxes in a big way. When you look back on the international games we’ve hosted as well as MLS All-Star and an MLS Cup, we’ve got a good history with the league on big events and working with the league on those. There’s a built-in trust factor that this group can pull it off. I give credit to Cliff Illig and the ownership group. They’ve been forefront on driving this thing and Cliff is on an executive committee with the league. He’s obviously beating the drum for us every chance he gets. I think the league has complete confidence. We’ve never had an event here that hasn’t been anything other than exceptional in their eyes. That carries a lot of weight in the decision making. In terms of facilities, I would put us up against anyone with what we have to offer for training and games.
On striker Alan Pulido’s acclimation to the team…
I wish we would be playing more games because he was on a good goal scoring run before we had to halt everything. I give Alan Pulido a ton of credit. I think his integration into the team has been great. Clearly you saw the two results in games we played this year, but what you don’t see is the culture piece and the leadership he brings to the group. He’s fit in so well. Sometimes you’re nervous about bringing in a big-name player and what that impact may be with their attitude and ego. There’s not any of that with him. He’s been exceptional from a training standpoint and integrating into the team. My only regret is that we’ve only seen him on the pitch for 180 minutes so far.
On whether Sporting is looking to sign more Mexican players in the future…
I don’t think we’re focused on Mexican players or South American players or European players. Peter focuses on the players he feels will fit into the system well and mesh. Whether that’s within Mexico or another league, as long as they fit the mold that our team is looking for, then we’re very open to it. You’ve seen a lot of Mexican players come to the league over the last few years and the impact they’ve had, particularly up front. It’s a good pipeline right now and the result are there to go with it.
On how the USL has reacted to the current situation…
On the USL front, they’re largely following the lead of MLS in terms of trying to evaluate what the next steps look like. They’ve basically followed lock-step with MLS decision making. I would imagine that once we get to a point where we can resume some sort of play, you’ll see the USL follow suit after that. We’re reliant on local revenue and they’re extremely reliant on local revenue. It hurts the (minor) league even more.
On MLS creating a new youth development league…
In terms of the Development Academy shutting down, we look at that as an opportunity to step in as a league and help establish what the DA was meant to be and deliver that for the academy teams. Clearly we’re extremely invested in the youth space, and we feel passionately about that path and feel great about the future. Peter has been heavily involved at the league level, so we’re looking at how to improve that and step up the game when we can come back.
On whether MLS would like to become the first American sports league to resume play…
Other than “The Last Dance” on Sunday nights, there hasn’t been a lot of new sports content to look forward to. It would be something we’d be extremely interested in—if we can be the first league back. But ultimately it comes down to safety protocols, testing and doing all the things we can to make sure we’re not rushing it back. If you rush it back and screw it up, you’re going to be the last ones back, not the first. We’re looking towards a methodical approach.
We’ve been in contact with several soccer leagues around the world. From a domestic standpoint, we’re having conversations with all of the sports leagues. I give Commissioner Garber and his team a lot of credit. They’re talking to the NBA, NHL and others. Although we compete on some level for dollars, this is a time where you really see the leagues coming together to try and figure this out. No one has the answers. We’re all looking at what the best way forward might be. It’s a sharing of ideas—what’s working and what isn’t. It’ll be interesting to see.
On the likelihood of playing a full slate of games and how late into the year MLS can hold matches…
It would be really bad if we threw in the towel on 2020. I think there’s so much time to get games in. Frankly, if we could start by mid-June, we could play a full season. Will that happen? Who knows. As long as we can get something going on by late summer or early fall, we could put together some semblance of a season. Clearly you’re not going to get all 34 games in at that point in time. Even if you started playing right now, you’re probably looking at a different scenario for the Open Cup. You’ve got some of these competitions that you’d have to create space for if MLS matches are the priority. We’ve looked at all of those scenarios, and as soon as we can get going…we’re going to do our best to get as many games in as possible, even if that’s not until later in the summer or fall.
On whether Sporting is looking to add players once the transfer window re-opens…
It’s going to be a buyer’s market whenever we get back out there. The question is how many buyers are you going to have based on the situation clubs come out of? We’ve talked about it and we’re always opportunistic on these things. If there’s a situation where we have our eye on somebody that makes sense, and if we can get a great deal on it, I wouldn’t be surprised for us to go after that. But at this point in time, it’s hard to think that far down the road when we aren’t back playing games.
On how COVID-19 might impact the movement of transfer windows…
We’re at the whim of FIFA in terms of the rulings that come down internationally. It’ll have some impact, even without anything happening right now. For the majority of the leagues, there will have to be a few things that change. TBD on that, but it’s firmly out of our control.
On a potential future super league involving MLS and Liga MX teams…
Anything to continue to grow the game for us her and in North America is a good thing. We’re a long way of for that to become a reality at this point in time. We’ve had a great relationship with Liga MX. You saw the new Leagues Cup tournament begin last year as well as the Campeones Cup. You’re starting to see a lot of that integration, but it’s hard to tell if you can merge both leagues together. There’s a lot you’d have to work through there, but it’s something to explore long-term to see if it makes sense. I would think it’s a benefit for both leagues, but I’m not involved in those conversations at the league level.
