February 5, 2024 • 18 mins
André Swanston's sports company was recently awarded the fifth independent MLS NEXT Pro expansion team - Connecticut United Football Club (CT United FC).
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(00:00):
Stay connected to what's going on inour community with the Black Information Network anywhere
with the iHeartRadio app and now youcan share news tips or give us feedback.
Just download the latest version and clickthe microphone in the bottom corner to
leave us a message from the privatesector to public life. These are the
people making a difference in the Blackcommunity. They are Leading while Black on
(00:24):
the Black Information Network. Welcome toLeading While Black, our monthly series on
the Black Information Network where we talkwith black leaders in the fields of entertainment,
finance, politics, and more.I'm news anchor Morgan Wood, wishing
everyone to save and healthy start tothe month of February and Black History Month.
(00:44):
News anchor Doug Davis will join uslater in the program, but we
start today's show with a black businessleader that's paving new territory in the world
of Major League Soccer. Joining meis my special guest, Andre Swanston,
a black tech millionaire and owner ofSwanston Labs. He's also a founding partner
of the Connecticut Sports Group, whichwas awarded an MLS expansion team. He's
(01:07):
also a brother of Alpha Phi AlphaIncorporated. He ran track and field at
Yukon and he's no stranger to sports. According to his ex bio, he's
a generally nice guy. Thanks forjoining us, Andre, It's so funny.
I don't know when the last timeI was updated that bio, but
I do believe it's true. Ido believe. I was going to say,
were you going to change it?Are you not so nice these days?
No? No, I'm still thesame. Okay, good deal.
(01:30):
So tell me a little bit aboutyourself. How did you go from being
a first generation Black American kid inthe Bronx to the successful millionaire person that
you are today. Look, Ithink I say people all the time.
You know what I inherited from myparents wasn't well, it was just ambition.
My dad, my mom. We'reimmigrants from Saint Kitts and Nives,
and we lived in a predominantly immigrantneighborhood in the Bronx, which is for
(01:53):
people that don't know, the Bronxis the poorest borough in New York City.
And it was always just about education, education, education, right,
and so it excelled. When Iwas young, had an opportunity to get
a scholarship to prep school down inManhattan, an all boys school called Alan
Stevenson and then went to boarding school, the Hotchkins School up in Lakefield,
(02:15):
Connecticut. And you know, Ithink one of the things that is important
for all young kids is when you'reexposed. You know, your lexicon of
thought or your imagination is impacted bywhat you can see. And so being
around really ambitious, really intelligent kidsfrom all walks of life, right as,
(02:36):
many of which whose parents were someof the most successful people in the
country, if not the world,and you kind of see what's possible for
others, and you're saying to yourself, I'm in the same class you're in,
right, I'm doing the same studyingyear, and you start to think
even more about what's possible for you. So I think a lot of it
just started with the ambition and thenkind of opportunities that presented themselves to me
because of education to be exposed tostuff. Talk to me about the less
(03:00):
expansion of the Connecticut United Football Cluband how you got involved in that project.
Yeah, so I look, youknow, I never played soccer.
I never played soccer growing up inhigh school or college. I was a
track in basketball, but I wasa big fan, right. So I
lived in boarding school, I livedin the dorm with with two kids that
ended up one of them ended upbeing the captain of the Jamaican national team.
