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Goal.com Special: Philadelphia Union President Tom Veit
Goal.com's John Mantia recently spoke with Tom Veit, the President of MLS' newest franchise, Philadelphia Union.
May 22, 2009 4:22:22 PM
By John Mantia
With their logo, name and colors leaked on the internet days before the planned naming ceremony, even the worst kept secret of the Philadelphia Union failed to temper the DayGlo-clad Polish-American string band that blared near the City Hall's steps.
Tom Veit was no doubt relieved.
As president for MLS's newest franchise, Veit and his still-assembling front office spent months tweaking and redesigning the aforementioned logo, hoping to craft an identity that best reflected Philadelphia, both past and present.
Amid a slew of delays and false starts, Veit sighs in retrospect, "If you don’t have that live interaction, it’s tough to gauge how they are feeling and what their reactions are. That made it great, to feel that energy in the way we did at city hall. It was a great preview into what we’ll experience once the stadium is open."
But a logo, even a rapturously received one, is just a logo. For Veit, the Union journey started long before discussions of colors and crests. Two years ago, as the defacto president of the still budding expansion franchise, Veit was charged with crafting marketing ideas while simultaneously building the front office. In the time since, he's assembled many of the necessary pieces.
With 11 months to go before opening day, there remains an ever-critical challenge for Veit and his staff: "We need to continue to show the Philadelphia market who we are. We need to reach out to explain who we are, and what we are going to be about. We’ve been lucky in the media coverage locally, it’s been phenomenal. We’ve been treated as a major entity since day-one. But, we’ve never played a game, and so people need to learn our identity through other ways until kickoff."
Veit will lean on his experience with the Tampa Bay Mutiny to achieve just that. When asked what separates past and present, Veit believes MLS has replaced kitsch with authenticity. "Looking back at my experience with the Mutiny, it wasn't about soccer. We didn't present the game in Tampa in a traditional soccer fashion, we didn't give the fans an idea of what true soccer was going to be, simply because we couldn't. Now you go to a game, and you hear from people it is vastly different than going to the stadiums of MLS's past. You don't play 'Who Let the Dogs Out?' a million times during the game, you let the songs from the fans carry the atmosphere."
Veit will of course rely on the Sons of Ben and Philadelphia's notoriously passionate sports fans to provide the atmosphere. However, Veit is also ensuring that the cacophony in Chester is bolstered by visiting fans. Philadelphia is the final link in the Northeast corridor, and the ease of travel between New York, Boston and Washington DC emboldened the Union to think of the visitors.
"When we were designing the stadium, the Sons of Ben came to us and said we have to have visitors seating," Veit said, "Why, we thought? They said they want to go everywhere, and they wanted to make sure that we’d be able to reciprocate. We've already talked to New York about that in the building processes for each stadium as to how we're both going to address that."
When asked what were greatest challenges facing the Union in the months leading to kick-off, Veit was refreshingly candid in his reply. While there is a tendency to shoot for opening day, a natural deadline of sorts, Veit noted that the real test is not 11 months from now but rather 11 years.
"The truth is, the biggest mistake people make in expansion situations, with new teams and new leagues, is they look to opening day and they don't look past that. Honestly, all of our goals, everything we do, we look at in five-year snapshots."
To what that vision is, Veit projects the Union as the preeminent soccer brand for not only MLS but the entire hemisphere. Like Barcelona and Real Madrid in Spain or Manchester United and Liverpool in England, Veit wants the fans who think MLS to immediately conjure the Union's yellow, blue and serpentine crest.
When asked about immediate needs, like the Union's threadbare technical operation (coaches, players, personnel), Veit acknowledges that major announcements and major actions are on a timeline of sooner rather than later. But for Veit, the scope of his vision is pointed firmly toward the horizon.
"MLS has always had vision. They had a long-term vision of where they wanted to go. What we'll ask ourselves here is: Where do we want to be in five years, and how does year one help us get there? That is the question."
John Mantia is a regular contributor to Goal.com.
With their logo, name and colors leaked on the internet days before the planned naming ceremony, even the worst kept secret of the Philadelphia Union failed to temper the DayGlo-clad Polish-American string band that blared near the City Hall's steps.
Tom Veit was no doubt relieved.
As president for MLS's newest franchise, Veit and his still-assembling front office spent months tweaking and redesigning the aforementioned logo, hoping to craft an identity that best reflected Philadelphia, both past and present.
Amid a slew of delays and false starts, Veit sighs in retrospect, "If you don’t have that live interaction, it’s tough to gauge how they are feeling and what their reactions are. That made it great, to feel that energy in the way we did at city hall. It was a great preview into what we’ll experience once the stadium is open."
But a logo, even a rapturously received one, is just a logo. For Veit, the Union journey started long before discussions of colors and crests. Two years ago, as the defacto president of the still budding expansion franchise, Veit was charged with crafting marketing ideas while simultaneously building the front office. In the time since, he's assembled many of the necessary pieces.
With 11 months to go before opening day, there remains an ever-critical challenge for Veit and his staff: "We need to continue to show the Philadelphia market who we are. We need to reach out to explain who we are, and what we are going to be about. We’ve been lucky in the media coverage locally, it’s been phenomenal. We’ve been treated as a major entity since day-one. But, we’ve never played a game, and so people need to learn our identity through other ways until kickoff."
Veit will lean on his experience with the Tampa Bay Mutiny to achieve just that. When asked what separates past and present, Veit believes MLS has replaced kitsch with authenticity. "Looking back at my experience with the Mutiny, it wasn't about soccer. We didn't present the game in Tampa in a traditional soccer fashion, we didn't give the fans an idea of what true soccer was going to be, simply because we couldn't. Now you go to a game, and you hear from people it is vastly different than going to the stadiums of MLS's past. You don't play 'Who Let the Dogs Out?' a million times during the game, you let the songs from the fans carry the atmosphere."
Veit will of course rely on the Sons of Ben and Philadelphia's notoriously passionate sports fans to provide the atmosphere. However, Veit is also ensuring that the cacophony in Chester is bolstered by visiting fans. Philadelphia is the final link in the Northeast corridor, and the ease of travel between New York, Boston and Washington DC emboldened the Union to think of the visitors.
"When we were designing the stadium, the Sons of Ben came to us and said we have to have visitors seating," Veit said, "Why, we thought? They said they want to go everywhere, and they wanted to make sure that we’d be able to reciprocate. We've already talked to New York about that in the building processes for each stadium as to how we're both going to address that."
When asked what were greatest challenges facing the Union in the months leading to kick-off, Veit was refreshingly candid in his reply. While there is a tendency to shoot for opening day, a natural deadline of sorts, Veit noted that the real test is not 11 months from now but rather 11 years.
"The truth is, the biggest mistake people make in expansion situations, with new teams and new leagues, is they look to opening day and they don't look past that. Honestly, all of our goals, everything we do, we look at in five-year snapshots."
To what that vision is, Veit projects the Union as the preeminent soccer brand for not only MLS but the entire hemisphere. Like Barcelona and Real Madrid in Spain or Manchester United and Liverpool in England, Veit wants the fans who think MLS to immediately conjure the Union's yellow, blue and serpentine crest.
When asked about immediate needs, like the Union's threadbare technical operation (coaches, players, personnel), Veit acknowledges that major announcements and major actions are on a timeline of sooner rather than later. But for Veit, the scope of his vision is pointed firmly toward the horizon.
"MLS has always had vision. They had a long-term vision of where they wanted to go. What we'll ask ourselves here is: Where do we want to be in five years, and how does year one help us get there? That is the question."
John Mantia is a regular contributor to Goal.com.
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