Xavier Gutierrez, CEO of the Arizona Coyotes and CEO of ImpactX Sports activities Group (L), and Pedro Guerrero, CEO of Guerrero Media.
Courtesy: Guerrero Media
When the Nationwide Hockey League’s Arizona Coyotes offered its franchise to Utah final month, the league did not simply lose an Arizona-based staff — it additionally misplaced its solely lively Latino chief government.
Born in Guadalajara, Mexico, Xavier Gutierrez turned the Arizona staff’s CEO in 2019 after Alex Meruelo, a Cuban-American billionaire, purchased the Coyotes a yr earlier. Gutierrez had beforehand been a managing director at non-public fairness agency Clearlake Capital Group and knew Meruelo for a few decade earlier than changing into the NHL’s first-ever Latino CEO.
It took a Latino proprietor to rent a Latino CEO, Gutierrez defined in an interview, as a result of Hispanics usually are not well-represented in management positions in skilled sports activities.
There are 153 main skilled sports activities franchises within the U.S. and Canada throughout the NHL, the Nationwide Soccer League, the Nationwide Basketball Affiliation, Main League Baseball and Main League Soccer.
Gutierrez, who’s technically nonetheless CEO of the Arizona Coyotes although the franchise is inactive, says he’s the one non-owner Latino CEO. Jorge Mas, co-owner of the MLS’ Inter Miami CF who can be CEO, makes for 2 Latino CEOs, based on Gutierrez.
That’s one thing Gutierrez vows to vary. He’s a part of the founding group behind LiS: Latinos in Sports activities, a platform devoted to bringing collectively Latinos and non-Latinos in skilled sports activities, media and advertising and marketing to showcase Latino expertise in management positions. CNBC is the official media associate of Latinos in Sports activities.
“The results speaks for themselves that you don’t have that leadership today,” Gutierrez stated. “You look at the commissioners and their offices that are relying on Latino consumers to be the viewers, the ticket buyers, the jersey buyers. I think you need to have Latino talent in those seats. Our goal is just to say, ‘Listen, this isn’t because you’re bad people. That’s not it at all. It’s because maybe you haven’t met the cohorts that exist.'”
Gutierrez and Pedro Antonio Guerrero, the CEO of government development firm Guerrero Media, launched Latinos in Sports activities at an occasion in Miami final week.
Vianni Lubus, head of viewers and engagement at Guerrero Media, and Mike Valdes-Fauli, chief working officer at Chemistry Cultura, a digital promoting agency centered on Latinos within the U.S., are additionally concerned with the platform.
The 4 executives share a aim to extend U.S. Hispanic illustration all through management roles in sports activities. José Feliciano, the co-founder of Clearlake Capital and co-owner of the Premier League’s Chelsea Soccer Membership, additionally spoke ultimately week’s Miami occasion to advertise extra Latino possession in sports activities.
José E. Feliciano speaks onstage throughout the 2021 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Ripple of Hope Award Gala in New York Metropolis on Dec. 9, 2021.
Slaven Vlasic | Getty Photographs
“My fervent hope is that we make more progress on the ownership front,” Feliciano stated. “Decision-makers in seats of influence are starting to recognize that Latinos can and should be owners in every sense of the word.”
The aim of Latinos in Sports activities is to be the go-to place to foster a tradition of Hispanic development within the business of sports activities, Gutierrez stated. The executives hope to show the platform right into a enterprise that focuses on funding in Hispanic-founded startups, conducting analysis on U.S. Hispanic traits and bringing collectively each Latino and non-Latino sports activities leaders for networking.
“You do deals with people you know,” Gutierrez stated. “It’s really going to be a place for commerce, for talent acquisition, for conversation, data and insights.”
The group additionally hopes to push Latino sports activities executives to make extra aware choices about interesting to Latino audiences.
Warner Bros. Discovery debuted another broadcast throughout final yr’s MLB playoffs referred to as “Peloteros,” which featured former and present Latino baseball gamers talking to a Hispanic viewers. The printed needed to be in English as a result of Warner Bros. Discovery doesn’t have the Spanish-language broadcast rights.
Having extra Latino executives making content material choices can assist attract audiences which have largely been ignored, stated Luis Silberwasser, chairman and CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery Sports activities.
“It was a good example of what we’re striving to do in terms of diversifying content,” stated Silberwasser. “You need diversity of voice in the production group to come up with this.”
It’s important for Latinos in Sports activities to attach Latinos with non-Latinos, Gutierrez stated, as a result of non-Latinos are overwhelmingly in positions of management in the present day.
The group’s subsequent occasion can be on the Barclays Middle in Brooklyn, New York, in September throughout the U.S. Open tennis event. Gutierrez and Guerrero selected that occasion particularly as a result of it historically appeals to white Individuals.
“It’s important to have non-Latino decision-makers in the room,” Gutierrez stated.
“Latinos need to connect with each other to build partnerships like this one in an effort to build our table,” Guerrero stated. “At the end of the day, it’s the priority of a lot of Latinos in positions of power like Xavier [Gutierrez]. The key for us is to grow our population size.”