(03:21):
Right, So far Thomas, Youknow, so you grow up living
in the same dorm together and you'rejust a fan of your friends, right,
and then that continued on in college. So there's it more started one
from from being a big fan ofsoccer. I think the second thing that
I looked at is just the growth, you know, with the changing demographics
(03:42):
in this country, the lowering participationin American football because of concussion concerns and
all the other reasons that that goon, You're seeing soccer just be has
exploded over the last ten years inthis country. And then when I look
at the opportunity in Connecticut, whichis the state that I that I've lived
than now for you know, virtuallyhalf my life. It is the most
(04:03):
densely populated affluent market in America withno NFL, no MBA, no MLB,
no NHL, or no MLS.Right, so you have you know,
three point six million people with higherdisposal with income more fortune five hundred
and fortune one thousand companies and virtuallyany market in the country, and the
(04:24):
average residents traveling two hours to Bostonor two hours to New York City to
go get that professional experience. Andso I saw just kind of combination of
those opportunities led to kind of thisambition almost five years ago to try to
bring a professional soccer team to Connecticut. That's amazing. Not to mention,
the entire world tunes into Connecticut onESPN when we're getting our news when it
(04:46):
comes to sports, Like, isn'tthat crazy Connecticut? You could argue that
Connecticut is a sports entertainment capital ofAmerica. So, like you said,
yeah, with with no protein zone, right, like no top tier of
the top five leagues. Right.We we do have on the women's side,
we do have the Connecticut son inthe w NBA who is always competitive
and Charles a great crowd, butwe don't have any of the top five
(05:08):
men's leagues. But you know,ESPN's headquartered here, and NBC Sports and
WWE and all all that stuff isheadquartered in Connecticut, you know, So
it was just a natural progression foryou. You're like, ah, this
just makes sense. Yeah, AndI'm just one of those people that I
don't really dream, I plan,I have goals, like if it's important
(05:29):
enough that you think about it whenyou sleep, right, it's probably important
enough to plan for and work towardswhen your weight. So talk to me
about how you implement that plan.I mean, where do you even start?
Is jotting notes? Is it askingquestions? Where would someone like myself
or someone who doesn't know where tostart? Where would they begin? Yeah?
I think you know, and thisisn't unique to professional sports ownership or
(05:51):
soccer. I think this is foranything that you have ambition for. Knowledge
is power. I know, youknow some of these these things shame right
that we hear these these these sayingsand they kind of go in one air
and go out to the next.But it's true. I think it starts
with reading. I mean I justread. For any business that I've started.
(06:12):
I've spent months before you start abusiness just reading on what other people
are saying, what are other peopledoing, who's been successful, who's failed?
What are some of the challenges thatyou're hearing about in the industry?
And so I did a lot ofthat. Then talking to people, right,
talking to people that have more experienceand more knowledge is something that's been
helpful, and then that gives youkind of your vantage point of how you
(06:34):
think you want to attack something.And then even after you have that insight
and knowledge and attack plan, youknow, I think sometimes people don't want
to admit this, but I feelvery comfortable doing that. Sometimes it's who
you know, right. You couldhave all the knowledge, you could have
a great plan, but if youdon't know people is very challenging. And
so where I think I've been fortunateis to build a very strong network of
(06:58):
people that I know. And it'snot just who knows what they think of
you, right, So, andI've just built this track record of being
ambitious and then doing what I sayI'm going to do, and so that
that leads people to then feel comfortablemaking introductions to other people in their network.
People are very you know who youknow and your relationships is one of
(07:21):
the most important assets that anybody couldhave in life, and people are hesitant
to open that or risk that withothers unless they have confidence and that you're
going to be able to live upto that. And so I think a
lot of it with anybody. Forany business, it's what you've done previously
and kind of the credibility that you'vebuilt for yourself. It doesn't mean you
(07:41):
have that wealth, but you've gotto have people's kind of trusts. What
do you hope to accomplish with theexpansion and how would you determine success on
that project. My ultimate goal isI want to bring a full MLS soccer
team to Connecticut. I also thinkNWSL, the women's top tier professional league
in the United States, would begreat in Connecticut as well, and could
(08:03):
then they could share the same stadium. There's really not many markets in America
that have culturally supported women's sports asmuch as Connecticut because of the success of
Yukon women's basketball and other things.And so we are early stages of we've
secured the land and we've done andgotten the zoning, but we're trying to
(08:24):
build a state of the art stadium. We want to have one of the
nicest stadiums in the country as well. The main goal is we want to
be one of the premier soccer clubsin North America. And I think how
we gauge that is by fan support, facilities and then results on the field.
