He’s the CEO of a Sports Commission & the CEO of a DMO: Meet Cleveland’s David Gilbert

Intro: This is Brand USA Talks Travel, elevating the conversation about international travel to the United States. Here's your host, Mark Lapidus.

Mark Lapidus [0:09]: The Wall Street Journal said the new center of the world is Cleveland, and they said this in reference to you hosting the NCAA Women's Basketball Championships. I'd love to hear that story.

David Gilbert [0:20]: Well, it was, one, electric. We were awarded that event after a long competition, five and a half, six years before hosting. And certainly we knew it was going to be incredible event, a large event. But we certainly didn't know the wave of women's sports, women's basketball, Caitlin Clarke, that was coming along with it. It was absolutely electric. It really was amazing. We've been fortunate to host a lot of really big events - in the last four or five years, NBA All-Star Game, Major League Baseball All-Star Game, NFL Draft, a lot of other big NCAA Championships. I think the atmosphere around the women's Final Four was as exciting or more exciting than any of the others. It's pretty great to see.

Mark Lapidus [1:03]: Today, I am pumped to be joined by David Gilbert, President and CEO of Destination Cleveland, and the Greater Cleveland Sports Commission. Before this, David was the President and CEO of the 2016 Republic National Convention Host Committee, and he was also the Director of Community Affairs at the Convention and Visitors Bureau of Greater Cleveland. David, it's really nice to have you on Brand USA Talks Travel.

David Gilbert [1:24]: Thank you, Mark, and I appreciate your having me on.

Mark Lapidus [1:26]: I'd love to hear your elevator pitch for why international travelers should put Cleveland on their must-visit list.

David Gilbert [1:33]: Cleveland is not a gateway destination for international visitors. Most Midwest destinations are not. What I would say is, certainly there are incredible, unique, one-of-a-kind things - having the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the only one in the world, which is an incredible place, and they're undergoing a new $150 million addition right now. If anyone's a music fan, it is absolutely a must see. But to me, it's such a cool city of, I think about that quintessential U.S. City, has incredible history, and has this real interesting combination of grittiness, of industrial; certainly a city that embodies what the Great Lakes region is all about. And has a lot of new, but it's all been formed by that industrial past. I just love it. We're not the shiniest and newest, although we've got some great stuff. It just has such soul to it, and such a unique passion around it and its people. I just feel like there are very few cities in America that people could come to to really feel the soul of our country.

Mark Lapidus [2:39]: You bring up a lot of great points, but I think the best one really is that you have a lot of unique selling propositions, and that's so important for international tourists.

David Gilbert [2:47]: Absolutely. Everybody talks about their attributes, and so can we. I mean, it's a phenomenal professional sports city, we have a Lakefront that is starting to become one of the greatest Lakefronts on the Great Lakes. So many great things happening. One of the best art scenes in the country, we have the largest theater district in the country outside of New York. I hate the phrase, "We got something for everybody." I think what makes a lot of those things a little bit unique for us is that bit of grittiness. So Cleveland Orchestra, really, by all measures, often cited as one of the top five orchestras in the world, and one of the top payrolls. But what's cool is they play at Happy Dog, a place that serves hot dogs with Froot Loops on it. It's not just in our Great Symphony Hall. It's this really interesting, unique blend of really world-class stuff, but done in a very industrial way. And it's part of why I love my city.

Mark Lapidus [3:40]: You wear two very important hats for Cleveland, promoting the region as a travel destination while also trying to bring in major sporting events. It's really unusual to see these roles combined at a typical destination. How did that happen, and what's it like?

David Gilbert [3:53]: Twenty-five years ago - it's amazing how long it's been - I was the person heading our new startup Sports Commission, a new nonprofit. We had two staff people. A great board that started it, has grown significantly, and we're now one of the largest in the country. And about 10 years in, so about 14, 15 years ago, I was approached about leaving our sports commission to run our DMO. And I declined; more, I just love what I was doing. And the board of our DMO came back and said, "What if you could run both?" And ultimately, what our two boards worked out is that I run these two completely separate independent nonprofit organizations. They're separate boards, separate staff, separate funding. I get paid half by each. They're very close cousin organizations, and they complement each other very well. But they do very different things. I feel very fortunate, because I'm from Cleveland, this is my town. I've had opportunities to do what I do in bigger markets, what some people might consider sexier markets; to me, it would be a job and not a passion to do it anywhere else. And our sports commission, knock on wood, has done really well. I mean, Cleveland is, by almost any measure within our industry, number of events, size, scale, economic impact, one of the top cities in America, year in and year out for the hosting of major events.

Mark Lapidus [5:16]: So when you go into meetings, sometimes, do you actually switch hats?

David Gilbert [5:19]: I have to be very careful about when I say "us" and "them" and "me." I will tell you, Mark, I'm very cognizant of the fact that, other than knowing it in a conscious way, the Board of Sports Commission, the Board of Destination Cleveland, even the staff, shouldn't think about the fact that I'm running another organization - that what I do, what I accomplish, how I run the business, one should not bleed into the other. They are very separate. And of course, there are times when you have the biggest of big events that both may get involved, and they bring different things to the table. They complement each other well. But I do have to honestly be a little bit careful about that whole notion of if and when do you switch hats.

