As AC Surf season begins, new CEO Mark Schuster aims to stabilize the franchise.
New Home Base
As AC Surf season begins, new CEO Mark Schuster aims to stabilize the franchise.
by Lori Hoffman --> Loyal Atlantic City Surf fans, here is the deal: The new Surf president/CEO Mark Schuster wants you to come out to the Sandcastle more often. Schuster, who specializes in turning around the financial woes of ailing athletic franchises, is determined to shore up the Surf's bottom line. He is leasing the team from owner Frank Boulton and is confident about his plans to get the team out of the red on the financial side. In fact, he says he can get the job done his first season in town.
Brimming with a self-assurance that comes with a proven track record, the personable Schuster, who was raised in Magnolia, N.J. as a Phillies fan, sat down with AC Weekly to talk about how he will make the Surf profitable.
Atlantic City Weekly: How did you find out about this
opportunity?
Mark Schuster: I've been in this career for a long time now, and I've followed the situation in Atlantic City, and knew that it might be available for purchase. I thought [the franchise] had under-performed. That is my M.O., to take companies that have been under-performing and take them to new levels. It was a challenge that people told me I was crazy to take on. The town loves this team but it has struggled.
ACW: How will you approach the financial turnaround in this admitted difficult market, without a large population base?
MS: The club has done OK from a drawing [attendance] standpoint. Our goal is not to go out and create new customers. Our goal is to take those people who are coming here now and have them come more often. How do you do that? You do it by creating a fun environment [with] great promotions, great food and great customer service. We really only need to take that customer, who comes five or six times a year, and have them come nine or 10 times over a five month period.
ACW: Is this a strategy you've used before?
MS: Not exactly ... because I've been in a lot bigger markets. It's more of an emphasis here [going after the current fans] because we don't have the base of fans to draw from.
ACW: You've leased the team from current owner Frank Boulton. Are you looking to buy the team later?
MS: It's not the way we do things [leasing], but it was the only thing available to us at this time. We knew we wanted to exercise our option, but rather than buy it in September, we had the opportunity to take it over five months early and get a head start on our work.
ACW: So you will be buying the franchise?
MS: We don't try things out and walk away, so the answer is yes.
ACW: In order to make the franchise profitable, you are also expanding the number of events for the Sandcastle when the Surf is out on the road.
MS: For us, having a thousand people come for a baseball game is the same thing as having a thousand come for a corncob festival. We're an entertainment and marketing company, we're not a baseball company. We're planning to do boxing events, which we've done successfully in other markets — also concerts, special events, and corporate picnics. We'll do any event in this ballpark. The lease has been set up so that we can utilize the facility and we're going to do that.
ACW: You also own two clubs in the American Association of Independent Baseball, the El Paso (Texas) Diablos and the St. Joe (Missouri) Blacksnakes. How does that work? Sounds like a lot of frequent flyer miles.
MS: I'm going to spend the majority of my time here. My club in El Paso is in great shape; we set attendance records there. St. Joe is an expansion franchise — first season in the league — so that will take some work. It's a small market of only 80,000. Atlantic City is a challenge for me. I'm not a maintainer, I'm a builder.
ACW: What was the one thing that convinced you to take on this challenge?
“It freaked me out. I don’t really know exactly what happened next, but I dug down deep and decided that I’m either going to stop baseball and get a job, or I have to do something here. My last few games, I took the ball and threw it as hard as I possibly could.”
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