Michigan made the best choice it could with David Brandon
When it comes to life as an athletic director, David Brandon has about as much experience as your average everyday pizza man.
That doesn’t matter. In hiring Brandon, Michigan made the smartest move it could for the stability of its athletic department.
David Brandon
Lon Horwedel | AnnArbor.com
Known as the man behind Domino's, one of the most successful fast-food pizza chains in the country, Brandon has the ability to lead a multinational corporation. He’s displayed innovation and inspiration as he’s tried to help rebuild Detroit.
What the 57-year-old hasn’t shown is the ability to lead an athletic department.
Yet.
Brandon’s hire continues the trend of major college athletics programs becoming high-profile businesses from mom-and-pop sports shops.
“It’s small business within the university,” said Purdue athletic director Morgan Burke, who faced a similar transition from business to athletics when he took over in 1993. “Some people don’t like the term business, but that’s really what it is. You’re being asked to raise money, you’re being asked to make personnel decisions, you’re being asked to do sales and marketing and managing expenses. Remember, it’s operating in the confines appropriately of what the university confines are.”
Indiana searched for an athletic director a year ago and tapped former Baker & Daniels attorney Fred Glass. Notre Dame looked for an AD the year before that and brought in another former Baker & Daniels lawyer, Jack Swarbrick.
Both had experience in contracts and litigation and working through the American legal system. Both, so far, have looked like good hires for their schools.
Brandon has less experience in sports than both Glass and Swarbrick and his own predecessor, Bill Martin, who was a successful businessman before coming aboard at Michigan.
Glass and Swarbrick were involved in almost every influential decision in sports in Indianapolis. Martin had run U.S. Sailing.
But Brandon, a former Michigan football player, may possess more business knowledge and savvy than all of those.
“To get the CEO of a company like Domino’s to be the athletic director I think is a coup for the University of Michigan,” Glass said. “To be a chief executive officer takes a really extraordinary skill set and one in my experience tells me will serve him extraordinarily well at the University of Michigan.”
He ran Domino's for a decade and before that Valassis, an international marketing services and sales promotion company once voted one of the best 100 companies to work for in the United States. He’s been on the board of directors of numerous corporations.
So clearly, Michigan has hired a business-based leader.
The best comparison for the hire is Burke. Burke was a varsity swimmer at Purdue. Then he went to law school and spent 18 years at Inland Steel before becoming the Boilermakers athletic director in 1993.
Under Burke, Purdue is a consistent bowl-bound football program. Its basketball program is ranked among the top 5 in the country.
Brandon spent his career working his way up through corporations. Michigan athletics is merely the next one.
Michigan’s football program is valued at $81 million with an annual profit of $34 million by Forbes and, combined with the rest of the athletic department, what Brandon takes over is a massive corporation with multiple buildings of infrastructure and hundreds of employees under his watch.
So this should end up being a comfortable transition for Brandon - at least until football starts this fall.
Michael Rothstein covers University of Michigan sports for AnnArbor.com. He can be reached at (734) 623-2558, by e-mail at michaelrothstein@annarbor.com or follow along on Twitter @mikerothstein.
Comments
Tedd Wallace
Wed, Jan 6, 2010 : 11:57 p.m.
Having grown up with David Brandon and following his career, I can vouch he is a sincere and for real person with leadership qualities of integrity matched by none. He is perfect for the University Of Michigan with his love of Go Blue! Thankyou Tedd Wallace mayor of South Lyon, Mi.
heartbreakM
Wed, Jan 6, 2010 : 4:55 p.m.
I think his Michigan pedigree is impressive, and certainly shows he knows the culture and role of athletics. The biggest things that concern me are his inexperience in athletic administration--no small transition and a completely different constituency. Also, it really concerns me that the woman he helped hire, the person whom he praised as "the best of the best" now hired him back with the same exact praise. Almost like a "you did for me, and now I did for you". It is not something you'd see in most lines of work or business. It is also concerning that the body that will approve him is one he was a part of very recently. Makes me wonder how he will be accountable, and how will he be overseen? Do we really have an expectation that a president whom he helped put in place, who he so publicly praised, who he essentially donated for (hospital) and a body of people who are his true peers--do we have the expectation that they can be honest brokers? What if he stinks, like Millen? Or Goss? What if he finds that running UM athletics and football is much harder than pizza empire? That would have been one big strike if I was doing the hiring. But good luck to a true Michigan man, who we all hope has great success. At least he is not beholden to RR like Martin was/is.
GMGoBlue
Wed, Jan 6, 2010 : 3:48 p.m.
I don't know if it was a good choice or not. But he better learn to keep his mouth shut on his political views, or he will turn away a good chunk of the alumni. His Domino's ads where he took shots at Obama were distasteful and ridiculous. I don't think he has done a good job at Domino's. I remember Domino's producing an above average delivered pizza. The last pizza I had from Domino's was tasteless, bland, the cheese was clumpy, and the dough was barely baked. I received a request from Domino's to answer a few questions, since I ordered the pizza on line. I gave the above answer on the questionnaire, and all I got was a thank you for taking our survey. So in my opinion if we expect him to do for Michigan athletics, what he has done for Domino's, we will have a bland athletic program, with no piazza, no character, but delivered in 30 minutes or less.
Yogi
Wed, Jan 6, 2010 : 8:59 a.m.
I really hope you are right.... I know one thing from working with him, if you're not a Brandon guy... You are gone. Plus I seem to remember a lot of articles praising the Detroit Lions for another hire "Matt Millen". Let's hope this hire is the exact opposite.
Some Guy in 734
Wed, Jan 6, 2010 : 8:18 a.m.
(drift: as the drummer, Ed Shaughnessy would have provided the rimshot, not Doc.)