Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Time to catch up

The holidays are a good time to catch up. Catch up with old friends, with family...and with work. i'll be doing all three over the next couple weeks. My wife and i will celebrate Christmas with hers, mine and ours on Tuesday, Sunday and Monday respectively. Wednesday will be an annual get together of high school friends to play street hockey and pretend we're young again.

Before and after though, it's quite quiet and allows time to catch up on a number of work assignments that have been put to the side recently. We're working on establishing relationships with a number of soccer organizations and i will use some of the quiet time to work on those proposals.

We have also hired our general manager and will make that announcement after the holidays. In the meantime, the new GM has been facilitating a search for our first head coach. While the coach will likely not start working until the middle to end of next year, we believe it's important to have the head coach identified and signed early in 2008. The first domestic players could be allocated as soon as next month and we want the coach to have significant input into the acquisition of our first domestic and international players.

While outwardly things appear quiet, we're actually pretty busy. Earlier this week, i had good meetings with Toyota Park General Manager Dan Garnett, US Soccer Executive Director and Secretary General Dan Flynn, an international coaching candidate and our marketing firm. Later this week i'm meeting again with our marketing firm, our new GM, a candidate to lead our ticket sales efforts, FC Indiana's Anton Maksimov and we're giving a Toyota Park tour to several international soccer players as well.

Even in the quietest time of the year, we're busy laying the foundation for the future of professional women's soccer in Chicago.

Happy Holidays,

peter

Ps: while at Toyota Park i stopped in to say hi to Fire GM John Guppy. John was meeting with Chris Armas and preparing for a couple head coach interviewsof their own. John was kind enough to ask me my thoughts. After commisserating on having your coach taken by NY and blasting the Red Bulls for tampering i told John and Chris that i thought Denis Hamlett certainly had paid his dues and has the relationships, knowledge and ability to continue the progress that Juan Carlos Osorio made. i also told them that i liked John Spencer and Jesse Marsch and that i was sure they would make a good decision.

Saturday, December 8, 2007

Back At It

Managed to sneak out of town for five days last week with my wife. It was Ann and i's first vacation in two years, aside from a few days in Door County earlier in the year. Picked the perfect week to go to Florida and escape the snow up here, though we did have to shovel a foot or so of the white stuff to get into our driveway last night. We have a snowthrower, but we didn't get home until midnight and i don't think the neighbors would've appreciated the motorized wake up call.

Managed also not to bring my lap top and pretty much limited my work to checking the CrackBerry a few times each day. The break has refreshed me and i feel energized heading into the holidays and what i'm anticipating will me an incredibly busy January for us. i'm off to meetings in the League office in San Francisco Monday and Tuesday. The main purpose of the meetings is to advance the League's strategic marketing plan, but we'll also be finalizing the League's operating agreement this week and discussing domestic and international player acquisition issues.

With the Bears off tomorrow (and done for the season), be sure to catch the NCAA Women's College Cup Championship. Florida State's upset of Notre Dame and USC's upset of UCLA yesterday set up an interesting final. The game will be televised live at 1:00 pm CT Sunday on ESPN2.

Also, please note that we've added an rss feature,so you can sign up to be notified of new posts.

Saturday, December 1, 2007

TGI(was)F

Yesterday was a really good and full day for CPWS and me. Started off with a breakfast meeting at the wonderful "View" restaurant in Bridgeview with Chicago Gaels Head Coach John Nikchevich and our lead candidate for the CPWS General Manager position. I had never met John before and really enjoyed hearing his thoughts on women's and girls soccer and coaching in general. He comes from a non-traditional soccer background and incorporates many ideas from more mainstream American sports into his coaching and soccer philosophies. i look forward to working with John and the Gaels to promote women's soccer together in Chicagoland.

Next i went to Toyota Park to give a tour to our GM candidate. We made the requisite visits to the lockerrooms, player tunnel with the Section 8 touchstone and "Tradition, Honor, Passion" sign donated by Section 8 (that's the favorite part of the tour for me), training facilities, Illinois Soccer Wall of Fame and history display, suites, club lounge and offices. i was also able to introduce her to Bridgeview Mayor Steve Landek, TP GM Dan Garnett, Fire GM John Guppy and many of the staff from the team's PR, ticket sales, community relations, operations, customer service and administrative departments.

After a quick bite at Beefy's for lunch, i made it downtown for a conference call with our legal counsel Jack Cummins and board member Gary Weaver to review final changes to the team's operating agreement. That was followed by a League Marketing Committee call to review and discuss PR, brand and marketing strategies for the next couple months. I chair that committee and it will keep me extra busy during the launch phase of the League. We have a really good committee, which includes the Boston Breakers' marketing whiz Karin Piscitelli. Karin is taking the lead on several of the League's marketing initiatives until the League office staffs up in the new year.

That call was followed by a quick signature of my CPWS employment agreement (Yay, i'm official!) and then i was out the door to Durty Nellie's Pub in Palatine for dinner with my old friend Bret Hall. Bret was a tenacious defender indoors and outdoors for the Chicago Sting and has coached successfully with the Chicago Sockers, Stingers, SMU and the USWNT. Bret played for me with the Chicago Power from 1990 to 1994 and coached the Chicago Fire Reserves when Mark Boyle started that team with some help from the Fire. i have always respected Bret, his work and his values. We talked about old times and new times. Our new GM will handle our head coach search and if Bret is interested (Bret says he really doesn't know at this point), i am sure he would receive serious consideration.

