Vulcan Sports and Entertainment CEO Tod Leiweke To Resign

My read from what was written back then was that Leiweke was in Ruskell’s corner—he was his hire—and that Ruskell not being retained and Mora being fired were moves done at the owner’s behest. I’m sure Leiweke had considerable influence on the Carroll and Schneider hires after those moves were made,, but it didn’t seem like his decision to create openings in those positions.

I just don’t think a billionaire buys a sports team to let somebody else make all the key decisions.

At what expense of business savvy if you can’t have both? As much as possible I’d want football sense, of course, but I guess to me it would play second fiddle.

How much football sense? X’s & O’s? Eye for talent? Personnel and coaching decisions don’t go up that far, and they shouldn’t. We want the guys on the coaching and personnel level to have the acumen there, and the autonomy.

I’m not dismissing the value of football knowledge at the top, I am just thinking out loud about how much difference it could make.

I see what you mean, you want a guy who knows football enough, to make the right hire.

But it’s a bit of a dilemma. You want to hire the guy who hires the football guys, to be a football guy. But how do you know? So you have to be a football guy, or hire a football guy, to know a football guy who can know and hire football guys when he sees them. And then, it’s turtles all the way down.

Again, sorry, not trying to be dismissive. The biggest football impact Leiweke and his role has, is those hires. So how does he know enough to pick the right guy. I guess that’s where the consultant agency and Lance Lopes and stuff fits in.

I’m involved in personnel in my work, and currently interviewing recruiters. We’ve brought in a specialist, to assist with the search, since personnel is mission critical (services organization). I can’ use that to make a definitive point about how things are,but there’s a lot of parallels and from that perspective I don’t think football background is critical to CEO here. From the President to CEOs, the best guys in charge, are the best in no small part because they recognize what they don’t know, and surround themselves with the best people to help hem make the right decisions.

Right now there is a huge hole in the Seattle sports market after the football season ends until the Baseball season starts (or MLS for some people). Even if the NBA comes back to Seattle, they will have a hard time drawing back all the fans.

I really can only draw on my own experiance and those of people around me, but a large majority of people I’ve talked to, have agreed that we’d love to see the NHL come here before seeing the NBA come back. But the lack of a suitable place to play is a huge problem.

he manages Paul Allens minority interest in the team.

Lieweke didn’t have a football background. He came from a different NHL team – the Minnesota Wild. He started out with hockey and then moved on to football, basketball, and soccer.