The Business of Sports Icons: Jack Nicklaus

The business of sports icons with Rick Harre starts now. $5 buys you a Dolphin ticket in 1966, the first one ever.

At the end of the day, you could actually buy the team if you wanted to for $5 million.

You want to buy an All-Star shortstop, it's gonna cost you $29,000.

Man, have things have changed in the last.

50 years.

At the end of the day, it was a business.

Nobody knew it.

Harvard Law School.

I wrote a thesis and I went to the professor and said, I want to do something on sports law.

He said that's great, but there is no such thing, and if there is, we don't teach it here.

I had to win a squash game for the right to do that.

And at the end of the day, we certainly have caught up.

It's a 2.6 $billion trillion business right now.

And in fact, it has grown by about 20% year over year till Rudy Gobert tests positive for COVID in March of 2020.

Industry shuts down. a million jobs lost.

Nobody knows when they're getting back, but the rebound.

In fact, the Yankees, nearly 9 to $10 billion.

George Steinbrenner 50 years ago buys the team for $10 million.

The Lakers sell for $10 billion.

The bids start in Vegas and Seattle.

For 8 or $9 billion for the NBA, it is a resilient industry and as we get back post-COVID, cooperation, survival of the fittest, shared information, and understanding this is a business that's growing faster than any other, and you've got to be on top of it to survive and thrive in the business.

Now we're heading for the new Roaring 20, not 100 years ago after the Spanish flu, but something even bigger.

The positive aspects of the sports business permeate our own life, and as we go through the finest minds in the industry, about 100 of them agreed to be part of my book, The Sports Business.

Book, you're going to get the business from them as only they can provide it to you.

Executives, owners, players, athletes all lined up to give you their best judgment in the best business possible.

So buckle up, be ready for a show like none other.

Sports professor Ric Harrow, speak with you soon.

18 major titles and a lifetime spent building the game for those who come next.

On this edition, Jack Nicholas sits down with Rick at his home on the Treasure Coast, where first he gathered to unveil the Ben Horow Project, a thought leadership and mentorship program in collaboration with First Tee to make the game of golf more accessible on the Treasure Coast of Florida.

So, I just turned.

10 in 1965, uh, I had watched with my dad, Jack win his second Masters and thought, man, this is gonna happen every year.

And my dad said, here's a lesson for you, be good at sports, be good at life, be good at golf.

Well, you know, I wasn't good at sports, wasn't good at golf.

I was trying to be good at life, and two weeks later, he passed.

And he instilled in me how what sports was, how important, uh, the intensity was, how important was doing the right thing was, and how passion was.

He died of melanoma, and from then, the Ben Harrow Project to me is intensifying a passion and a partnership with a business icon and a business idol.

Let's Let's go, uh, why are you doing this?

Let me go back to the beginning from from May in Pittsburgh State.

Uh, when Jim Finch started first he.

Uh, Tim Ky and asked me, be in bulk.

And uh I didn't know how I was going to be involved.

I said, well, Jim, I said, you know.

I had, I had a, uh, thing of PGM a character which is Jack and Barba and.

Uh, now I'm fun for, for, for kids, kids and golf.

And through the years we donated to that and not, and we'd we'd had a little over a million dollars into it.

And I said, why don't I take that cause we have been taking that, doing a little bit for the YMCA or Police Athletic League or whatever it might be.

I said, never found a place where I really thought it was important they could go to really help kids and and and be supported by an organization like PGA.

And so we donated uh that lake and they plus whatever it was, the PGA America liked it, so they matched what we did.

Then the Royal Bank of Scotland came along and says, what I like could be good well.

And, and to the United States.

Uh, where kids are involved, I said, well, first tea is gonna be, they said, so they invest $2 billion so that's $4 million in one of the starts.

I know a lot of people invested more, and that's all I can afford at the Thai parrot.

But there, but anyway, but When Rick came in the office and said, said, I'd like to do a golf course for first teeth.

No I set about doing a dog horse or first teeth.

And he said I'd like to honor my father.

I thought it was a very noble thing to even do that for his father.

I thought it was very nice, uh, but I also, you know, I, I really like the idea of doing something for boutique, and I just don't feel like, you know, money is one thing, but being able to, uh, be involved and create something that the the the the kids could play, I could generate, it could, it could.

Uh, sustain itself, which is important.