Mark Lapidus [6:00]: I'm sure that after all these years, you could probably teach a course, in fact, probably a master course in sports tourism. What do you think most destinations miss?

David Gilbert [6:08]: I think the basis by which we have built our whole business model was on providing more services to the events that come to town than anybody else in the country. It's why sports commissions were formed 30 plus years ago, in many ways as outgrowth of traditional CVBs, because sports were the one area area of group travel that needed something very different than any other typical meeting or convention. It's not the case every time, but I can tell you we host, on average, let's call it 12, 14 national events a year, our Sports Commission. These are events, not that we know of in the community, these are events that we were responsible for attracting to town, and in one way, shape, or form, are involved in some form of running and managing the event. Might be a small piece, it might be the whole thing. Those rights holders, those events rights holders, need partners to be successful. Oftentimes, what we found is they choose Cleveland, not because they love Cleveland. Cleveland has to work for them. Everything about Cleveland has to work for them. But they're choosing our organization because what we bring makes them more successful in however they define success for their event. I will tell you, it takes a big infrastructure to do that. We're not a big organization. We have 15 full-time staff people, three or four part-time, and a lot of interns on top of that. That's one of the biggest sports commissions in the country. They're typically not big organizations, but the vast majority of people that are part of the sports commission industry tend to more be a couple of salespeople from a DMO. And while that can work in certain instances, certain events that don't need a lot, or maybe only are looking for a check, for those events that really need help to be successful, you need a full infrastructure. And while that was the heart of our business model 25 years ago when we started, it wasn't easy to do early on when you had just a couple of staff, people, a great board. It still is the heart of what we try to do today.

Mark Lapidus [8:03]: It sounds like having a sports commission comes with a lot of considerations, from staffing to how you integrate with the DMO.

David Gilbert [8:09]: Very much so. DMOs typically are not heavily involved in operations, heavily involved in fundraising. At Destination Cleveland, our DMO, we host 100+ meetings, conventions each year. We don't run any of them. Where on the sports side, oftentimes, Sports Commission actually runs events and takes risk. And so what the staff at the Sports Commission does is very different. It is not a Destination Marketing Organization. When we have major events where destination marketing is a part of it, we have the Women's Final Four as a good example. If you want to attract even more people from out of market, then our DMO gets involved. They'll work hand in hand. But how they do things, how they operationalize things, are very different.

Mark Lapidus [8:48]: David, as you know, Brand USA concentrates on international tourism. I'm wondering, are there certain events or competitions that tend to draw a higher proportion of international fans and travelers versus others?

David Gilbert [8:58]: We love events that attract international visitors. In part, it's more interesting for our local community. We actually seek out opportunities to host... We're hosting an event in just about six weeks from now called the Pan Am Masters Games. There's an event called the World Masters Games, owned by a group called the International Masters Games Association. They're out of Lausanne, Switzerland, tied very closely with the Olympic movement. They host one event a year somewhere in the world. Think of it as a Masters Olympics. We're the first ever US host city. It's a very big undertaking; we basically are running every single thing from start to finish, including recruiting all the athletes. We have 24 sports. We're expecting about 4,000 athletes. We already have people signed up 73 countries, 48 states. We had to raise all the money. All the risk is on us. Quite frankly, we're going to lose money on hosting this one, but it's going to be unbelievable for our community. The biggest international gathering in our city's history. And, because of that, we're looking at hosting some other international events, because it's gathered attention. We were the first ever US host city to host International Children's Games, an International Children's Olympics, been going on since the early '60s. We really seek out opportunities for us. How Cleveland can stand out is we take on big things, we take on hard things. These events are not easy to host. It's not a package. It's not a convention that says, "We're coming to Cleveland, we'll see you when we're there." It's one that we spend years putting together. But we love the opportunity to showcase our city to an international audience. Sometimes for a city like Cleveland, that isn't a top gateway city, we're not Orlando, we're not LA, we're not Las Vegas, that's typically on the minds of a European traveler or an Asian traveler, we have to look for those opportunities. Oftentimes, we're hosting an event that's a little harder to host, we're willing to take on, and it's what gets those international travelers here.

Mark Lapidus [10:50]: It must take guts to pull these off. I mean, not many organizations have the moxie to go into an event knowing that they're going to lose top-line money. You're playing the long game. You understand that you're making it back in a different way.