And so when I look back tenyears from now, I think success
is saying, hey, we builta stadium, we built a team,
(08:46):
and we've won some things right,Like anything other than that, I'll be
you know, I could be happy, I could be proud because even what
we've done now no one else hasdone. Right, there's ale and so
there's there's there's some sense of accomplishmentin terms of what we've already done.
But I know we're still early stagesrelative to what our ultimate goals are.
(09:07):
Like you said, guys, ambition, it's not enough, it's not enough.
He wants more. I'm speaking withAndre Swanston. Yes, So talk
to me about black representation in thesport of soccer. Ownership has that?
I mean, think about it whenyou think about soccer on the American side,
(09:30):
not a lot of black participation orlike you said, it's growing,
but also on the global scale,players dealing with racial taunts and harassment.
So talk to me about black representationin the sport of soccer. Yeah,
Look, black representation definitely matters,and I think there's a couple of things
that are somewhat misnomers right. Ifyou look at the US men's national team
(09:52):
have to have to start lineup asblack, right, So it's not that
black people don't play soccer or blackpeople don't accel it. Soccer, in
fact the opposite it. However,youth participation, particularly in urban markets,
among black players is much lower thanit is across white players and Latino players
and stuff like that. I thinkpartly that is to access. Is it
(10:16):
because of lack of access to fieldsto play on. I think part of
that is the coaching and the facilitiesand other things that can enable that.
It's cost prohibitive. The United Statesis really the only market, real large
market in the world where it's payto play. So when you go to
(10:39):
big areas in Europe or South Americaand others, everybody plays and then it's
merit based in terms of your abilityto play on kind of the elite youth
teams and get the training. Herein the United States, it's four grand,
five grand, seven grand, whateverit is a year, and that's
prohibitive for a lot of families,not just black families, right, any
(11:01):
working class and even you know,middle middle income families. That's that's not
an insignificant amount of money and thetravel and everything. So I think that's
part of it. On the representationside, in terms of coaching and front
office, I think there's a waysto go in that as well. We
(11:22):
have seen. You know, there'ssome success stories. A couple of years
ago, the the coach of theYear and MLS was a black coach I
think also had I think one ofthe lowest payrolls in the whole league as
well, right for in terms ofhis team, so you didn't really have
the resources in terms of the teamyou put out there, but still was
able to perform. And then thispast year the coach for Columbus was the
(11:43):
first black coach manager to win MLSCup. So there's been success not only
from representation on our national team butto now coaching and front office. But
I think there's still a ways togo, and there has been no there
there was no current in any ofthe top of the five major leagues NFL,
(12:05):
NBA, MLB, NHL, MLSand and their minor league organizations in
those leagues as well. Prior tous making our announcement last month, there
was not one principal black owner,right so there's black investors, they're black
minority owners that own you know,one percent or five percent or whatever they
own. I don't know what theyown of the team, but there hasn't
(12:28):
been a majority black owner they're currentlyin any of those major and minor league
teams. We didn't know that whenwe started on this path, Like you
just kind of assumed that they were. No, you weren't trying to make
history. Oh yeah, no,like Michael Jordan. I mean at the
time, it actually wasn't even thecase because Michael Jordan owned the Charlotte Hornets.
