Doug Quinn - Brief Article

Brandweek, Nov 8, 1999 by Terry Lefton

Though loose in style, he's shown a linebacker's stamina in selling the NFL overseas.

Selling American football outside of North America belongs on a roster of Herculean tasks that includes assignments like selling Japanese cars in Detroit or hamburgers in India. But that's the assignment now handed to Doug Quinn, who was named senor vice president and managing director of NFL International this past August, after Don Garber left to become commissioner of Major League Soccer

Quinn, 37, joined NFL Properties in 1990 and worked in a variety of licensing and marketing positions before joining NFLI in June 1997. Quinn likes to say it took him a decade to get to where he wanted, since he received his MBA at the University of Texas with a concentration on international business.

While TV still accounts for 70% of NFLI revenues, Quinn's had a big hand in rebuilding international commercial activity to the point where he now boasts of a better than 800% increase in revenues over the past three years.

Quinn is a lanky man whose style personifies the archetypal American culture foreign sponsors are buying into. His brash style has also led to more than a few practical jokes during his tenure at NFLP, including a now-legendary stunt where he did a 30-minute phone interview under the impression that he was being questioned by Details magazine, which was said to be profiling young sport marketing execs. The fact that it was a ruse didn't become apparent until Doug received a phone message from Details wishing him a happy April Fool's Day. Then there was another NFLP contemporary who overheard Quinn trying to negotiate a lease in his favor by telling the prospective landlord he "didn't want to miss an opportunity to rent to an up-and-coming sports marketing executive at the NFL and a former Miss New York" (his wife, Maureen). Still, it's that brash salesman's mentality that allows Quinn to successfully sell the NFL in countries where the Super Bowl is something usually found in plumbing supply stores--or the souk.

"He has an open mind and can still laugh at himself, which is really important when you are involved in selling a piece of American culture overseas," said one of the perpetrators of the Details magazine stunt. "He also brings out the best in the people around him," said another of the architects of the faux magazine story. "There is no more difficult job than selling the NFL overseas, especially after you are used to every door being opened for you here. Doug's shown he can take rejection inherent in sales and he's built the sponsorship into a meaningful property overseas."

As a result, Quinn's gone from almost no activity in Canada to 13 deals and about the same number in Mexico and five in Japan.

"A lot of it was knocking on doors that hadn't been knocked on before," he said. "You're selling American pop culture, but you have to be sensitive in each country to how loudly you bang that drum.

"We know we can't be soccer in Mexico and baseball in Japan, or even in the top three sports in any given marketplace, but if we can show people the NFL can be a successful marketing platform anywhere and if for that reason we're the most requested foreign propriety, we'll be OK."

In his most recent appointment, Quinn is responsible for all international operations and development activities of the NFL, including television, licensing, sponsorship, marketing, the NFL Europe league and the annual American Bowls, in which NFL teams stage exhibitions in foreign lands.

Atlanta/Dallas is on tap for next August in Japan and a deal to hold games for the next two years in Mexico City is close. There's also talk of games in Berlin and Toronto. There have even been some exploratory meetings regarding an NFL Bowl in China.

So what about regular season games outside the U.S., an experiment lately undertaken by other big U.S., pro sports properties? A difficult proposition, considering the limited inventory of eight home regular season games that each owner has, but "that's something we are continually discussing to figure out how it can work to benefit our owners," said Quinn. "Obviously we don't have a lot of inventory, but it's not something we should walk away from, with teams like Dallas, that are so ingrained in Northern Mexico, and when we see the 10,000 Canadian people that attend every Buffalo Bills game."

An unanticipated benefit of the NFL flexing its muscles overseas has been notched in the player development category. Kurt Warner, the hottest quarterback in the league, was a Euro and Arena League star, and three years ago 36 NFL players were allocated to the NFL's summer European league. Next season around 140 players will report to NFL Europe training camps.

"Five years from now, if we're talking about [NFL] expansion, I wouldn't be surprised to see real interest from Europe or Mexico," said Quinn "and I'd like to think we are planting those seeds."