Speaker 1: We welcome you to the Official Titans Podcast, brought to
Speaker 1: you by Farm Bureau Health Plans. Look to the folks
Speaker 1: at Farm Bureau Health Plans when you need someone who
Speaker 1: understands the exes and ohs of healthcare coverage. They've been
Speaker 1: protecting Tennessee And since nineteen forty seven. And he hasn't
Speaker 1: been protecting Tennessee And since nineteen forty seven, but he
Speaker 1: did it for a long time in many roles, the
Speaker 1: last of which the president and CEO of this organization
Speaker 1: until just days ago. Steve Underwood, your exit interview on
Speaker 1: the Official Titans Podcast, We welcome. I'm looking forward to it, Mike,
Speaker 1: and thanks to our friends at Farm Bureau. That's good stuff,
Speaker 1: all right. So we have done interviews with you in
Speaker 1: the past, and we've talked about so much history, and
Speaker 1: if people haven't listened to your ot from twenty eighteen,
Speaker 1: we certainly want to encourage them to do that because
Speaker 1: the talk of the move and everything that went with
Speaker 1: it is fascinating, particularly as we enter sort of the
Speaker 1: second stage of the Titans, going into the second generation.
Speaker 1: But I want to talk about the most recent incarnation
Speaker 1: of your time with the team and how fascinating. It
Speaker 1: is from the standpoint you retire in two thousand eleven,
Speaker 1: you head back to Texas. You love retirement. Things are
Speaker 1: going well, Texas is good, and life is good, and
Speaker 1: everything's going well, and then in two and fifteen the
Speaker 1: phone starts ringing. Did you consider turning it down? And
Speaker 1: did you think you'd be here five years? I never
Speaker 1: necessarily considered turning it down. I did go to my wife,
Speaker 1: Francis and asked her if she was going to be
Speaker 1: okay with it. Of course, what I've to her, Mike,
Speaker 1: was what Amy had pitched me, which was a couple
Speaker 1: of months. Francis and I had or I had had
Speaker 1: a project under the way for many years, which was
Speaker 1: to buy a brand new Corvette and take delivery of
Speaker 1: it at the assembly facility and boweling brain, and I
Speaker 1: had put aside the money. It had taken me many
Speaker 1: many years to save the money for the car, and
Speaker 1: because we still had children at home and still going
Speaker 1: to college, I had never committed money to buy the car.
Speaker 1: And Francis said, I'll go along with it, see if
Speaker 1: you'll go ahead, and the order year of car wow,
Speaker 1: which I did, and we she and I picked it
Speaker 1: up in July, after I had started work in Nashville
Speaker 1: in March. Actually started to believe it or not, Mike
Speaker 1: at the NFL's annual owner meetings, which that year were
Speaker 1: in Phoenix at the Billmore and that's where my first
Speaker 1: day on the job was. Of course, I know most
Speaker 1: of all those people I knew, and many of them
Speaker 1: remembered me from other clubs and from the league office
Speaker 1: and so forth. Then it was several months later and
Speaker 1: he said, Hey, we're still going through the transition. Would
Speaker 1: you mind staying through the end of the season That
Speaker 1: would have been the twenty fifteen regular season. And again
Speaker 1: I consulted with Francis and we were okay with it.
Speaker 1: But all that time I was trying to help them
Speaker 1: look for someone to be their permanent resident in charge
Speaker 1: executive in charge. And from time to time I would
Speaker 1: send them lists and resumes and this guy might be good,
Speaker 1: you might want to interview this guy, and I would
Speaker 1: never hear anything back from an After several months of that,
Speaker 1: I mean, I was still sending things, but I think
Speaker 1: any sort of cut off for foreclosed further discussion of
Speaker 1: it by saying, well, could you stay through the end
Speaker 1: of the season, so we put all that on the hole,
Speaker 1: the search for someone permanent, and kept working on the
Speaker 1: projects that we were trying to address. Now, I want
Speaker 1: to hit something personally about you before we move forward.