But he's now sold his majority interestsin them. So at the time,
(12:50):
it wasn't even ours kind of thoughtabout it, We're gonna make history
because it was not history to bemade, or it wasn't going to be
the only because there was others,right, But it's just worked out that
he sold, and so there wasthere's nobody. There's nobody in terms of
those top five leagues. There's somevery successful minority owners or members of ownership
groups. One of them that comesto mind that is arguably the most successful
(13:13):
is Magic Johnson. Right, Sohe somehow every team he invested wins the
championship. Right, So he's stillhere in Washington. I'm just saying,
well, we just got they justthey give us some time, give him
a little time, give them,give them three or four years, and
who knows, right, history forthree years? Hey, his his track
(13:35):
record, whether it's the Dodgers orthe Sparks or LAFC, every team that
he invested in wins the championship.Right, I mean, you know,
so we'll see what happens in termsof Washington. Yeah. Absolutely. Before
I let you go, what wouldyou say some of your biggest challenges,
some of your biggest rewards are workingin your field. You know. So
(13:58):
my my my field over the lastten years has been in tech. Right,
So this is my first foray intosports ownership, I would say,
but if you look at all theowners of teams, pretty much everybody made
their money in technology, or realestate or finance. Virtually other than a
(14:22):
few of the professional athletes that comein, almost nobody done with the ownership
groups made their money actually in sportsor their background is in sports. What
I've found that's been a huge challengefor me in terms of being a CEO
of a tech company was access tocapital. As I was originally started my
company, we never had I thinkfor seven years straight, we never had
(14:48):
more than nine months at runway,which I've seen a lot of folks say
that if a tech startup has lessthan twelve months of runways, already out
of business, And I laugh whenI hear people say that because it sounds
cool. I guess it's hard andstressful. But I'm like, well,
then I guess I was never inbusiness. But I still outperformed all these
other people that were raising ten timesmore than me and failing, right,
(15:11):
And so I think the thing thatwas hard was was doing more and accomplishing
more with less resources than the peopleI was competing against. At the same
time, it's kind of my thingnow, like it's it makes you feel
very confident in your ability to executewhen you know that you gained more market
share, secured more clients, mademore money for your investors than people that
(15:35):
had quote unquote more experience, oryou know, much bigger war chests than
you. And so I think,you know that's that's both the thing that
was the hardest for me and boththe things that I think was probably the
best for me in terms of doingthat. So I'm notesting a recurring theme
of you don't know what you don'tknow? So what's something that you want
to share that I didn't ask youabout? So you didn't ask me about
(16:00):
kind of who I've worked with orwho helped me get here, I would
say, you know, obviously theinfluence of my parents and so forth.
But the key thing that a lotof people don't realize is that my my
number one business partner is my wife. Right, So a lot of people
talk about, you know, mywife was supportive, and that's great.
Supportive wife is important every black man. Now in some instances, sometimes it
(16:22):
was supporting, sometimes was carrying,right, So, but she's much more
reserved. So she ain't the personthat's going to do the interview or but
she's the operator behind the scenes thatshe shoots. The chief client officer of
our last tech company, and afterwe were acquired, she ended up running
(16:42):
the whole division. I left tostart working on the soccer, and she
was running the whole that whole divisionof a public traded company. And I
think, you know, in termsof kind of the impact as being a
black woman in technology, she youknow, I was many times the only
person in the room or of three. If I was one of three,
she was one of one in thosesame in those same meetings. I think
(17:04):
sometimes I don't know if it's becauseof ego, I don't know if it's
because of being afraid. I don'tknow if it's because of whatever how other
people portray us. But I thinksometimes I find black entrepreneurs don't want to
collaborate with family and friends in theway that others do. Well, say
(17:25):
what you're saying, this is yourexperience, Like you said, how can
we continue to keep in touch withyou and your movement and everything that you're
doing. Yeah, so I findlike I'm I am active on LinkedIn,
that that that's not maybe not thesexy social platform, but I am in
terms of the team, it's youknow, Instagram at CT United. Our
(17:45):
website is ctunited dot com and peoplecan sign up for the newsletter. You
know, really hope to get alot of support I think, not just
from the state of Connecticut, butI think the broader community. There's no
other team like us in America,right, So, uh, and we're
we're really excited for for what we'regonna be doing on the tech side Swanston
(18:10):
dot org and that's where we havesome of our tech holdings. We do
a lot of philanthropic donations as wellto support kind of underserved communities, mostly
for educational and economic development opportunities,but open to other things as well.
And so yeah, Okay, Ipromised to let you go after this question.
Who's your favorite soccer player of alltime? Oh? Soccer Terry here?