At the And move forward if something unlike E involved.

We've got this little piece of property here, set a little over 70 acres.

They're not gonna make a 7500 yard championship golf course out of it.

What we could do is create a golf course for kids.

The beginners, women, seniors.

And even I think it's, it's pretty goosey golfers will enjoy playing.

Uh, we came up with the concept of creating 18 holes, but also within that 18 holes, maybe creating a 12 hole golf course where would stretch out to be Gery Floyd or somebody wants to come along and didn't have time for 18 holes and play, you know, come on at 6 o'clock in the evening, so play 12 holes.

I sort of like the idea.

I think we'll incorporate that into into what we're doing.

Um Uh, we've got, we got some issues with right now with property, but Who created all park, basically at the.

I think it's gonna be fun, uh, as an organization, we'll enjoy doing it, cause I know we're contributing to something that we're really interested in, that's kids, you know, Harvard I've been, you know, for healthcare foundation is all about kids, but that's about a different part of kids, but this is also about kids' health.

Kids' health and playing golf is a very healthy thing.

And so, uh, that's what, that's where we're all, that, that's why.

That's why we're here, Rick.

There's no way to follow that other than to kind of give you a personal reflection on today.

I got kicked off the course after 9 holes because I was told that I didn't add any value to any design.

Oh, the holes ought to be that big, or they have sand in them, or get out of here and go deal with your party.

But at the end of the day, you could see Jack's enthusiasm.

It's like, honestly, Carl is an incredible design mind.

It wouldn't happen but for Carl.

How many kids are involved before firstki out?

Well, uh, worldwide, it's 150 chapters, 6 of them are international, mostly domestic.

We reach about 3.1 million kids each year.

Uh, we have, uh, 11,500 schools, number of 2000 youth serving organizations.

There's 98% of the kids in the program graduate high school, 91% belong to university, military, or some version of that, and I have a great line from, uh, I'll leave you with this.

Arthur Blank said, uh, young people today only represent one third of the population, about 100% in the future.

So when you start thinking about it, that's the best cult in a way doesn't think it's very good way to put it.

So, here's a, here's a golf question.

I mean, we, we won't do a lot of golf questions, but give me your perspective.

You got 118 total wins.

154 consecutive majors.

You've got, you know, like this, but 18 majors and 19 seconds in those majors.

What of, uh, so 18 majors is number one.

What, what, what's number two on that list?

One is resiliency.

One is consistency.

Are those issues, I know you all like finishing second, but how do you evaluate all those numbers?

Oh, I don't know how you evaluate them, Rick.

I think that, uh.

You know, I just sort of tried to put myself in a position.

Uh, to be prepared.

And, you know, and be prepared is uh going out and Uh, figuring out where I'm gonna play and how I'm gonna play it, what I'm gonna do, work, work my game for to hurt and move on and play through the tournament, no different than what first team does in the kids.

You're gonna take the kids and you're gonna try to teach them the ways of life, teach them to build, play it, teach them to work hard to, uh, get their game with rather whether it's whether it's golf or whether it's the game of life.

That's, that's what first year is all about.

And yeah, I finished 2nd a lot, but the reason I finished 2 a lot is I put myself in a position to win, I didn't always win, and we start with 144 usually, and only 1 wins.

So if you finish second, I guess that's pretty good, but, you know, I, I don't, I didn't, I never like finished second.

I don't think that.

In my early early years, I learned of why I lost in the occasional tournament.

And Rory came to me, uh, um, what is he, 19 years old, and he's, and he was struggling.

He says, I can't finish, I can't win.

I teach your word out there.

But anyway, I just, I, I talked to him.

I said, no, Roy, I says you got.

You gotta be patience, you gotta be prepare, you gotta understand who you are.

This is first he will teach you that. who you are, what your abilities are, what, what you, what, where could you go with this?

How do you, how do you use it?

It, it, it, it, it was.

So anyway, Rory is about 3 weeks later he went to Charlotte, I think he shot 63 or something like that the last route and dropped a note.

I says, I told you, and I told you his patience is part of big page.

I told you the patience, is, but this is ridiculous.

So that then, then he came back and, and then then we blew the Masters one year he shot 80 of the last round.

I saw him a couple weeks later, I said.

He said, you know what happened?

He says, I think I did.

I said, well, so you got the US Open coming up here in a couple weeks.