Speaker 1: I would bet that the thought about a Corvette started
Speaker 1: when you were a young man coming from You don't
Speaker 1: come from royalty, as you mentioned on many occasions. You
Speaker 1: come from most humble beginnings, right, And many people in
Speaker 1: this country have who have come from humble beginnings have
Speaker 1: a car dream. We are the land of cars. Obviously
Speaker 1: they were invented here, and so that that sort of
Speaker 1: factored into the process, is that this had been a
Speaker 1: lifelong dream? Correct? Oh? Well, in high school I worked
Speaker 1: at a gas pumping gas, which is something, of course
Speaker 1: people don't do anymore except in the state of New Jersey.
Speaker 1: But I was pumping gas and making dollar and a
Speaker 1: quarter an hour, and there was a guy in town
Speaker 1: who had a silver steam Ray of the fastback model
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty three, and I became just totally enamored
Speaker 1: of his car. And then from that point on, every
Speaker 1: time I would see a Corvette while I was I
Speaker 1: would get at least a little excited and became more
Speaker 1: and more in love with the car over time, and
Speaker 1: then finally, some time in the mid eighties, I started
Speaker 1: a secret slush fund to buy a Corvette. I eventually
Speaker 1: told Francis about it after I had a few thousand
Speaker 1: dollars in it, and some weeks I was not able
Speaker 1: to save anything. Other weeks I would stay, you know,
Speaker 1: a few dollars. So the savings process for the car
Speaker 1: lasted almost thirty years, and over that time I built
Speaker 1: up enough money to actually buy the car. But by
Speaker 1: then I had two kids at Baylor, and you know,
Speaker 1: was a little concerned about making sure that we could
Speaker 1: pay for all that. Our son was still living up
Speaker 1: until twenty eleven, so I had had that concern as well.
Speaker 1: But all of those things were pretty much taken care
Speaker 1: of by the time I went back to work, and
Speaker 1: my wife had pity on me and said, we'll go
Speaker 1: ahead and order the car and then I'll be okay
Speaker 1: with you. Got I think it's an important part of
Speaker 1: the Steve Underwood story, though, because where you come from,
Speaker 1: how you came up with mister Adams, how hard you
Speaker 1: had to work, how you advanced through the organization, and
Speaker 1: the fact that you would save in that way tells
Speaker 1: a lot about your story, which is why I wanted
Speaker 1: to bring it out, and I think it also tells
Speaker 1: why she picked up the phone and called you at
Speaker 1: this point, because when you walked back into Saint Thomas
Speaker 1: Sports Parks, mess Let's face it. So let me ask you,
Speaker 1: at the moment you walked back into the office in
Speaker 1: the spring of twenty fifteen, what were the first things
Speaker 1: that had to be addressed to get the taiton straight.
Speaker 1: Of all the concerns that Aby and I had at
Speaker 1: that moment in time, the biggest one to me was
Speaker 1: what I was described as among our staff, a sort
Speaker 1: of deep, abiding concern about the direction the team was
Speaker 1: going and our future outlook as an NFL club. Mister
Speaker 1: Adams had passed away, but people there really never gotten
Speaker 1: much of a chance to interact with Tommy and Susie.
Speaker 1: Tommy became with the president immediately after mister Adams's death,
Speaker 1: and Susie was controlling owner. We had a relatively new
Speaker 1: head coach in ken wizen Hunt. Now we had another
Speaker 1: new owner that no one really knew, an interim president
Speaker 1: who had just finished being retired for over three years.
Speaker 1: Had to try to be constructive about it. Had not
Speaker 1: really had very competitive football teams for a number of years.
Speaker 1: All those things I think weight on the staff. On
Speaker 1: top of that, there was an owner who seemed to
Speaker 1: be inexperienced about what to do about an NFL team.
Speaker 1: Now you understand this, Mike, and many of our listeners
Speaker 1: will understand. NFL teams changing hands sends a very difficult
Speaker 1: message to your staff because new owners do things like
Speaker 1: fire everybody in sight and start over again. So I
Speaker 1: think there was this sort of overlay among all of
Speaker 1: the people on the football and business side about Okay, well,
Speaker 1: what does all this mean for us and for our families?
Speaker 1: Where are we going and who are these leaders and
Speaker 1: what do we know about them? But to me, the
Speaker 1: single largest concern was getting our staff on board with
Speaker 1: what was going to happen and having a program that
Speaker 1: they could be leaving and could trust, because those are
Speaker 1: the things that make for successful organizations. But that was
Speaker 1: the biggest, single problem in resetting this thing and gaining stability.
