Q & A With Peter Wilt

Peter Wilt, the former GM and President of the Chicago Fire, was kind enough to take the time to answer a series of questions from me over e-mail. Peter responded thoughtfully and at length on a range of topics, from the Fire’s upcoming season to the future of MLS in America and his own involvement with soccer in the Midwest. Below the jump is the complete Q & A.

I started off by asking Peter a few questions about the Fire’s upcoming season and their on the field prospects.

Q. If you had to predict the upcoming season, where would the Fire finish in the regular season standings?
A. Second place in the Eastern Conference behind DC United (I’m assuming the Fire will get some forward depth at some point).

Q. How good do you think Justin Mapp and Chris Rolfe can become? What star players would you compare their upside to?
A. They both have the potential to be national team regulars. Health is always a factor – see Ben Olsen. Justin needs to become a more complete player – both in his game and within games. Last year was a major step forward for him in terms of consistency. He had fewer defensive responsibilities (not exactly his forte) and was allowed more freedom. He is still very young and will continue to improve. Chris has skill, determination and a good soccer brain. There aren’t many American players who have had the abilities Justin and Chris possess. Justin shares attributes of DaMarcus Beasley and Bobby Convey. Chris can probably be compared to more midfielders than forwards, but Josh Wolff is a US forward who shares Chris’ speed, quickness and soccer instinct.

Q. Is there anyone under the radar on the Fire roster who you think deserves more credit, or a young player who is underrated and worth keeping an eye on?
A. Ivan Guerrero may be the most underrated player in the League. He is an engine on the left side of the field for Chicago and is a player opponents always have to deal with. I’m excited to see some of the Fire’s new players this year – especially Bakary Somare, Jerson Monteiro and Erik Hort. They each have unique personal histories that involve overseas life and soccer experiences and all reportedly have raw talent that can lead to success with proper development.

Q. How would you compare the quality of the football of the Fire and MLS in general today to five or ten years ago?
A. Fire’s 2000, 1998 and 2003 teams were three of the best team’s in MLS history. I don’t see the current Fire cracking the top three list of Fire teams until the young players emerge and a good designated player is signed. Like the early Fire teams, most of MLS benefited from a higher caliber of playmakers than the League has now – Marco Etcheverry, Piotr Nowak, Preki, Mauricio Cienfiegos, Carlos Valderrama. The domestic players nowadays are better than in the early days of MLS though. Also, MLS rosters now are deeper, coaching is better and the League in general is more competitive.

Next I asked Peter a few questions about the Fire’s off the field issues and the future of MLS in America.

Q. Regarding the rumoured Blanco signing, the potential pitfalls seem to be as deep as the the potential gain. How much do you think off-the-field marketing concerns should weigh when MLS teams make their player personnel decisions?
A. Bill Veeck, the best sports promoter ever, was famous for saying, “The best promotion is winning.” A player’s ability to help a team win should be the first and overriding concern in personnel decisions. That being said, if that player can also sell a few tickets, then it’s a bonus. The universe for international players with the talent to play in MLS is relatively large. Limiting factors are salary needs and cultural obstacles. There is nothing wrong emphasizing a player search on marketable players as long as you’re not compromising the competitiveness of the team in the process.

Q. Do you think the Fire are going the right way with their youth development programs? What are the positives and negatives that you see?
A. The Fire has made good and bad decisions on youth development going back to 2000. Some of those bad decisions have been forced by the realities of the economics, politics and ego involved from both the youth soccer community and the Fire organization. I don’t think the current situation or the current direction is ideal, but I think it’s a significant improvement on what existed or didn’t exist in the past. Seven years ago, there was just the Fire. Now, there is a full structure in place:

Chicago Fire
• First Team
• Reserves
Chicago Fire Premier
• U-23 Amateurs
• U-20 Amateurs
Chicago Fire Elite
• the TBD ODP System
Chicago Fire Juniors
• Chicago
• Milwaukee
• Michigan
• Mississippi

The recent additions of the U-20 amateurs and the Fire Elite ODP partnership are very good steps that have the potential to provide true development that leads to first team players. The Fire Premier PDL team is another shining star in the structure that the Fire Premier’s coaches and owners should take great pride in. The Fire Juniors have pockets of success – Mississippi, West Michigan and a few of the Chicago and Milwaukee teams have had some real team and individual success. The whole CFJ program would have been much more successful if we could have partnered originally with the Magic or Sockers. We tried, but all parties, including me, allowed economics, branding and ego get in the way.

Q. You recently responded to an interesting series of concerns expressed on Bigsoccer from a frustrated potential Fire fan who wants to support the team, but does not find the Fire experience appealing. If you were still running the front office, what are three things you would do to attract that kind of fan?
“That kind of fan” is a young adult who grew up playing soccer, would like to be a fan of the Fire, but doesn’t feel an emotional connection to the team. These three initiatives would help grow that fan base:

1) Improve direct communication with that group regarding the team and organization through emails, message boards and increased personal appearances by players, coaches and staff.

2) Promote the team on a grassroots basis with guerrilla marketing efforts where young adults can be reached: music clubs, bars, restaurants, adult soccer organizations, colleges, social networking groups, partnerships with the Reader, New City, Red Eye, on the el, in parks, at gyms, viral marketing etc.

3) Sign a talented, marketable player.

I’m not saying that the team isn’t doing some or all of these things, but I believe a stronger concentration of effort in these areas would help more young adult fans make an emotional commitment to the Fire.