I said, do you think you could put it, put a tooth park, and, and why, why you did what you did yesterday and how you won't repeat that.

At at at US Open.

And he says, I think I have.

I said, OK.

So he went down to Kurt Ruschell, he went by what 9 shots, he's up.

So I dropped him a note and I said, I said, well, said Roy, I said, you obviously learned something from from a guess, but more importantly, Did you understand what you did at congressional?

And why he won, John out why he lost, how he found out he won, he hit that combination and apply it and it say that first to you, it's applied those kind of things to light, how you like that's how you live your life.

I checked with AI, which I do with everything these days, and it says, here's Jack Nicholas' design philosophy after what, 410 coursesets.

All right, here it is.

Often features risk reward layouts and generous fairway.

I haven't seen one damn generous fairway you've ever go, well, what does a generous fairway mean to you?

Bogie traps, these a slace out of sand traps, right?

This is a place where you ought to be able to get, yeah, wow, there you go.

That laser job.

Have you changed your design philosophy as you got older?

Oh.

I align sign possible changes every time I design.

But, uh, you know, when I first started doing golf courses.

Yeah, I worked with Pete Dye, first golf person, James was Harbort, and then we did a couple other golf courses that worked with Desmond Vre at me in Muirfield Village.

Uh, then the first golf course I did by myself was Glennati, Canadian Open, and I did, uh, 325, which golf courses are tough risk reward golf courses.

I try to make them as user friending and, uh, I, but I, but my, it's I'm trying to reside to whatever by the reason why I've designed it.

Now it's fun designing for.

Yeah, Fred Ridley came along and said I'd like to toughen up the They forwarded it or whatever, I came up with something that I would do to toughen that up if Uh, Karl Masrena comes along and says, I'd like you to do golf, the first tee.

I'm gonna figure out what kind of golfers you're gonna do to have kids learn.

I mean, you do your golf course for who's gonna play, who's gonna be there, and it was about.

Before I got kicked out of the gaggle, his first question to Carl was, who are you doing this for?

Why are you designing this course?

Who's playing it?

And that was very important to Jack in his calculation.

It's like Picasso watching, you know, I knew, but it's Picasso.

You, you got Picasso that Zion property and you've been involved in, so, you know, you gotta be very happy and, and he's gonna take the lead off on, on that.

Try two more.

One is 118 total terms, talked about that before, huge, I mean, big deal.

He.

Best golfer in the history of the ecosystem and the planets and the solar system, but you won $5.7 million or $9.1 million depending on what the website says.

Uh, Were you born too early?

Well, I was obviously born too early for prize money, but yeah, but, uh, you know, uh, I don't really, I, I think Ben Hon's lifetime earnings were like 241,000, not like that.

And, you know, I don't think Beethoven felt like he was born too early or rip Sam Snead or Byron Nelson.

Uh, or you can go back to Bobby Jones, I don't know.

But, you know, I, I played it my time.

I think that uh I think that Bobby Jones will be a champion in our time today.

I think Nelson and Odenstein would be champions today, and I think Tiger uh.

Scheffler and those guys will be champions 40 years ago.

I think we have 4 great champions in the game today, and we never have.

I thought we, I thought we did pretty well with we had.

You know, uh, player Palmer.

And Trevino and Watson, Wiseta Miller.

So, we had some pretty good players back in the season and and we're rateful, we have some pretty good players.

Uh, and then all of a sudden I think it was a little bit of a lull.

I don't think Tiger really had a lot of competition either that or he was so much better than the competitions, which one was it?

On the serts.

I mean it was pretty good.

He was just talent.

He was just talented offers ever played, that's for sure.

And, uh, you know, but, but it went much now all of a sudden again when Tiger got hurt.

All of a sudden these young guys who were coming along, all of their players.

Didn't have tire to compete because they learned how we.

And all of a sudden, that number of players and the number of good players expanded.

And so We look at the tour today and you've got great, you know what you got, you got.

You know, we got, yeah, 30, 40 players who win any week, any week to tear it up, maybe more than that, and I think that's great for the day at all.

I think it's great, and, and if you look at, if you look at the thing too.

I mean you, you see, you see Argentina, England, South Africa, Australia.

You know, uh, Sweden, whatever, whatever it might be.

And, and you see kids coming from everywhere.

I think that's fantastic.