Speaker 1: Probably the most important factor to me was people getting
Speaker 1: to know Amy Adam Strunk and for the league totally
Speaker 1: and for everybody. I mean, it seems like that is
Speaker 1: the real story of her success Over five years. Is
Speaker 1: that once people got to know or whether it was
Speaker 1: other owners, whether it was the NFL office, whether it
Speaker 1: was our fan base, whether it was the staff, it
Speaker 1: didn't make any difference. Once that was in place, things
Speaker 1: started to stabilize. Was that the key people getting to
Speaker 1: know her, oh totally. You know, getting to know her
Speaker 1: or anyone else for that matter, is a process that
Speaker 1: takes time. It's just like restoring the confidence of our staff.
Speaker 1: We had to work at any getting exposure because, as
Speaker 1: you suggest, once people get an opportunity to meet her,
Speaker 1: see how down to earth and friendly she is, which,
Speaker 1: by the way, and again without trying to cast as
Speaker 1: versions was those were not necessarily qualities that mister Adams had,
Speaker 1: but his daughter has them richly. So getting exposure to
Speaker 1: the league's staff to lead officials to our own employees
Speaker 1: who never really had much way to know anything about Annie.
Speaker 1: My view has always been that mister Adams left the
Speaker 1: impression and with other owners, that he suspected his children
Speaker 1: would sell the team, and I have reason to believe
Speaker 1: that that's the impression that he intended to leave. But
Speaker 1: as it turned out, Annie had no intention at all
Speaker 1: of so neither did Kenneth and his family for that matter.
Speaker 1: They wanted to be successful in our business and make
Speaker 1: a name in a mark for themselves, which is very understandable.
Speaker 1: And once it became clear to everyone that Amy was
Speaker 1: not going to sell, by the way, another process that
Speaker 1: took some time. There were a lot of non believers
Speaker 1: about all that. But once they became convinced not only
Speaker 1: that she wasn't selling, but that she was going to
Speaker 1: do whatever was necessary to be successful in our business
Speaker 1: on and off the field. As you can see, not
Speaker 1: only with our business and with our football, with the
Speaker 1: draft and with improvements at Nissan Stadium and all of
Speaker 1: the other things that have happened, to say nothing of
Speaker 1: our playoff run last year, they became believers in aiming.
Speaker 1: And that was probably the greatest single thing that happened
Speaker 1: during that time period that she made the impression on
Speaker 1: people that it was not time to give up on us,
Speaker 1: it was time to double them. In her time owners,
Speaker 1: she's gone from being an unknown figure almost in oiler history.
Speaker 1: Fairly or unfairly, she was not known by many people
Speaker 1: to where she now has a position of prominence not
Speaker 1: only in this community, but she has an amount of
Speaker 1: respect around the league that most owners don't have as you,
Speaker 1: and I'm surprised some business school hasn't studied it because
Speaker 1: it really is quite a case study. Why is she
Speaker 1: so good at this? What is it about her that
Speaker 1: allowed her to come from such a different business and
Speaker 1: step into this and do this so well? There are
Speaker 1: at least two or three things, in my opinion. First
Speaker 1: of all, Amy has remarkably good instincts about our business.
Speaker 1: You know, you sit down an interview five executives who
Speaker 1: have made their own mark in the NFL as player
Speaker 1: personnel directors are in charge of scouting departments, our assistant GM,
Speaker 1: and pick the one person. I'm not saying there weren't
Speaker 1: other people in that group who couldn't have been a GM,
Speaker 1: because Chris Ballard has done a great job at Indianapolis.
Speaker 1: But Amy's decision about John was the product, in my opinion,
Speaker 1: of having great instincts, not necessarily about football, but about people.
