Event Recap: Tracy Dolgin ('81)

 

On Thursday, October 22, 2013, the Sports Business Society partnered with the Big Red Sports Network, to host Tracy Dolgin (’81), a Cornell ILR graduate and current President and CEO of the YES Network.

Tracy Dolgin began his visit by sharing the unique path that he has taken in various industries on his way to becoming the powerful sports business influence that he is today. He began his post-undergraduate career by enrolling in Stanford’s Graduate School of Business. Despite being offered a respectable job upon graduation by Atari, the video game company, Dolgin turned it down for a simple reason: he wanted an opportunity of employment that would provide education, too.

“They were offering me these incredible jobs, yet I really didn’t know what I was doing. So it was obvious if I had taken their offer to this glamorous jobs, I wouldn’t have really learned anything. I didn’t know anything.”
 

Dolgin continued by explaining that despite having been through six years of school and learning applicable material to his career field, he had no experience, didn’t “actually know anything,” and needed to learn on the job. Eventually, Dolgin found himself as a General Foods employee where he learned an important life less than he stresses to everyone to this day:

“If someone presents themselves as a mentor to you and you like them and they’re smart and you think they’re in the value system that you have and you respect them, then just cling onto them for the rest of your career.” 

Fortunately for Dolgin, his mentor gave him an opportunity to lead the marketing department of the brand new HBO home video division. “If at any point in your career you see something as a growth industry, it’s a great place to go into if you already have the knowledge and can add value,” he said. The point he was trying to emphasize was that it’s much harder to go into an already established company with hopes of a quickly growing career as opposed to starting higher up in a new company that can grow beneath you.

 

Dolgin continued his career in media when he became the Executive Vice President of Marketing for FOX Broadcasting where he lead the FOX Sports initiative of obtaining National Football League rights, along with NASCAR, Major League Baseball, and College Football, all in an effort to improve ratings. The project expanded into a determination to garner a prominent position in cable television by creating a group of regional sports networks.

 

This was only the beginning of his time working in regional sports coverage as after a brief stint in investment banking, Dolgin signed on to lead the YES network, a tri-state regional broadcasting company known for their coverage of the New York Yankees. The piece of the offer that really drew Dolgin in was that of a piece of ownership of the network. “Eventually you’ll learn that owner is better than employee,” he remarked.

 

At YES, Dolgin used creative strategy to turn the network into the US’s number one watched regional sports network. Generally companies practice the Peter Principle, a concept in which people are promoted until they’re not good enough at their job to be promoted any higher. “You have a company where people aren’t good at what they do,” he stated. Dolgin decided that at YES, the opposite would be the case: he would take people from managerial level positions and make them into “do-ers” again.
 

“I went back to these companies and looked for these people who were in managerial jobs that probably weren’t any good at the job, maybe they were okay at it, and I said to them, ‘I have a product you’re passionate about, come work for me and I’m going to make you do that function you’re great at for the product that you love.’ If they do that, then we’re going to have the best do-ers in the world, we’re going to have executional advantage.”

 

Before taking questions from members of the group, Dolgin concluded by giving his advice on the attributes that needed to be evaluated in choosing one’s first job out of school. His most important emphasis was that despite normal thinking, “the product is the least important thing you should consider in an early job,” he said. “Just because you’re passionate about the product, doesn’t make your job any better in a day-to-day functionality.”

 

 Dolgin’s most important attributes are:
 

1. Staff versus line jobs/companies

2. Is the organization a political organization or a meritocracy?

3. Does the organization follow best practices?

4. Does the organization reward teaching and employee development?

5. Will the job open or close future opportunities?

6. How well does this job compensate you versus other similar jobs?

7. Is there a path within the company to get where you want to be?

 

Dolgin concluded by offering some closing remarks for the SBS attendees;

“Find out what you’re good at, like to do, and find a place that does it the best,” he advised. “Enter a business when you can bring something more than passion. Differentiate yourself by being the best at something. It gives you a better bargaining position.”

As always, the Cornell Sports Business Society extends its thanks to alumni like Tracy Dolgin who take time to share their experiences with our members. The information and insight people like Dolgin provide to our group is unique and indispensable.