Q. How hard is it for MLS in America to market itself given the disparate nature of the soccer fanbase in this country? How can clubs with limited finance market to so many different ethnic groups, to suburban soccer moms and inner-city Hispanics, to Euro soccer snobs and American sports fans?

It IS difficult. It’s two issues. One is improving the image of the product and the other is the sales and marketing of the product. Short of spending millions of dollars, which won’t see a dollar for dollar return, MLS teams are forced to sales and marketing efforts targeted for specific markets. Teams have relatively small budgets and rightly aim them at the markets with the greatest returns – youth soccer. There are other markets that are emotionally and economically vested in soccer, but are more difficult to reach and convert – ethnic, young adult and certain corporate audiences. Reaching those markets requires individuals who are dedicated to building relationships in those markets and over time growing their contact base virally. To be successful, those individuals have to stay with an organization for several years, communicate effectively and network with their sales base. That structure breaks down when the sales and marketing staff members leave the organization or are promoted away from their contacts and not replaced by someone as effective as they were in maintaining and growing the network of promotion and sales.

Not to be lost is the product itself and the image of the product (which can be two very different things). MLS teams need to gain credibility to improve support in ethnic and young adult audiences. The League has made several good steps in this regard over the years and a few key ones in the last year. The Designated Player rule has the potential to gain tremendous credibility. If it’s just Beckham and Reyna, the League will gain support in the short term from casual and non-soccer fans. If half a dozen or more other high level players follow, that support increase will be seen in ethnic and young adult fans as well. SuperLiga has the potential to add to the League’s credibility if MLS teams at least hold their own. DC and Houston doing well in CONCACAF helps, MLS teams playing well against major Euro clubs in exhibitions helps a little and the USMNT success over the last eight years helps.

I ended by asking a few questions about Peter’s own past and present relationship to soccer in the Midwest.

Q. Tell me about your plans for an MLS team in Milwaukee. Do you think this would be a good thing for the Fire? It would create a natural rivalry, but a Milwaukee team would also presumably eat into the Fire’s fanbase and youth catchment area..
A. I think the cannibalization of Fire fans would be negligible (mostly in Lake County, Illinois which suffered a bit due to the stadium location) as very few Wisconsin fans travel to Bridgeview for games. I do think the increase in attendance for derby games would be significant. We’re making quiet progress north of the border. We needed to be very public the first year to gain support for our partnership with the Wisconsin Youth Soccer Association, which is a landmark deal in American sports. The WYSA will own a small portion of the team and have a seat on our board of directors. There are dozens of partnerships benefits including a commitment to have Wisconsin developed players on our roster. From a business perspective, the exciting part for us is the WYSA’s commitment to build tickets into registrations which will result in the equivalent of 8,000 season tickets through the partnership alone. At this point we need to be stay quiet to avoid premature political angst.

Q. Tell me about the progress of the potential WUSA team for Chicago, and will it have a connection to the Fire? If not, should it?
A. I’m excited about the women’s team in Chicago. I believe the relaunch of WUSA has a better chance of success than the first time due to the sharp reduction in player salaries and operational overhead as well as this League’s willingness to partner with MLS and new soccer stadia to maximize revenues and share expenses. We have most of the key elements for a successful team in place. The key to our success will be the contractually obligated income generated through agreements we already have in place with the Illinois Women’s Soccer League (5,000 season ticket equivalents) and the lease agreement with TOYOTA PARK, which allows us to generate revenues at the games. We still need a lead investor, however. Our group includes the owners of FC Indiana, which has funded the start up to date. The FC Indiana owners bring tremendous soccer expertise to the group as their women’s team in the WPSL has been ranked as high as second in the world as recently as 2005 (behind a club in Potsdam, Germany). The universe for potential lead investors in this League is much larger than the universe for investors in an MLS team. Budgets are about one-fourth of MLS and there is a real path to profitability from the beginning in the women’s league.

We are talking to the Fire about a resource sharing agreement that has the potential to be mutually beneficial. The team itself would certainly have separate ownership, but we could potentially share some staff. I would also like to build an organization, team and brand like the Fire that reflects the character of Chicago. I doubt the name will be Fire related, but it will likely reflect the history, pride and passion of Chicago the same way the Fire does. Though it’s a women’s team, I don’t think it should have a feminine brand. I’d like to have the team appeal to the entire soccer community, not just the girls youth soccer community as has been the case with women’s teams in the past.

Q. You were inducted into the “Ring of Fire” last year, but your departure still leaves a bitter taste for many Fire fans. Whilst you might not want to comment on your own specific history, in general what qualities and experience do you think the typical MLS club’s GM should have to succeed in their job?
A. I think the most important quality for a good GM is the ability to identify and hire talented, hard working people with good character. Willingness to listen to others and learn from mistakes is important, too.

Q. Any odd, fun or little known facts about your experiences with the Fire or soccer in Chicago that you’d like to share?
A. I would occasionally make wagers with individual Fire staff members….not often – maybe once a year on average. The wager was usually on a sporting event or a disagreement over a historic fact of some sort. In each case, I would end up offering something of real value if I lost – $1,000 cash, a trip to Fire pre-season, doubling of commissions for a week etc. If I won the wager, the staff member would have to wear a predetermined costume of my choosing and perform something for the staff. I won’t name names, but I will say over the years the Fire staff was entertained by Fat Elvis, Cupid (in tights), Abraham Lincoln, Comedian Tom Dreesen and at least two of the Village People. I never lost

Category: Off the field, Team News