Speaker 1: She's very good, I think at reading people, not just
Speaker 1: John Robinson, but all of us. She's very insightful in
Speaker 1: that way. I think another gift of Amy's is that
Speaker 1: she has great and good common sense. She does the
Speaker 1: right thing for the right reason. Almost every time. That
Speaker 1: doesn't exist in every owner that I've ever met. Amy
Speaker 1: is more a student of people and more trying to
Speaker 1: get to know and understand them, and has the ability,
Speaker 1: which is not commonplace Mike, to pick out great people
Speaker 1: from a crowd. Those are some of the qualities that
Speaker 1: I so admired her. It seems like two. She has
Speaker 1: something that a lot of you Texans seem to be
Speaker 1: quite proud of. She has quite a bs meeter. Yes,
Speaker 1: she has a be She can identify it from a
Speaker 1: from a good ways away. And I almost always return
Speaker 1: to this because it's been such an important part of
Speaker 1: the five years that I've been back. John's hiring is
Speaker 1: a great piece of our history and one of Amy's
Speaker 1: boldest moves as an owner. We had assembled a great
Speaker 1: group of candidates, you know. Martin Mayhew was in that group,
Speaker 1: still an executive with forty nine ers, Chris Ballard, who
Speaker 1: is a general manager of great standing in his own right,
Speaker 1: and we spent three or four hours with each of
Speaker 1: the five or six men that he interviewed. Kenneth was
Speaker 1: also in the room, I might add, but when it
Speaker 1: was over, John Bull, I mean, Amy believed that John
Speaker 1: was the best choice, and her instincts had proven to
Speaker 1: be sound, I think is a good word. So picking
Speaker 1: someone out of a group like that, that's a quality that's,
Speaker 1: in my opinion, Mike pretty rare. And while her dad
Speaker 1: did from time to time exhibit a good instinct. You know,
Speaker 1: he hired Mike Halliback when Mike was seventy four years old.
Speaker 1: That was another kind of bold thing. I thought Mike
Speaker 1: had worked kind of behind the scenes and labored in
Speaker 1: obscurity for all those many years. Not two other football executives,
Speaker 1: but to the league in general, most most everyone knew
Speaker 1: Michael was a superb football talented later, but getting to
Speaker 1: be able to pass judgment on someone with just three
Speaker 1: or four hours together with them, and you know, John
Speaker 1: doesn't really have what I would consider to be you
Speaker 1: use the term bs. He doesn't really mence a lot
Speaker 1: of words about That isn't something that he does. He
Speaker 1: thinks about what his position is, he tries to gather
Speaker 1: as much information as he can, and he makes a decision.
Speaker 1: And he has never tried to lay behind the log
Speaker 1: with me. In our conversations and discussions, they've been very
Speaker 1: direct and very candid, And those are qualities that great
Speaker 1: general managers into it. You immediately put together a team
Speaker 1: of people that you work with on an executive level.
Speaker 1: When you came back at twenty and twenty fifteen and
Speaker 1: you had what you called strategic imperatives, Yes, what were
Speaker 1: the strategic imperatives and why are they important for the
Speaker 1: Titans to establish those? Even if they aren't as sexy
Speaker 1: as trading the first round pick and picking Jack Conklin
Speaker 1: and things like that, But you were trying to lay
Speaker 1: down some things from the business side that would improve
Speaker 1: things strategically and for the fan base. Yes, every executive,
Speaker 1: whether you're with the NFL or xon Mobile or the
Speaker 1: flower shop down the street, needs to have a set
Speaker 1: of super priorities that relate to the future of the business.
Speaker 1: What do we need to look at or work on
Speaker 1: to be successful, not just now, but five years from now,
Speaker 1: ten years from now. What we do now and what
Speaker 1: current problems we're facing those matter, of course, but what
Speaker 1: we want our business to look like a couple of
Speaker 1: years from now, ten years from now. Those are things
Speaker 1: that need to be set out and everyone needs to
Speaker 1: get on board about it. So one of the things
Speaker 1: that any leader, a business leader needs to do is
Speaker 1: make sure that his team understands what is most important
Speaker 1: to him and in this case, to our owner, because
Speaker 1: we review those with aiming as well. If you have
Speaker 1: your senior staff on board and people thinking about and
Speaker 1: working on and working toward those objectives, you're likely to
Speaker 1: have a decent chance to meet the need when it
Speaker 1: finally comes. So our strategic objectives were established fairly on
Speaker 1: and they included our local revenue growth. We're in a
Speaker 1: small market. There are teams that have multiples of our