(18:32):
Do you really like that? Noteven not even close. That's my
favorite player ever. That's CT UnitedFC owner Andre Swanston. And I'm news
Acre Morgan would on the Black InformationNetwork and up next, news anchor Doug
Davis joins us with another black leaderyou should know. Stay tuned. I'm Bill Black
Stay connected to what's going on inour community with the Black Information Network anywhere
with the iHeartRadio app and now youcan share news tips or give us feedback.
Just download the latest version and clickthe microphone in the bottom corner to
leave us a message from the privatesector to public life. These are the
people making a difference in the Blackcommunity. They are Leading while Black on
(00:24):
the Black Information Network. Welcome toLeading While Black, our monthly series on
the Black Information Network where we talkwith black leaders in the fields of entertainment,
finance, politics, and more.I'm news anchor Morgan Wood, wishing
everyone to save and healthy start tothe month of February and Black History Month.
(00:44):
News anchor Doug Davis will join uslater in the program, but we
start today's show with a black businessleader that's paving new territory in the world
of Major League Soccer. Joining meis my special guest, Andre Swanston,
a black tech millionaire and owner ofSwanston Labs. He's also a founding partner
of the Connecticut Sports Group, whichwas awarded an MLS expansion team. He's
(01:07):
also a brother of Alpha Phi AlphaIncorporated. He ran track and field at
Yukon and he's no stranger to sports. According to his ex bio, he's
a generally nice guy. Thanks forjoining us, Andre, It's so funny.
I don't know when the last timeI was updated that bio, but
I do believe it's true. Ido believe. I was going to say,
were you going to change it?Are you not so nice these days?
No? No, I'm still thesame. Okay, good deal.
(01:30):
So tell me a little bit aboutyourself. How did you go from being
a first generation Black American kid inthe Bronx to the successful millionaire person that
you are today. Look, Ithink I say people all the time.
You know what I inherited from myparents wasn't well, it was just ambition.
My dad, my mom. We'reimmigrants from Saint Kitts and Nives,
and we lived in a predominantly immigrantneighborhood in the Bronx, which is for
(01:53):
people that don't know, the Bronxis the poorest borough in New York City.
And it was always just about education, education, education, right,
and so it excelled. When Iwas young, had an opportunity to get
a scholarship to prep school down inManhattan, an all boys school called Alan
Stevenson and then went to boarding school, the Hotchkins School up in Lakefield,
(02:15):
Connecticut. And you know, Ithink one of the things that is important
for all young kids is when you'reexposed. You know, your lexicon of
thought or your imagination is impacted bywhat you can see. And so being
around really ambitious, really intelligent kidsfrom all walks of life, right as,
(02:36):
many of which whose parents were someof the most successful people in the
country, if not the world,and you kind of see what's possible for
others, and you're saying to yourself, I'm in the same class you're in,
right, I'm doing the same studyingyear, and you start to think
even more about what's possible for you. So I think a lot of it
just started with the ambition and thenkind of opportunities that presented themselves to me
because of education to be exposed tostuff. Talk to me about the less
(03:00):
expansion of the Connecticut United Football Cluband how you got involved in that project.
Yeah, so I look, youknow, I never played soccer.
I never played soccer growing up inhigh school or college. I was a
track in basketball, but I wasa big fan, right. So I
lived in boarding school, I livedin the dorm with with two kids that
ended up one of them ended upbeing the captain of the Jamaican national team.
