|
Ford in the Lions' den
|
 |
January 15, 2002: 3:05 p.m. ET
Those who think Bill Ford Jr. can turn around the automaker should eye Lions' woes.
A twice weekly column by Staff Writer Chris Isidore
|
NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - People looking for a quick recovery at Ford Motor Co. should probably not look too closely at this season's performance by the Detroit Lions.
The reason is that almost exactly a year to the day before Ford CEO William Clay Ford Jr. announced his turnaround plan for the world's No. 2 automaker he also helped announce a new direction for the NFL team owned by his family.
Ford is the vice chairman of the Lions, of which his father is chairman and principal owner. But the younger Ford was widely seen as the force behind the hiring of Fox Sports NFL analyst Matt Millen as the team's president and CEO on Jan. 9, 2001.
It was the first of a series of shakeups in the team's front office that included the hiring of Marty Mornhinweg as head coach a few weeks later, as well a new head of player personnel.
"Turnaround plan" might actually be the wrong term for the Lions' moves a year ago. While the team was a disappointment in 2000, it wasn't a disaster, finishing 9-7, with only a loss in the final game keeping the team out of the playoffs.
|
|
|
Detroit Lions Vice Chairman William Clay Ford Jr., right, with Matt Millen, whom he helped select as the team's CEO a year ago. | |
This year the Lions lost their first 12 games of the season on their way to an ugly 2-14 record.
A year ago the moves were hailed by the sporting press as the right direction for the team, just as Ford's plans for his car company generally got good marks last Friday.
But the Lions went from an under-performing disappointment to a complete disaster. In grading the various aspects of the team's 2001 performance, the city's two papers gave no aspect of the team a grade higher than C.
Of course, most businesses would love to have the problems the Lions face. All NFL teams are virtually guaranteed to make a profit due to revenue sharing and salary caps. Even with the team's problems, it drew an average of 75,000 fans a game which, while not quite a sellout for every date, was close.
Yet success for a team is generally judged not by the secret profit it generates for owners but by its very public record on the field. And a team that continually fails on the field risks losing fan support - and with it much incremental revenue.
Team owners often believe that the lessons they learned in business serve them well when running a sports team. One of the lessons is finding a strong management team to guide the enterprise. Ford Jr. talked often last week about the strength of his new management team at the automaker, just as he praised the new management team at the Lions a year ago.
When Ford turned to the broadcast booth to find someone to run the team, he picked an increasingly common source of talent for team management today. But being able to speak coherently about a sport and being able to make the correct personnel moves and on-field decisions are not the same talent set.
| |
|
|
William Clay Ford Jr. says he's pleased with management team at Ford Motor Co., but he better hope they do better than the team he helped install at the Detroit Lions a year ago. | |
And even if Millen is the perfect person for the Lions job, the team's management is secondary to the on-field talent in terms of the team's success. An automaker's management has a lot more to do with the company's success than does any sports team management.
Still, there's an old expression in sports that you can't fire the team, you can only fire the coach. It's the reason that six of 31 NFL head coaches already have lost their jobs in just over a week since the end of the season.
Ford Motor (F: Research, Estimates) is clearly not in as good a position as the Lions were a year ago. The company lost money in 2001 for the first time since 1992.
Ford's plans announced Friday are also far more drastic than any moves any sports team can make. Five plants in North America will be closed in the coming years, and 35,000 jobs will be cut. A number of formerly popular car models will be discontinued and the dividend to shareholders will be slashed.
But despite all those moves, Bill Ford Jr. insisted the key to the turnaround of the automaker will be improving its roster of products.
"We know we can't cost-cut our way to a product-led recovery," he said last week. "Great products made us who we are and it's going to take us where we're going."
Click here for CNNSI.com's pro football coverage
He also admitted that the turnaround at the automaker will not be a quick one.
"These problems didn't happen overnight and they're not going to go away overnight," he said.
As far as turning around his team, it'd be a good idea for him to concentrate on the roster there as well. And to admit what no sports team owner or fan ever wants to admit - that problems with the team are more entrenched than can be solved with any quick fix or management reshuffle. 
Click here to send mail to Chris Isidore
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