Speaker 1: local revenue. We have to compete with them both on
Speaker 1: the stadium side of the football side. There are a
Speaker 1: lot of competitive circuit breakers that the league uses to
Speaker 1: try and ensure equal competition on the field, but you
Speaker 1: still have to pay everyone. You still have to have
Speaker 1: money to do that. Another objective that we have worked
Speaker 1: on very hard is stadium security. I realized from time
Speaker 1: to time we've irritated some fans about the links we
Speaker 1: go to to try and make sure there are no
Speaker 1: weapons in the stadium. But stadium security has been a
Speaker 1: long time strategic objective of ours, and when I have
Speaker 1: been asked about it in other settings, yeah, we do
Speaker 1: go through a lot of effort about screening, and I
Speaker 1: realize nobody thinks anything is very likely to happen. There
Speaker 1: are also very few people who thought that terrorists were
Speaker 1: going to fly airplanes into skyscrapers. You know, we want
Speaker 1: to be able to say about our stadium security. We
Speaker 1: did everything we knew to do and everything the experts
Speaker 1: told us to try and keep everybody safe. And if
Speaker 1: there's never an issue, great, you won't find anyone happier
Speaker 1: about it than I am. But if there is an issue,
Speaker 1: I want us to be able to say, hey, we
Speaker 1: were given a list of things to do, protocols to follow,
Speaker 1: objectives to achieve, and we did everything that we could
Speaker 1: within reason to get that done. Capital spending at Nissan
Speaker 1: Stadium is another strategic objective of ours, not only because
Speaker 1: we're spending so much money to try and make the
Speaker 1: stadium better and more fan friendly, but also because we
Speaker 1: have a metropolitan government and sports authority to think about.
Speaker 1: And of course we have many things waiting in the
Speaker 1: queue to get done, and they fit into a number
Speaker 1: of categories, but it suffices to say they are something
Speaker 1: that we have to look at strategically because we care
Speaker 1: what the stadium is going to look like and be
Speaker 1: like in terms of the fan experienced five and ten
Speaker 1: years from now. The physical growth of our facilities is
Speaker 1: another strategic objective of ours. As you know, we have
Speaker 1: added a net of eighty incremental people since I came
Speaker 1: back to work five years ago. All those people need
Speaker 1: a place to work. I mean they're all working from
Speaker 1: home at the moment, or most of them are, but
Speaker 1: they do have to have a place to be in
Speaker 1: a workspace. I think that's something that is important to
Speaker 1: every employee and every staff person. Well, we had to
Speaker 1: get a new building, and it's going to be a
Speaker 1: forty thousand square foot building, and it's going to take
Speaker 1: a lot of planning, a lot of effort, and a
Speaker 1: lot of money to get it built and get it
Speaker 1: furnished and occupied. Those are some of the things that
Speaker 1: we've worked on. The twenty nineteen NFL Draft and Nashville
Speaker 1: that we hosted was another strategic objective of ours. It's
Speaker 1: off the list now, but there'll always be something to
Speaker 1: try and take its place, because you need four or
Speaker 1: five or six things that everyone is dialed into and
Speaker 1: working on pretty much all the time at every NFL club.
Speaker 1: We're not a static enterprise, and we have to continue improve.
Speaker 1: When Phil Brettison wanted to bring pro sports to Nashville,
Speaker 1: one of the reasons was the infrastructure that it would
Speaker 1: help to bring to finish off his downtown plan. The
Speaker 1: arena and the stadium as part of that infrastructure. Obviously,
Speaker 1: the arena is used for many different dates. People may
Speaker 1: not realize the stadium Nissan Stadium last year was used
Speaker 1: for over four hundred different dates. And that's something that
Speaker 1: has been expanded greatly in the last five years. Is
Speaker 1: the nine football use of stadium on a regular basis,
Speaker 1: and that relates to our strategic objective about local revenue.
Speaker 1: The stadium has been underutilized, in my opinion or much
Speaker 1: of its existence. We have two beautiful clubs, one of
Speaker 1: which overlooks downtown and the other overlooks the confluence of
Speaker 1: three interstate highways. Maybe not quite as appealing as the
Speaker 1: river and downtown, but still something people enjoy being part of.
Speaker 1: And then we have a bunch of other discrete spaces
Speaker 1: inside the building where you can have smaller meetings. But
Speaker 1: we also have the parking lots and so many places.
Speaker 1: You know, people love to go down to the sidelines
Speaker 1: and stand on the field kind of do the tour.