(03:21):
Right, So far Thomas, Youknow, so you grow up living
in the same dorm together and you'rejust a fan of your friends, right,
and then that continued on in college. So there's it more started one
from from being a big fan ofsoccer. I think the second thing that
I looked at is just the growth, you know, with the changing demographics
(03:42):
in this country, the lowering participationin American football because of concussion concerns and
all the other reasons that that goon, You're seeing soccer just be has
exploded over the last ten years inthis country. And then when I look
at the opportunity in Connecticut, whichis the state that I that I've lived
than now for you know, virtuallyhalf my life. It is the most
(04:03):
densely populated affluent market in America withno NFL, no MBA, no MLB,
no NHL, or no MLS.Right, so you have you know,
three point six million people with higherdisposal with income more fortune five hundred
and fortune one thousand companies and virtuallyany market in the country, and the
(04:24):
average residents traveling two hours to Bostonor two hours to New York City to
go get that professional experience. Andso I saw just kind of combination of
those opportunities led to kind of thisambition almost five years ago to try to
bring a professional soccer team to Connecticut. That's amazing. Not to mention,
the entire world tunes into Connecticut onESPN when we're getting our news when it
(04:46):
comes to sports, Like, isn'tthat crazy Connecticut? You could argue that
Connecticut is a sports entertainment capital ofAmerica. So, like you said,
yeah, with with no protein zone, right, like no top tier of
the top five leagues. Right.We we do have on the women's side,
we do have the Connecticut son inthe w NBA who is always competitive
and Charles a great crowd, butwe don't have any of the top five
(05:08):
men's leagues. But you know,ESPN's headquartered here, and NBC Sports and
WWE and all all that stuff isheadquartered in Connecticut, you know, So
it was just a natural progression foryou. You're like, ah, this
just makes sense. Yeah, AndI'm just one of those people that I
don't really dream, I plan,I have goals, like if it's important
(05:29):
enough that you think about it whenyou sleep, right, it's probably important
enough to plan for and work towardswhen your weight. So talk to me
about how you implement that plan.I mean, where do you even start?
Is jotting notes? Is it askingquestions? Where would someone like myself
or someone who doesn't know where tostart? Where would they begin? Yeah?
I think you know, and thisisn't unique to professional sports ownership or
(05:51):
soccer. I think this is foranything that you have ambition for. Knowledge
is power. I know, youknow some of these these things shame right
that we hear these these these sayingsand they kind of go in one air
and go out to the next.But it's true. I think it starts
with reading. I mean I justread. For any business that I've started.
(06:12):
I've spent months before you start abusiness just reading on what other people
are saying, what are other peopledoing, who's been successful, who's failed?
What are some of the challenges thatyou're hearing about in the industry?
And so I did a lot ofthat. Then talking to people, right,
talking to people that have more experienceand more knowledge is something that's been
helpful, and then that gives youkind of your vantage point of how you
(06:34):
think you want to attack something.And then even after you have that insight
and knowledge and attack plan, youknow, I think sometimes people don't want
to admit this, but I feelvery comfortable doing that. Sometimes it's who
you know, right. You couldhave all the knowledge, you could have
a great plan, but if youdon't know people is very challenging. And
so where I think I've been fortunateis to build a very strong network of
(06:58):
people that I know. And it'snot just who knows what they think of
you, right, So, andI've just built this track record of being
ambitious and then doing what I sayI'm going to do, and so that
that leads people to then feel comfortablemaking introductions to other people in their network.
People are very you know who youknow and your relationships is one of
(07:21):
the most important assets that anybody couldhave in life, and people are hesitant
to open that or risk that withothers unless they have confidence and that you're
going to be able to live upto that. And so I think a
lot of it with anybody. Forany business, it's what you've done previously
and kind of the credibility that you'vebuilt for yourself. It doesn't mean you
(07:41):
have that wealth, but you've gotto have people's kind of trusts. What
do you hope to accomplish with theexpansion and how would you determine success on
that project. My ultimate goal isI want to bring a full MLS soccer
team to Connecticut. I also thinkNWSL, the women's top tier professional league
in the United States, would begreat in Connecticut as well, and could
(08:03):
then they could share the same stadium. There's really not many markets in America
that have culturally supported women's sports asmuch as Connecticut because of the success of
Yukon women's basketball and other things.And so we are early stages of we've
secured the land and we've done andgotten the zoning, but we're trying to
(08:24):
build a state of the art stadium. We want to have one of the
nicest stadiums in the country as well. The main goal is we want to
be one of the premier soccer clubsin North America. And I think how
we gauge that is by fan support, facilities and then results on the field.
And so when I look back tenyears from now, I think success
is saying, hey, we builta stadium, we built a team,
(08:46):
and we've won some things right,Like anything other than that, I'll be
you know, I could be happy, I could be proud because even what
we've done now no one else hasdone. Right, there's ale and so
there's there's there's some sense of accomplishmentin terms of what we've already done.
