Feb 19, 2021
As Mike Forde built out a sports performance company consulting for championship-seeking teams like the NBA’s Spurs; the NFL’s Falcons, Rams and 49ers; along with Olympians and Tour de France winners, and serving as an exec at Chelsea FC he developed a research arm. The goal: to examine hiring trends in various sports in order to better advise the executives and coaches they consult for.
Sportsology is what Forde calls it.
He mentioned this on a separate call, for another story, as another NFL hiring cycle began to take shape starting with a rash of firings late into last season, four taking place before the calendar turned to December. His research arm reached back out after seven franchises decided on new leadership, and after their team had analyzed the data. It highlighted how little teams broke from recent trends and how much the next batch of owners starting in new directions should consider both diversity in thinking and diversity overall.
Mazzeo: How Sean Marks got Nets GM job . and how it almost didn’t happen
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When word came on February 17, 2016 that Sean Marks had won the Nets general manager job, it was supposed to be a great day for the organization.
The morning after the Nets and Marks had seemingly agreed on the job, the Nets were officially opening the HSS Training Center in Brooklyn’s Industry City. Reporters and season ticket-holders got tours, key figures from the team and Hospital for Special Surgery were toasting each other. A corner had been turned.
But there was a problem. The Nets had low-balled the assistant GM of the Spurs, offering him roughly the same salary he was getting in San Antonio. Was Marks going to settle for the same money when he was tasked with a monster rebuild and a jump in standard of living from the NBA’s poorest market to its most expensive. No, he was not and Mikhail Prokhorov who had offered Marks the job was forced into a public relations guffaw th