Speaker 1: We're also have a growing tour business. All of it's
Speaker 1: been sidelined at the moment because of COVID nineteen, but
Speaker 1: I think all that'll be back, and the venue business
Speaker 1: in Nashville generally is growing, mostly because Nashville is such
Speaker 1: a great town. There's so many things to do there
Speaker 1: on the entertainment side, so many world class restaurants, attractions,
Speaker 1: things to do downtown, all of which got super viewed
Speaker 1: during the twenty nineteen NFL draft, and the events. But
Speaker 1: the events business is yet another reason why we need
Speaker 1: to continue looking for ways to grow our businesses at
Speaker 1: the stadium and utilize what is one of Nashville's greatest
Speaker 1: public works. This is the OTP presented by Farm Bureau
Speaker 1: Health Plans. Don't get sacked by the high cost of healthcare.
Speaker 1: Make Farm Bureau Health Plans your first line of protection.
Speaker 1: They've been protecting Tennessee and since nineteen forty seven. Okay,
Speaker 1: Steve Underwood, some questions to conclude, what are you most
Speaker 1: proud of that the organization has accomplished in the last
Speaker 1: five years. You know, there are lots of accomplishments mine,
Speaker 1: but I almost always go back to this. We're a
Speaker 1: football organization first, so winning playoff games on the road
Speaker 1: when you are a huge underdog, that is an enormous accomplishment,
Speaker 1: particularly when you haven't done well for so long. This
Speaker 1: past season is the greatest season that we've enjoyed competitively
Speaker 1: in fifteen years or so ever. Anybody who should have
Speaker 1: their hats off to our head coach, our coaching staff,
Speaker 1: our general manager and his staff about what that means
Speaker 1: in terms of the phrase you use accomplishment, And because
Speaker 1: we are a football organization, I'm not sure you can
Speaker 1: have anything bigger than going deep into the playoffs if
Speaker 1: you're an NFL team. But there have been some other
Speaker 1: accomplishments that I think are worth mentioning. One of those
Speaker 1: is four winning seasons in a row. Very few teams
Speaker 1: accomplished that over and over again, and I think it
Speaker 1: needs to be viewed in the light of where we
Speaker 1: came from. What were the four eight twelve seasons like
Speaker 1: that before? I think we did have one nine and
Speaker 1: seven season during Mike Munchack's ten years head coached, but
Speaker 1: it was not a playoff season. Another great accomplishment is
Speaker 1: the twenty nineteen NFL Draft that we hosted in Nashville.
Speaker 1: I still believe that's easily the largest sporting event in
Speaker 1: the history of Tennessee and left so many positive impressions
Speaker 1: all over the country, not just about Nashville, Tennessee in
Speaker 1: general and our franchise. I thought it was a great
Speaker 1: thing too for solidifying our relationship with the League that
Speaker 1: somehow gets a little overlooked in that mix because you
Speaker 1: have six hundred thousand people and great TV ratings and
Speaker 1: everybody having a good time. But the league also saw
Speaker 1: firsthand what Amy's management means and how committed she is
Speaker 1: to being a successful owner. So there was another knock
Speaker 1: tied in that somewhere that needs to be mentioned that
Speaker 1: doesn't get said very often. I think the designation of
Speaker 1: Nissan Stadium under the Safety Act is another under the
Speaker 1: radar thing that has happened that has benefited our club
Speaker 1: and stadium and each and every person that walks into
Speaker 1: that build. It gives me a comfort knowing that the
Speaker 1: Homeland Security Department has looked at that building and said,
Speaker 1: you guys are doing everything correctly, We're pleased about the
Speaker 1: direction that you're going, and we're going to designate you
Speaker 1: under the Act. Again. It doesn't sound like something that's spectacular,
Speaker 1: but we devoted millions of dollars and huge resources to
Speaker 1: getting that done. My hat is still off all of
Speaker 1: our security folks, John Albertson, Floyd Hide, Bob Flynn, all
Speaker 1: of the people that contributed to that. It's a huge accomplishment.