But I know we're still early stagesrelative to what our ultimate goals are.
(09:07):
Like you said, guys, ambition, it's not enough, it's not enough.
He wants more. I'm speaking withAndre Swanston. Yes, So talk
to me about black representation in thesport of soccer. Ownership has that?
I mean, think about it whenyou think about soccer on the American side,
(09:30):
not a lot of black participation orlike you said, it's growing,
but also on the global scale,players dealing with racial taunts and harassment.
So talk to me about black representationin the sport of soccer. Yeah,
Look, black representation definitely matters,and I think there's a couple of things
that are somewhat misnomers right. Ifyou look at the US men's national team
(09:52):
have to have to start lineup asblack, right, So it's not that
black people don't play soccer or blackpeople don't accel it. Soccer, in
fact the opposite it. However,youth participation, particularly in urban markets,
among black players is much lower thanit is across white players and Latino players
and stuff like that. I thinkpartly that is to access. Is it
(10:16):
because of lack of access to fieldsto play on. I think part of
that is the coaching and the facilitiesand other things that can enable that.
It's cost prohibitive. The United Statesis really the only market, real large
market in the world where it's payto play. So when you go to
(10:39):
big areas in Europe or South Americaand others, everybody plays and then it's
merit based in terms of your abilityto play on kind of the elite youth
teams and get the training. Herein the United States, it's four grand,
five grand, seven grand, whateverit is a year, and that's
prohibitive for a lot of families,not just black families, right, any
(11:01):
working class and even you know,middle middle income families. That's that's not
an insignificant amount of money and thetravel and everything. So I think that's
part of it. On the representationside, in terms of coaching and front
office, I think there's a waysto go in that as well. We
(11:22):
have seen. You know, there'ssome success stories. A couple of years
ago, the the coach of theYear and MLS was a black coach I
think also had I think one ofthe lowest payrolls in the whole league as
well, right for in terms ofhis team, so you didn't really have
the resources in terms of the teamyou put out there, but still was
able to perform. And then thispast year the coach for Columbus was the
(11:43):
first black coach manager to win MLSCup. So there's been success not only
from representation on our national team butto now coaching and front office. But
I think there's still a ways togo, and there has been no there
there was no current in any ofthe top of the five major leagues NFL,
(12:05):
NBA, MLB, NHL, MLSand and their minor league organizations in
those leagues as well. Prior tous making our announcement last month, there
was not one principal black owner,right so there's black investors, they're black
minority owners that own you know,one percent or five percent or whatever they
own. I don't know what theyown of the team, but there hasn't
(12:28):
been a majority black owner they're currentlyin any of those major and minor league
teams. We didn't know that whenwe started on this path, Like you
just kind of assumed that they were. No, you weren't trying to make
history. Oh yeah, no,like Michael Jordan. I mean at the
time, it actually wasn't even thecase because Michael Jordan owned the Charlotte Hornets.
