On the Rebound

The new CEO of the Harlem Globetrotters plans to turn the legendary hoops team into a winning business.

THE LAST TIME KURT SCHNEIDER '87 spent any real time on a basketball court was for his grammar school team in Scarsdale, New York. So if basketball prowess were a prerequisite for the job of CEO of the iconic Harlem Globetrotters, he would have been out of luck. But to private equity firm Shamrock Capital Growth Fund, majority owner of the team since 2005, Schneiders management and marketing expertise and his two-decade track record were just the ticket. They tapped him for the job in May 2007.

"The Shamrock group wanted to take the 80-year-old franchise and make it a true entertainment company," Schneider says. "I was brought in to take the brand and make it have salience again."

He adds that declining revenue was not the problem, although he won't provide numbers.

Formed in the 1920s with players from the South Side of Chicago, the Globetrotters were basketball pioneers who played a large part in integrating the all-white NBA. Team veteran Nat "Sweetwater" Clifton was the first African American to sign a contract with an NBA team, and other Globetrotters, including Wilt Chamberlain, followed. Initially the members played serious ball, but as they popularized the slam dunk, the fast break and the weave they became better known for entertaining audiences. The Web site boasts the team has "played before more people, in more places than any team in sports history." Opponents have included the World Champion Minneapolis Lakers and other pro and college teams.

Schneider, 42, jokes that he became a globetrotter long before he joined the company. When he was 5 his family moved to Tokyo for three years while his father worked on assignment for Union Carbide. Not only was the youngster thrust into a culture far different from what he had known, he attended an international instead of an American school there and met students from still more countries. Schneider receivedan even broader education when the family chose to travel around Asia during the summers.

After graduating from Dartmouth with a B.A. in English literature Schneider worked at advertising agency Saatchi & Saatchi, rising to account supervisor by age 26. Next he moved to what was then Chiat/Day and managed the Reebok account until the agency lost the sneaker company's business. "That was 57 percent of our billing. My boss and I had to fire everyone and I became the new business department," Schneider says. He left to work for the Walt Disney Cos., first as director of corporate alliances, developing partnerships with companies that included Coke and American Express, and then as director of new business development.

In 1996 his skills won him the vice president of marketing slot at Fox Sports Net, where he had responsibility for the channel's creative and promotional strategy. His riskiest move was joining Internet startup Asimba, a fitness training program company, in 1999. Schneider succeeded in building it into an awardwinning Web site before the Internet bubble burst and he had to engineer its sale to Weider Publishing.

Having proved he could develop a brand into a market leader, in 2003 he was hired by World Wrestling Entertainment as executive vice president of marketing to oversee television, live events and Internet marketing. WWE CEO Linda McMahon says she and her husband, Vince, saw his enthusiasm, passion, marketing savvy and a real sense of fun. "I liked him even though he cranked Neil Diamond from his office on Fridays and sang along," she says. (For his part, Schneider has fond memories of belting out "Sweet Caroline" in the basement of the Alpha Chi Alpha house.) A year-after his arrival at WWE pay-per-view revenue had increased for the first time in three years and Wrestlemania 20, an anniversary event Schneider managed, set box office records. "When I was at Disney I learned that you celebrate the heck out of any potential anniversary because people love them," he explains. Schneider also extended the WWE brand internationally.

One of Schneiders first actions when he joined the Globetrotters was to invite the coaches to a meeting for the purpose of ranking the players. When the dust settled they had turned over 30 percent of the roster. "Some players were just going through the motions," Schneider says. "A Globetrotter has to be a good basketball player, a good entertainer and a good citizen. If we portray the team as wholesome, we have to live up to that ideal."

The world traveler has wasted no time in extending the Globetrotters brand. He has signed a TV deal for several new small-screen properties and has the team on a world tour dubbed "Magic as Ever." The team also appeared in Harlem in 2007 for the first time in 20 years. (The team is based in Phoenix, Arizona.) Fans are definitely engaged, Schneider notes. "We're making the entire show more interactive and more appealing, with a combination of tried and true old tricks and a new story line. We're building stars," says Schneider. "The live event is still the pinnacle of fans' experience but now it's not the only experience." Once the team has a greater presence on more platforms and fans can interact with players whenever and wherever they want—from reading a blog to watching a DVD to buying a T-shirt—Schneider predicts the Globetrotters will be water cooler talk once again.

Schneider, who commutes between Phoenix and Wilton, Connecticut, where he lives with his wife and two sons, credits two Dartmouth professors with influencing his world view. Freshman year he took "History of Constitution and Law in Medieval England and France" with professor Charles Wood, whom he calls "one of the foremost scholars" in the world. "He taught me that there's a logical antecedent to everything in life," says Schneider. "These days, when we're used to thinking in sound bites, to be able to trace something back like that helps ground us in our thought process." In recalling professor Bill Cook, who taught "Modern American and British Poetry" during Schneider's sophomore year, he proves that he's never far from his college major. "He could read us a poem written in the most pessimistic tone and allowus to see the magnificence in it. He showed me that every single thing—good or bad—has a purpose and a splendor to it," Schneider says.

Another lesson from Dartmouth that has stayed with him ("trite as it may sound," he says) is this: Work hard and play hard. For 18 of the last 20 winters he's vacationed in Vail, Colorado, with a group of Alpha Chi Alpha brothers. "We can trace our post-college life by the way these vacations have changed," Schneider says. "We still ski hard but now we have dinner and some red wine and we're asleep by 8 p.m."

As part of that play-hard strategy, one might think Schneider shoots hoops with the team every chance he gets. But part of any savoir-faire, business or otherwise, is knowing when to quit. "Several months ago I sank a half-court hook shot before the whole team, and my kids were there too," he says. "That's it. I'm done."

Floor Show Marketingwhiz Schneiderhopes toattract a newgenerationof fans.

"A Globetrotter has to be a good basketball player, a good entertainer and a good citizen."

PAT OLSEN is a New Jersey journalist and author. Her work appears in The New York Times, On Wall Street, Family Business and other publications.