Speaker 1: I think our new building is also going to be
Speaker 1: another huge accomplishment. You may be able to see it
Speaker 1: up your window if you're in the building or if
Speaker 1: you're driving and buy. That's going to be a great
Speaker 1: thing for our franchise and for Amy's heritage. But all
Speaker 1: of those, as good as they are, all of those
Speaker 1: things taken back seat to being in the conference championship
Speaker 1: last game, a game we could have won, by the way,
Speaker 1: and I think everybody should take huge pride. What's the
Speaker 1: biggest change in the NFL from your start in the
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies until now. I don't know where I read this,
Speaker 1: but sometime in seventy seven the league made a new
Speaker 1: deal with the three networks, so DLA negotiated at the
Speaker 1: same time. Because our business relies so much on live attendance,
Speaker 1: a lot of people don't think about the media and
Speaker 1: entertainment outside of the stadium context. So that deal with
Speaker 1: the three networks was for five hundred and seventy six
Speaker 1: million dollars. That was the year. By the way, I
Speaker 1: started with the team as an outside lawyer some forty
Speaker 1: three years ago now, and five hundred and seventy six
Speaker 1: million dollars sounds like a lot of money. It is
Speaker 1: a lot of money, and it was a very big
Speaker 1: deal at the time. I think there were a lot
Speaker 1: of people surprised. At the time. The league had just
Speaker 1: finished a sort of aboarded strike player strike, John Mackey
Speaker 1: lawsuit and so forth, and so the numbers looked huge then,
Speaker 1: but nothing in comparison to what they are now. Those
Speaker 1: numbers now are ten times that size, thousand percent growth
Speaker 1: even over forty three years as being something small. But
Speaker 1: among the other facets of that that have to be
Speaker 1: considered are that NFL games on television, along with a
Speaker 1: few other sporting events, are really the only thing growing
Speaker 1: on network television. People more and more people are watching.
Speaker 1: There was the set back in the election year, but
Speaker 1: you know, the next two years it was up by
Speaker 1: in one case of double digits in terms of ratings.
Speaker 1: And that's not the only way people are consuming our
Speaker 1: entertainment offers. They're watching it on digital devices, they're streaming
Speaker 1: things on mobile devices, they're listening on satellite radio, on
Speaker 1: terrestrial radio, and they are of course also going to
Speaker 1: the games in person. But another facet of watching our
Speaker 1: games in person is the fact that virtually every person
Speaker 1: walking in that stadium is bringing in a handheld digital device,
Speaker 1: and while they're watching our game, they're also looking at
Speaker 1: other things on their cell phones iPads. What if they're
Speaker 1: bringing in with That's the reason, by the way, that
Speaker 1: we had to install a new eight and a half
Speaker 1: million dollar Wi Fi network over the past yes, eight
Speaker 1: and a half million dollars. But that's because the fan
Speaker 1: experience is changing. People are watching more than one thing
Speaker 1: at a time. And that's true whether you're at home
Speaker 1: or in an NFL stadium, or on the subway or
Speaker 1: an airplane or whatever you're doing. People are doing more
Speaker 1: than one thing at a time. It's a huge indisha
Speaker 1: of modern society. So I think the biggest change that
Speaker 1: has happened is how many different ways pete because nobody
Speaker 1: was watching anything in their seat except the game in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy seven when I first began, that was all
Speaker 1: that was going on. Handheld digital devices were something that
Speaker 1: was twenty twenty five years away. So the media landscape
Speaker 1: is really what has changed the most. Yeah, our players
Speaker 1: getting paid more money, you bet? Is the quality of
Speaker 1: play better? Yes? Are we facing problems that relate to
Speaker 1: the health and safety of players? Sure, all of those
Speaker 1: things matter and all of them represent changes. By the way,
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy seven, when I started at the orders,
Speaker 1: there was about twenty people that were employees of the
Speaker 1: football team only as a half dozen coaches. There was
Speaker 1: a general manager and an assistant GM, handful of scouts
Speaker 1: and a few of the people that are working in
Speaker 1: the ticket office. Maybe get total of twenty five or thirty.
Speaker 1: Now you know, we've got two hundred people on our
Speaker 1: business side. So growth, however you want to measure, whatever
Speaker 1: metrics you want to use, is something that has happened
Speaker 1: to the NFL in huge is not a big enough
Speaker 1: word to describe it, but it includes huge changes in
Speaker 1: the media landscape that you would know, Mike oh so
Speaker 1: well from your perspective in the media business, and it's
Speaker 1: I think the biggest single change that has happened is
Speaker 1: how our entertainment is being consumed and by how many
Speaker 1: people on how many different platforms there used to just
Speaker 1: be the one and now there are many. All right,
Speaker 1: let's wrap up with this. Five decades in the National
Speaker 1: Football League for Steve Underwood. You go from pumping gas
Speaker 1: in Baytown, I got it right, Baytown, right right, pumping gas,
Speaker 1: trying to find money to go to University of Texas,
Speaker 1: dreaming of owning a corvette someday, taking out loans or
Speaker 1: you know, paying fifteen dollars a quarter whatever, and you
Speaker 1: advance all the way to become president and CEO of
Speaker 1: an NFL team. It's a great country, right, oh gosh?
