1st QUARTER 2014
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Located in Harrison, NJ, the four-year-old Red Bull Arena seats an average of 20,000 fans per match,
but Garcia expects that number to grow
This interest in the MLS is colored by
his previous experience, working for the
National Basketball Association’s (NBA)
league office in New York City for five
years. He describes the needs between
these organizations as relatively similar:
protecting the interests of the share-
holder and assisting the businesspeople to
progress and develop the business going
forward.
But the leagues’ place in their respec-
tive sports could not be more different.
The NBA is the dominant organization
in its sport globally, while the MLS is one
of the least-established leagues when put
alongside long-running counterparts like
English Premier League, Spanish La Liga,
and Brazil’s Brasileirao.
“Anyone in the world wanting to play
basketball wants to come play for the
NBA,” says Garcia. “In soccer, the best
leagues in the world are in Europe and
it’s not concentrated in just one league.
It’s far more competitive and much more
difficult for MLS to get the relevance that
leagues such as the NBA have.”
MLS is also only one of many sports
concerns owned by Red Bull GmbH.
These include three other soccer teams
(Red Bull Salzburg, Red Bull Brasil, and
RB Leipzig), two Grand Prix–winning
Formula 1 teams (Red Bull Racing and
Scuderia Toro Rosso), and ice hockey
teams (EC Red Bull Salzburg and EHC
Red Bull München).
But being a small fish in a big pond
is an idea that excites Garcia. Because
it is the only U.S.-based soccer team in
Red Bull’s stable, Garcia sees his work to
enhance the team’s profile as uniquely
challenging. Also, now that he is such a
key part of the Red Bulls, he can see the
impact of the decisions he makes very
quickly, while at the NBA, it would take
much longer to see results.
“Being at the league office is a great
opportunity to do certain things, but
the impact that you can have at the team
level, from a day-to-day perspective, is far
bigger [with the Red Bulls],” says Garcia.
At the same time, he sees improving
the relevancy of soccer in the U.S. as a
goal for the MLS overall.
“Attendance is a result of having a better
product on the field,” says Garcia. “We
contribute, but we are still just one nine-
teenth of that product. We need to make
sure every other team in the MLS has a
great product so that people want to come
to the stadium and watch our matches.”
As with everything else in Garcia’s
work, this requires teamwork.
C
A
n American citizen
who has lived in the
U.S. for the past 12 years,
New York Red Bulls CFO
Luis Miguel Garcia was
born and raised in Mexico.
This international back-
ground has been central to
much of the work he has
done over the past two
decades, and key to his
love of the sport where he
now earns his living.
He grew up playing soc-
cer and says in his home
country, the sport is “close
to religion.” This under-
standing of the cultural
power the sport can have
has given Garcia an added
determination to help raise
its profile in the U.S.
“I would love to see this
sport continue to grow in
the U.S., and I think MLS
[the Major League Soccer
alliance] is on the right
path,” says Garcia.
He started working in
financial services for
Reuters in Mexico and
soon took over respon-
sibility for all of Central
America and then moved
to Reuters’ office in Sao
Paulo, Brazil, and ultimately
its New York City office.
After 16 years with the
company, he applied his
international experience
to the NBA, where one
of his key projects was
working with the launch of
NBA China and expanding
the league to Asia. Now
working with a company
as globally connected as
Red Bull “rounds out
everything,” he says.
“It’s quite different, but
there are some things that
are transferable from one
industry to the other and
you just need people who
are willing to do a good job
at what they do,” he says.
Garcia sees the goals
of the two organizations
(NBA and Reuters) as
complementary to his Red
Bulls goals. Where Reuters
sought to maximize
subscribers, the Red Bulls
seek to increase the num-
ber of season-ticket hold-
ers; at Reuters he charged
for transactional services;
with the Red Bulls, the
team looks at maximizing
the earnings on conces-
sions, merchandise, and
other transactional areas.
The main difference for
Garcia is the added thrill he
gets from the industry in
which he now works.
“It’s a privilege to be
part of Red Bull — one
of the best ownerships
to work for — and very
exciting to work in sports,”
he says.
INTERNATIONAL
UNDERSTANDING