David Gilbert [11:01]: We certainly don't try to make a habit of it, I'll tell you that. Our Sports Commission board is a big board, about 70 people. And it's mostly C-level corporate leaders, sports leaders, media, and then we have some people from our city, county, and so on. They're business people. They understand taking risk. They have to take measured risk. When we do that, we have to have the right business plan. Oftentimes, when it's big risk, we have to present and say, "Hey, here's our worst-case scenarios. What kind of reserves do we have in the bank if we do that?" Nonprofit is not a way of doing business, you know, it's a tax status. But to your point, we've hosted now, we're at about 250 events that we've been directly responsible for hosting or that we have on the books for future years. There's only a handful of times over 250 events that we've lost money. Oftentimes, we'll make money. We look at ourselves as a very entrepreneurial type of nonprofit, and I think it's paid dividends for us in the ability to host events and try a business deal that maybe some other cities may not.

Mark Lapidus [12:01]: What are some of the bigger trends or changes that you see happening in the sports tourism and also in the events industry?

David Gilbert [12:07]: I think there's two big things. Facilities that are being built a lot with public funding, with a little bit of the promise of, "if you build it, they will come." I mean, you're talking facilities that out of the gate are coming out with 10, 12, 15, 20 turf fields and hundreds of thousands of square feet under roof, all dedicated to sports. Some are paying off, some are not. Some pay off for the second or third owner, because the first owner doesn't do well. I think the other thing to kind of correlate with that, it's amazing the private equity money that is getting into sports, particularly youth sports. Now, all that said, it is a reality that the one part of sports travel that seems to be almost recession-proof is youth sports. When you go into tough times, families will cut out their family vacation, but they'll make their son or daughter's soccer tournament one state away, they'll make that their family vacation. They're not going to deny their kids. I think that's part of why you're seeing some of these huge dollars flow into private equity that are putting money behind it. Some are making it, some are not. But it is also making the world we live in far more competitive. I think smaller cities are getting into the cane because they're doing it. It's a good example. Every four years, now it's every two because of some changes, NCAA bids out all of their national championships other than men's basketball and football. Obviously, their landscape is changing as well. But if you look at the trend over the last 10 years, every time they've done a bid cycle, the number of bids that they get have gone from something like six bids for every event to well over double that. It's because so many more smaller cities are realizing they have the opportunity, because they have new facilities, to bid on a great NCAA Division 3 event that they wouldn't have thought about before. It is significantly increasing the competition for hosting these events.

Mark Lapidus [14:04]: David, you and I were talking before we turned the podcast mics on about conventions for the tourism industry. Before we go, can you share with us specific conferences or conventions that you think people who work in the travel industry should attend if they're interested in expanding their sports tourism business?

David Gilbert [14:20]: I'd say first and foremost, our Trade Association called Sports ETA, which used to be called the National Association of Sports Commissions. That's really the big one. It's a terrific association. There aren't nearly as many organizations like ours that are large, full service. So cities getting into it, getting involved in Sports ETA. But there's others like the Connect Conference, and a number of others out there where they are great places where it's a confluence of cities who are looking to host events and the rights holders. Sports ETA also has a lot of terrific education sessions. DI is getting more and more into that space, and looking for their niche within that. Those are, I would say, the ones to pay most attention to. The other thing, Mark, I probably get a call many, many times a year from cities that are interested in getting into this market. I'll just get a call, saying, "We've heard about Cleveland. Would you mind spending time on the phone?" I think what's great is, we have an industry where people are very willing to share. And yes, we're competitors, but far often than not, we're friends - Kansas City or Columbus, Ohio or Tampa or others that we compete with, but quite frankly, their directors are good friends of mine. We share a lot of information, a lot of intel, and try to help each other wherever we can.

Mark Lapidus [15:32]: That's very kind of you, David. Are you attending DI this year?

David Gilbert [15:35]: I am not, only because we're hosting that Pan Am Masters games at the exact same time. I tend to always go to DI. I love the CEO forum. And the CEO Forum, of course, was the week of Women's Final Four. The big annual this year is during our Pan Am Masters, but traditionally, I go. Of course, we're hosting ASE later this summer, which is a real big opportunity in the whole meeting convention industry for Cleveland.

Mark Lapidus [15:59]: I thought I had a complicated calendar.

David Gilbert [16:02]: And trying to squeeze in a little time with your family on top of that, it kind of soaks up every free minute.

Mark Lapidus [16:07]: David, this is such a fascinating topic. I really had a great time, and I thank you so much for joining me.

David Gilbert [16:12]: Mark, I appreciate you having me. It's a topic for me that It's so much fun to talk about. I'm passionate about it, and passionate about not just for my city, but the whole industry.

Mark Lapidus [16:20]: Well, you'll have to come back. We'll do a deeper dive the next time.

David Gilbert [16:23]: Anytime.

Mark Lapidus [16:24]: That's it for Brand USA Talks Travel. I'm Mark Lapidus, thanks for listening.

Outro [16:28]: Your feedback is welcome! Email us at [email protected] or call 202-793-6256. Brand USA Talks Travel is produced by Asher Meerovich, who also composes music and sound. Engineering by Brian Watkins. With extra help from Bernie Lucas, Nthanze Kariuki, and Casey D'Ambra. Please share this podcast with your friends in the travel industry. You may also enjoy any of our archived episodes, which you can find on your favorite podcast platform. Safe travels!

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