After dinner, i headed home to Wisconsin and got on a call with the designer of the League's logo. We moved the League's brand process along considerably in the last two weeks and expect to have decisions on name and logo made internally before the holidays, but will likely wait until after the holidays for any public announcements.

Another day in the wonderful world of women's pro soccer...

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Road Map

Every journey starts with a single step...and requires many more along the way. We have put together a road map of more than 75 small and large milestones on the way through the first season of the new professional women's soccer league in 2009.

We've already hit several major milestones - assembled the ownership group, been accepted as a charter member of the new League, agreed to lease terms with Toyota Park, agreed to a major partnership with the Illinois Women's Soccer League and confirmed my role in the organization for the next several years.

The next major steps to be finalized over the next couple months start with finalizing our vision, mission and value statements and include hiring a general manager, hiring a head coach, securing our first couple players, organizing a role for the public in the process to name the team, assembling an advisory board with representation from various stakeholders and establishing partnerships with the Chicago Fire, FC Indiana and other key soccer community leaders...and that's just a portion of the road map for the next couple months.

There is certainly plenty of work to do and i look forward to following our road map. The joy is in the journey.

Monday, November 26, 2007

Many Thanks

i am fortunate to have many things to be thankful for this Thanksgiving:

The New Team - Having the opportunity to organize the new women's pro soccer team in Chicago is truly an honor.

The Community - An excited base of fans and soccer leaders ready to support the new team is making this fun.

Owners - In Chicago, we have a great group of investors who are committed for all the right reasons.

Future co-workers
- There are some very talented, hard working people with good character who are believers in this and plan on joining our efforts when we staff up next year. Some i have worked with in the past, some i have not. All will be committed and passionate.

Experience - A wealth of knowledge and wonderful memories from more than 20 years in professional soccer help me every day.

Tonya Antonucci - The League Commissioner is bright, dedicated and wise. Her leadership and the new business model ensure the League's success.
Other franchise owners - Our business partners throughout the League are engaged, experienced and committed.

Toyota Park - We will be playing in the best venue in the new women's pro soccer league. It is intimate, it can be intimidating to opponents and it has nice creature comforts for our fans.

Chicago Fire - A great team that has been supportive of our efforts all along. My successor at the Fire, John Guppy, and the team's new owner and our landlord Andell Holdings have been very helpful as we build up our organization.

Village of Bridgeview - Mayor Steve Landek, the trustees and staff have welcomed us and made it possible for the team to exist.
Illinois Women's Soccer League - Flo Dyson's leadership has provided us with a true partner in the soccer community and a large base of support.

FC Indiana - Their ownership brought this opportunity to me in the first place and provided the resources to make sure that Chicago wouldn't be left out this time.

My family and friends - Their support since i left the Fire has been unwavering and kept me going.

This is certainly just a part of what i have to be thankful for. i am grateful for your support. i hope you take the opportunity today to thank everyone in your life that is important to you and i wish you a wonderful and happy Thanksgiving.

First...

There will be plenty of firsts in the next couple years as we lead up to the launch of Chicago's first professional women's soccer team and this is our first blog post!

Much of the action over the next six months will be behind the scenes and not readily apparent to the public. i'm hoping that these blogs will provide some transparency into the organization, insight into the team and a forum to gain reaction, ideas and suggestions from the public.

Last week was important for both the team and League. Chicago Professional Women's Soccer, LLC held its first shareholders meeting at its first office on Tuesday. The office is literally a single office within fellow shareholder Jack Cummins' suite of law offices at 415 N. LaSalle Drive Suite 600 in the River North area of Chicago. We will likely keep that as our interim office until we begin staffing up next spring.

The first CPWS shareholders meeting was very good. It was the first opportunity for several of the shareholders to meet each other and it gave me an opportunity to update them on recent activities including my first address at the Illinois Women's Soccer League Annual General Meeting and our first meeting with Indiana Youth Soccer Executive Director Don Rawson.

Topics of discussion at the shareholders meeting included our Vision, Mission and Value Statements; Roadmap/Timeline; Efforts to bring in additional shareholders; Corporate structure and corporate manager selection; Budgets; Affiliations with the Chicago Fire, IWSL, FC Indiana and others; Personnel hiring: President/CEO, General Manager, staff, coach and players; Sponsorship, marketing and ticket sales and creation of an advisory board.
i will try to address several of those topics in future blogs.

i was also in Washington, DC with fellow shareholders Gary Weaver and Jack Cummins last Wednesday through Friday for League meetings. There is a lot to be done and i am glad we have the extra year to do it. i am serving on four League committees including chair of the marketing committee, so Chicago will have a strong role in the creation of the League's foundation.

The next couple years will include plenty of firsts that we hope will culminate with the League's first championship in Chicago in 2009.

Thank you in advance for your support and i invite you to share your comments, questions and thoughts below.