Give & Go Interviews

Give & Go: MLS Philly’s CFO Dave Debusschere

The Chief Financial Officer of MLS Philly 2010 talks with Goal.com’s Shane Evans about everything from the city itself to what he thinks the name of the team should be.

Jan 29, 2009 3:36:35 PM

MLS: Philadelphia franchise announcement, February 2008 (ISI)

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MLS: Philadelphia franchise announcement, February 2008 (ISI)

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Shane Evans: Obviously you’re the CFO of MLS Philly 2010, but what is your primary role within the franchise as it expands towards opening day.

Dave Debusschere: I am the Chief Financial Officer, by title. But as of right now, I do pretty much anything and everything. We only have seven employees, so on a day to day basis, I do all the standard paying the bills and treasury stuff, but really the biggest part of my job right now is the building of the stadium and managing that process. I am involved in that every day, everywhere from meeting with attorneys and lawyers for all the contracts that have to get done to talking to banks or the county or the state on funding sources and getting that in line. To finally, ramping up the team operations, as that’s what’s coming next down the road as we get in the ground and get the stadium started we’re going to start building the whole team operation.

Evans: Are you from the Philadelphia area? What’s your background?

Debusschere: I’m from Saskatchewan, Canada. I’m a hockey guy by history, I guess you could say. Eleven years ago I moved to Philadelphia with my wife, who I met at Colgate University and she had soccer enter my life. She was on the varsity soccer team and I played hockey. Her family are all soccer nuts and I basically transitioned into one from her influence.

Evans: Since joining the project, what have you seen as far as enthusiasm from the city of Philadelphia?

Debusschere: It’s just off the charts. First of all, just look at Philly as a sports town. It is one of, if not the best sports town in the entire country, that is well known. Fantastic fans. To take that a step further to soccer, there is a hotbed of the sport in this region. Whether it’s greater Delaware County or the north east or the whole Tri-State area, with New Jersey and Delaware and Pennsylvania, we see soccer everywhere we go. We see window clings for MLS founding members. We just see soccer people. People don’t really realize we are fans. Our season ticket numbers are reflecting that. We are doing well with season tickets and we haven’t even begun our marketing campaign. I really truly believe Philadelphia has deserved a team from day one and now that we have a stadium deal in place, this is going to be one of the best cities for MLS.

Evans: Once the team does begin play, what do you think the support levels will be like game by game?

Debusschere: I truly believe they’ll support the team. You don’t want to get caught into what might happen, but we really believe the team will be supported in full right away. The other teams that have been the expansion teams the last few years, Toronto and Seattle, have done really well, and we plan on selling out the stadium just like them. Philly area fans can outdo Toronto and Seattle fans, I have no doubt in my mind. Obviously, there are heightened goals for year one, and we are trying to plan out ways to have the fans come back for years two and three, which is a huge focus of ours.

Evans: Since joining the project, what have been some of the bigger road blocks since the city was awarded the franchise by MLS?

Debusschere: It has been a challenge internally for us to harness the enthusiasm and not go full board into the marketplace as to create this huge excitement and maybe have a let down because of it. We’ve tried to harness the enthusiasm to an almost slow burn so when we get close to opening day when everything is set we can really ramp up the enthusiasm, it’s definitely been a challenge.

Evans: Have there been any reflections on the franchise given the downturn in the economy?

Debusschere: No, we have wonderful partners. Whether it’s the county or the state or the city of Chester. We are viewing and all others are viewing this project and the stimulus package as something that will create over 2,000 construction jobs, over 300 permanent jobs on the master plan site and really we’re all part of this. Here and there we may have a delay, but in the broad scheme of things our partners are really coming through for us and we are making a really successful project. It’s taken a lot of people to make this project a success and people are really holding true to their word and coming through with what they said they’d do a year ago.

Evans: There have been reports in the media that the project has suffered some set-backs, is there any real truth to that?

Debusschere: Selling papers. That’s all it is. I walk into Wawa and see things written in the paper every few days, but when you actually dig in to what people are saying, it’s just them trying to sell papers. It’s full speed ahead for us. My wife actually said to me, there hasn’t been anything in the paper in two weeks. Well, that’s because all we have is good news. We’re very excited and confident that things are moving ahead as planned.

Evans: Where do you see the MLS in 5 years? 10 years?

Debusschere: Every person I talked to and every bit of information I could get all said that this league has really turned the corner in the last five years and has really come on as a major sport in the US and is going to continue to do so worldwide. Soccer itself is such a worldwide sport, very unlike the other major sports in this country. The opportunity it has to market itself not only in the US, but worldwide is something the other sports can’t compete with.

I think the league will continue to add quality players and to raise it’s profile. TV wise, you don’t have to look very far to see the popularity of soccer. We have three full-time soccer networks now to choose from and the MLS is part of that. I can see the league continuing to add teams in the US and to continue to expand worldwide, through partnerships and international tours, etc., as it grows it’s brand. It’s coming out of it’s infancy and the fans and players are realizing that it’s here to stay and that it’s a quality league.

Evans: Opening day 2010, what’s going to be going through your head? What will the day be like for you?

Debusschere: I will be absolutely ecstatic, as will the fans of Philadelphia and Chester. This is really such a great thing, not only for the city of Philadelphia, but what can’t get lost in this is the city of Chester and the economical development that will happen down there. These people deserve that. It’s a wonderful city with wonderful history and to be a part of bringing that back is going to be a wonderful thing.

Evans: The voting is now up for the team name to be decided, what’s your choice out of the bunch?

Debusschere: It’s hard for me to choose. That whole process, it’s hard to understand what really goes into it, in terms of the legalities of the whole thing. We started with a couple hundred names and just by doing legal background work and trademark checks, the list got pretty small very quickly. It has become very clear, that regardless what the name is, we are going to have to build that brand. It’s going to be great no matter what it is, it doesn’t matter to me. The analogy for me is you think of the [NHL team Philadelphia] Flyers. What the heck is a Flyer? They were formed in 1967, but look today, look at how far they’ve come. That’s what we’re going to have to do, and I’m ok with that. It’s part of the fun. We’re going to be original and have something we can build.

Shane Evans is an associate editor of Goal.com. He can be reached at shane.evans@goal.com if you have any questions or comments.

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