But he's now sold his majority interestsin them. So at the time,
(12:50):
it wasn't even ours kind of thoughtabout it, We're gonna make history
because it was not history to bemade, or it wasn't going to be
the only because there was others,right, But it's just worked out that
he sold, and so there wasthere's nobody. There's nobody in terms of
those top five leagues. There's somevery successful minority owners or members of ownership
groups. One of them that comesto mind that is arguably the most successful
(13:13):
is Magic Johnson. Right, Sohe somehow every team he invested wins the
championship. Right, So he's stillhere in Washington. I'm just saying,
well, we just got they justthey give us some time, give him
a little time, give them,give them three or four years, and
who knows, right, history forthree years? Hey, his his track
(13:35):
record, whether it's the Dodgers orthe Sparks or LAFC, every team that
he invested in wins the championship.Right, I mean, you know,
so we'll see what happens in termsof Washington. Yeah. Absolutely. Before
I let you go, what wouldyou say some of your biggest challenges,
some of your biggest rewards are workingin your field. You know. So
(13:58):
my my my field over the lastten years has been in tech. Right,
So this is my first foray intosports ownership, I would say,
but if you look at all theowners of teams, pretty much everybody made
their money in technology, or realestate or finance. Virtually other than a
(14:22):
few of the professional athletes that comein, almost nobody done with the ownership
groups made their money actually in sportsor their background is in sports. What
I've found that's been a huge challengefor me in terms of being a CEO
of a tech company was access tocapital. As I was originally started my
company, we never had I thinkfor seven years straight, we never had
(14:48):
more than nine months at runway,which I've seen a lot of folks say
that if a tech startup has lessthan twelve months of runways, already out
of business, And I laugh whenI hear people say that because it sounds
cool. I guess it's hard andstressful. But I'm like, well,
then I guess I was never inbusiness. But I still outperformed all these
other people that were raising ten timesmore than me and failing, right,
(15:11):
And so I think the thing thatwas hard was was doing more and accomplishing
more with less resources than the peopleI was competing against. At the same
time, it's kind of my thingnow, like it's it makes you feel
very confident in your ability to executewhen you know that you gained more market
share, secured more clients, mademore money for your investors than people that
(15:35):
had quote unquote more experience, oryou know, much bigger war chests than
you. And so I think,you know that's that's both the thing that
was the hardest for me and boththe things that I think was probably the
best for me in terms of doingthat. So I'm notesting a recurring theme
of you don't know what you don'tknow? So what's something that you want
to share that I didn't ask youabout? So you didn't ask me about
(16:00):
kind of who I've worked with orwho helped me get here, I would
say, you know, obviously theinfluence of my parents and so forth.
But the key thing that a lotof people don't realize is that my my
number one business partner is my wife. Right, So a lot of people
talk about, you know, mywife was supportive, and that's great.
Supportive wife is important every black man. Now in some instances, sometimes it
(16:22):
was supporting, sometimes was carrying,right, So, but she's much more
reserved. So she ain't the personthat's going to do the interview or but
she's the operator behind the scenes thatshe shoots. The chief client officer of
our last tech company, and afterwe were acquired, she ended up running
(16:42):
the whole division. I left tostart working on the soccer, and she
was running the whole that whole divisionof a public traded company. And I
think, you know, in termsof kind of the impact as being a
black woman in technology, she youknow, I was many times the only
person in the room or of three. If I was one of three,
she was one of one in thosesame in those same meetings. I think
(17:04):
sometimes I don't know if it's becauseof ego, I don't know if it's
because of being afraid. I don'tknow if it's because of whatever how other
people portray us. But I thinksometimes I find black entrepreneurs don't want to
collaborate with family and friends in theway that others do. Well, say
(17:25):
what you're saying, this is yourexperience, Like you said, how can
we continue to keep in touch withyou and your movement and everything that you're
doing. Yeah, so I findlike I'm I am active on LinkedIn,
that that that's not maybe not thesexy social platform, but I am in
terms of the team, it's youknow, Instagram at CT United. Our
(17:45):
website is ctunited dot com and peoplecan sign up for the newsletter. You
know, really hope to get alot of support I think, not just
from the state of Connecticut, butI think the broader community. There's no
other team like us in America,right, So, uh, and we're
we're really excited for for what we'regonna be doing on the tech side Swanston
(18:10):
dot org and that's where we havesome of our tech holdings. We do
a lot of philanthropic donations as wellto support kind of underserved communities, mostly
for educational and economic development opportunities,but open to other things as well.
And so yeah, Okay, Ipromised to let you go after this question.
Who's your favorite soccer player of alltime? Oh? Soccer Terry here?
(18:32):
Do you really like that? Noteven not even close. That's my
favorite player ever. That's CT UnitedFC owner Andre Swanston. And I'm news
Acre Morgan would on the Black InformationNetwork and up next, news anchor Doug
Davis joins us with another black leaderyou should know. Stay tuned. I'm Bill Black
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