Member Insights: Matt Goodman, New York City FC’s New Chief Operating Officer Chats To iSportconnect

With New York City FC’s home opener for the new Major League Soccer season taking place this Saturday, and a CONCACAF Champions League Quarter Final tonight against Tigres UANL, it was a perfect time to talk to NYCFC’s new Chief Operating Officer and Chief Commercial Officer, Matt Goodman.

Matt, who joined NYCFC from the NBA, spoke to Ben Page about why he was interested in the move to the Major League Soccer franchise, the interest FIFA is creating in soccer for American youngsters, how much his experience across a variety of sports has benefitted his career and more…

So Matt, how did you make it to this point, was sport always the goal for your career?

It was, I always had the intention of being in the sports business. My initial thought was I wanted to be a radio guy, I grew up listening to games on the radio and as I got into college and I went to school to get a journalism degree to be a sports writer and ultimately be a radio guy.

So when I got my first interview with the Dallas Cowboys shortly before I graduated college it was with the director of ticket sales. At the time I didn’t even know what that meant, just a foot in the door to get me to media relations, and he told me “Look, if you want to be successful in the sports business you’ve got to put butts on seats.”

He asked how I felt making a hundred phone calls a day and I said “Selling Cowboys season tickets?? … I don’t think we’ll have a problem.” So I started after graduation with four other interns working phones, promo events, general intern stuff and he pulls me off a project one day and tells the coordinator “This guy stays on the phone”, that was 17 and a half years ago. 

You’ve been around various areas of US sport since that start at the Dallas Cowboys, and most recently came from the NBA, which appears to be in a very healthy place right now, so why was NYCFC so appealing?

So I’ve had the opportunity to work at Madison Square Garden, with a billion dollar transformation of the building, so from 2009-13 I was at the Garden every day, every night, selling, at the time, the highest end premium inventory in the history of pro sports when we were in the worst economic crisis since the great depression. That in itself is a humbling and exciting experience. 

The best way I can put this, there’s only so many times where you get familiarity with a market like New York. We’re a team in an emerging league and the way I articulate this to others, you look at youth sports participation in the US there are two sports that are trending up vs the rest of sports in the country, and you can kind of self-select what those are.

Then you look at the international dynamic of what the market of New York City is, this is truly the melting pot of the world. All the leagues have two teams in this city, even the MLS, but the brand is only five years old. So, why? I think without giving you a direct answer I hope I’ve articulated it.

You believe there is a clear trending upwards then? Having spent a bit of time in the US over the past couple of years, almost every kid would talk to me about playing FIFA, how big of a deal is that?

So you’re exactly right. When I hear an NBA team president tell me that his kid might not be the biggest NBA fan in terms of going to games, but his kid knows the players because of all the 2K he plays from an NBA standpoint. But then in the same breath tells me he’s got to take him over to Europe to Premier League games because he plays 2x more FIFA than he plays 2K and knows the roster of all the English Premier League teams. 

When you look at the big three US leagues, MLB is 150 years old, the NFL 100 and soon the NBA will be 75. Well the MLS is celebrating its 25th anniversary and franchise values have gone from 3m to 30m to 300m in 25 years. And that’s in the absence of homegrown superstar talent and a relatively small national TV deal, relative to those other three I just named. 

So what would you say having worked across those major sports in the US, where do the biggest differences lie?

There’s not a one size fits all answer to that. There’s the team level and then there’s league level. 

At the team level you’ve got, for example, when I worked at the Browns who are owned by a family that have done really well in a totally different business and want to be owners of an NFL team. Then you’ve got MSG which is a publicly-traded corporation, so you ask for differences you go from MSG, 10,000 employees running six venues in the city plus Vegas and LA, that has a dearth of resources. Then you go to the Browns and it’s a 200 person business that happens to have national and in some cases international intellectual property.

Or you go to the Memphis Grizzlies, which is 150-175 people, vs the NBA which is 14 offices across the globe and 1400 employees, and that’s the thing about NYCFC which is so interesting, because I think we fall right in the middle. We own clubs all over the world, we have shared services out of the UK, but then at the same time every one of those markets has its own unique opportunities and benefits and challenges because what makes a fan in Melbourne might not be what makes a fan in New York. 

At the NBA I was landing in Detroit to meet with the heads of ticket sales for the Pistons and talk about where they are from a sales standpoint, what are they talking about from a fan experience, promotional opportunities and how are they positioning themselves to the corporate community. And that conversation was obviously very different from the one I had with the LA Lakers.

Do you feel like it’s been a major benefit working across all the different sports?

The answer is unequivocally yes. Because when you’re selling mini-plans to Minor League Baseball in Dallas, which is an affluent market, vs Scranton in Pennsylvania you learn how to pivot and tell stories to different types of prospects, same way you do in New York or for the Browns.

Because everything we do is predicated first on the fan, none of these things mean anything without the stands full. And at the end of the day you’ve got to know that the person that you’re talking to is actively engaged in being a fan of the club, then it’s our responsibility to figure out what the benefits and amenities are that we can provide to any segment of fan. 

What would you say has been the best learning experience you’ve had?

I wish I could answer that. They’re all part of the greater tapestry. Probably the first time I went and worked for Mandalay sports, we owned seven Minor League Baseball teams. Our President was Howie Nuchow and President of Business was Jon Spoelstra. Howie is now co-head of CAA and Spoelstra, kind of the godfather of ticket sales to me, was General Manager of two NBA teams. 

So my biggest education was being taught how to ask questions, how to get appointments and how to position a product that isn’t predicated on wins and losses but is more predicated on growing the prospects’ business using at the time what we sold, Minor League Baseball tickets, but making a compelling case as to how to do that. 

About New York City Football Club

New York City Football Club (NYCFC) is an American professional soccer team that competes in Major League Soccer (MLS) in the Eastern Conference of the League. It was announced as the League’s 20th franchise on May 21, 2013 and is the first and only MLS Club located within the five boroughs of New York City. NYCFC kicked off its inaugural MLS season in March 2015 and is majority owned by City Football Group (CFG). In 2019, the Club finished top of the Eastern Conference and qualified for the 2020 Concacaf Champions League for the first time in franchise history. NYCFC’s Academy features teams from the U-12 to U-19 age groups and became the first Academy in the country to win back-to-back national titles at the U-19 level. NYCFC proudly supports City in the Community (CITC) foundation to use the power of soccer to uplift communities; one of the programs, New York City Soccer Initiative (NYCSI) is a first-of-its-kind public-private community partnership to open 50 mini-soccer pitches in underserved NYC neighborhoods in five years. 

Website: NYCFC.com | Twitter: @NYCFC | Instagram: @NYCFC | Hashtags: #NYCFC | Facebook.com/NewYorkCityFC