Speaker 1: So and maybe best of all, you get to go
Speaker 1: to Bowley Green to pick up your corvette after you
Speaker 1: save in your own modern day piggy bank, so to speak.
Speaker 1: But I mean, it's an American dream type story. It's
Speaker 1: an American success story. It's something that I know you
Speaker 1: and your family are proud of, the people who have
Speaker 1: worked with you are proud of it. What is your
Speaker 1: overriding memory of your time with Bud Adams, the Houston Oilers,
Speaker 1: the Tennessee Oilers, and on two occasions, the Tennessee type.
Speaker 1: You know, Mike of all the questions you've asked today.
Speaker 1: That's the easiest. My fondest memory of all of that
Speaker 1: are all of the great people that I got to
Speaker 1: work with. I don't care what kind of leader you are,
Speaker 1: you have to have a great supporting cast. And the
Speaker 1: people that I've had the honor and privilege of working
Speaker 1: with over the last forty years just some of the
Speaker 1: greatest folks in the world. And that includes, by the way,
Speaker 1: all of our honors. I would not be where I was,
Speaker 1: where I am if it were not for them. I
Speaker 1: wouldn't have these memories and the privileges that I have
Speaker 1: enjoyed but for our owner. So all of the people
Speaker 1: that I have worked with, having those experiences with them,
Speaker 1: there's nothing like going through a crisis with somebody that
Speaker 1: you know and trust. And there's a bunch of those
Speaker 1: people that I have gotten to work with over the years.
Speaker 1: For example, I've worked with Randy Schofield, who is the
Speaker 1: president of our parent company. I've known Randy within weeks
Speaker 1: of the time that I first came to work there.
Speaker 1: Janine Kaufman, I've worked with Janine for over twenty years.
Speaker 1: Russ Hudson again over twenty years, Robbie Boring over twenty years. Well,
Speaker 1: you go through enough episodes of life and business people
Speaker 1: like that, and you develop a respect level, friendship level
Speaker 1: that just there's really nothing else like it, Mike, as
Speaker 1: far as I'm concerned, I would do anything for the
Speaker 1: people that I have gotten to know and work with.
Speaker 1: I've just mentioned a handful. You know, Burt. I hired
Speaker 1: Burt almost five years ago. He's just been a huge
Speaker 1: friend and co worker and so many of the things
Speaker 1: that we've done, so you. I have to say this, Mike,
Speaker 1: since I have the floor at the moment, there isn't
Speaker 1: anyone that works for us that I have enjoyed working
Speaker 1: with any more than you. You're such a probe and
Speaker 1: always dependable with everything that we've asked you to do.
Speaker 1: And I know we throw a lot or have thrown
Speaker 1: a lot at you. Thank you for what you have
Speaker 1: meant to our organization. I'll always be glad and respectful
Speaker 1: of our friendship. Well, thank you, and I'm so glad
Speaker 1: that five years ago you decided to come back for
Speaker 1: a couple of months and it lasted sixty one months.
Speaker 1: I think so a Texan is a Texan all his
Speaker 1: or her life. No matter what. Once you're a Texan,
Speaker 1: you're always a Texan. We'll just remember this too. You're
Speaker 1: also a Nashvillion and so you have both honors. And
Speaker 1: we are most glad and most glad that you took
Speaker 1: this time with us for what we'll call the exit
Speaker 1: Interview on the OTP. The privilege, husband mine, Michael, thank
Speaker 1: you for staring us for it. Steve Underwood part of
Speaker 1: this organization now and forever with us on the OTP,
Speaker 1: sponsored by our great friends at Farm Bureau Health Plans
Speaker 1: for Steve. I'm Mike Keith. Thanks for joining us for
Speaker 1: this edition of the