First, he's got a lot to do with it, cause you got chapters everywhere.

And, uh, you know, I, I, I see something in the face and I've never go to a uh first tee.

Breakfasts at all in Washington with senators in congressmen.

And we had uh We had 2 Ah, speakers.

That came from first tea.

They were both, both turned out to be valedictorians in her class.

Uh, one went on, went to, uh, She was speaking about where she was going to go.

And the other one was here, one from one was from Kansas City, I think, and one was from Jacksonville, I think.

At Anyway, the boy was doing.

He was doing well, and he's going on to law school.

I ran into those kids 5678 years later, came first.

The gal was a doctor.

She did in, and the and the the boy was actually a torch uh for uh.

I'm trying to think who who who was work for one of the senators in Washington and as an attorney.

I mean, you know, they both came out of first tee.

That's what you call You taught him, you taught him well, you taught him nice thought, he's not told told me had an opportunity to go make something out of themselves, make it.

I mean you would not have believed it because I sit next to John Boehner and he had just the tears just rolling down his face crying about these kids.

He got me crying.

I got, I had tears rolling down my face.

I looked around half of the other, half of the other congressmen, senators too.

Kids were great.

And so, you know, I just I see what they've done and see and see the see the see I see the product of what first he is done, and I'm, I really love it.

It, it is, it is marvelous as a new trustee to First Tee to realize what you buy into.

I made this commitment before this opportunity came and I would have done it anyway.

And thanks to Greg and thanks to Juan Escobar and thanks to, Carl of minutes and then Carl, you that clean up of those things that people need to tackle, you know, Jack is a desire and a world-class golfer, so we're not gonna ask him to opine on how to change football or sports.

Nick Saban says he's in that role.

Coach K in that role.

Donald Trump in that, for whatever you want to say, something, something has to happen, right?

Yeah, something has to happen.

I want to stay in my own lane.

Yes, no, I stay in my lane, do the things I wanna do.

I wanna help you here.

I wanna do, do your first Stehoff version.

Wanna help kids and be part of that and let somebody that's more qualified than I am and inden I am.

That's great, and that's the way it's gonna happen.

My first job, graduated in May 1990.

Started working for Jack in June of 1990.

I was 23 years old.

I had nowhere to go but down cause I started with number one.

What an incredible experience.

I was a kid, I didn't know anything.

I really did.

I didn't know much about golf course design.

I didn't really know how they built it.

I learned everything from him, but more importantly, and his family, and Jackie and his brothers and sisters.

I was a kid.

I, I kind of grew up in with the Nichols fan.

I mean, I became a man with the Nicholas family, being around now and everything they did for me.

I just, I can't tell you how much it was, and still to this day.

I'm 30 this year, and he's, he's still helping me out.

And he's still, and now he's taking an interest in my son turning pro, so it's just been fantastic.

Inspirational to me, changed my life.

Uh, everybody, I think it's about families.

You know, he, he got the company back, he didn't get the company back for himself.

He got the company back for his family.

It's a legacy, um, and the people that I thank for families, and that's what this is about.

This is about kids playing with their parents and kids learn how to play the game.

And I've seen it, we'll get the kids playing and then they bring the parents out to play.

So that's a big part of this.

It's gonna be about seniors, but it's also about giving back to the community.

And this is gonna be huge for Mark T.

I mean, huge.

Uh, there aren't a lot of golf courses like this, uh, even in Southeast Florida at all.

So, Not only do I see a lot of people in Martin County playing this, but I see people from Vero Beach to Jupiter going, hey, did you hear that new Jack Nicklaus course opened up in, in S Stuart?

Let's show it.

And they're gonna come up here to see this.

I love the fact that he did this on behalf of my dad, the first organization, just incredible.

These friends are friends for life.

The home is a future fundraising opportunity for this course.

You're welcome here anytime.

We're playing, by the way, a few of us, the course.

Uh, a 9 iron for many people, a driver for me at balance right here, you designed in 1992, we're gonna do that tomorrow, and another testament to the enduring legacy of Jack.

You know, we did, we were in the golf ball business about, I don't know, it's probably 15 years ago, and the life of a golf ball is probably about Three years on the shelf, I suppose, before it starts going.

We've got a lot of balls that would be about 7 to 5%, so they'll be perfect for playing this golf.

It's a deal.