Drink up: Self-serve beer hits MLB's All-Star game

America's Pastime is hoping it's found beer's future.

Target Field, home of the Minnesota Twins, has installed two self-serve beer machines made by Draft Serv. Fans at Tuesday night's Major League Baseball All-Star Game will get to pour themselves draft beer with the only self-serve technology in major American sports.

 

Self-Serve beer stations at Target Field.

While Draft Serv and its competitors have carved a stake in restaurants, hotels and casinos in recent years, self-serve technology's placement in the All-Star game—which will bring about 40,000 people to Target Field—marks its "greatest exposure ever," said Jeff Spence, CEO of Draft Serv.
Self-serve beer may never fully catch on in major American sports. But makers of the technology expect more stadiums will adopt it, saying the entrance into sports marks another step in the technology's emergence.
"It's a logical evolution into new areas of automation," Spence said.
The machines at Target Field are a "beta test" for self-service beer in sports, said Jerry Jacobs, Jr., principal at Delaware North, which provides concessions at the stadium. Delaware North will assess consumer reaction and sales before deciding whether to implement Draft Serv machines at other client stadiums, which include the venues for NFL, NBA and NHL teams.
The first Target Field machine was rolled out for a July 6 game, while the second was added ahead of the All-Star festivities. Fans provide identification at a concession stand and purchase a $10, $20 or $40 beer card for the machines, which offer four Anheuser-Busch-distributed brews. Budweiser and Bud Light run $.38 an ounce, while Shock Top and Goose Island 312 cost $.40 an ounce.
Machines aren't completely automated, as attendants stand by to ensure stumbling fans don't serve themselves too heavily.
"We'll see how the consumer responds to it," Jacobs said.
Consumers have become more receptive to the automated purchasing of "niche or higher-end" products such as beer, burritos and even caviar, said Omar Khedr, a vending industry analyst at IBISWorld. While companies in the U.S. haven't yet capitalized on automated beer sales in sports, some outside the U.S.—including Canada-based Molson at the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver—have successfully marketed beer vending, he noted.
"I think it's just going to grow," Khedr said.
Before a recent spike in interest and inquiries fueled by the All-Star Game, Draft Serv's business already reached Europe, Asia and Australia, said Jose Hevia, founder and partner. The company currently has more than 200 systems in production and expects to make "several thousand" systems next year.
Competitors have noticed growing interest in self-serve, as well. Josh Goodman, founder of self-serve technology maker Innovative Tap, said the company had $200,000 in sales in 2010 before roughly doubling every year through 2013. This year, the company is on pace to triple its sales from last year.

Goodman believes Draft Serv's presence at the All-Star Game can only help self-serve producers, saying it "raises awareness about the product."
"I don't think the surface has even been scratched," Goodman said.
Goodman and Innovative Tap partner Declan Duggan noted that self-serve has to reflect wider trends in the beer industry— specifically, craft beer's growing market share. One of self-serve's strengths, they said, is allowing drinkers to taste a variety of beers in portions they choose, even to the point of mixing and matching (though it's anybody's guess as to how a Bud Light-pale ale combination would taste).
They, and Hevia and Spence of Draft Serv, maintained that self-serve increases efficiency by reducing the workload of those serving the beer, and in turn, lines. They claim the machines reduce pouring waste, which Duggan said can render up to 20 percent of draft beer undrinkable.
It remains to be seen if these benefits carry over to sports venues and drive concession sales to the extent that other concessionaires or franchises will hop on the bandwagon, as human error by fans could still affect wait times and beer waste. Delaware North's Jacobs said that he hasn't yet taken part in discussions to add Draft Serv machines to any of Delaware North's other client franchises.
But Draft Serv's Spence noted the company has discussed offering Draft Serv with other concessionaires, without specifying where or when it could happen. The novelty may keep self-serve interesting and profitable at Target Field, if only for a time.
"The view of a baseball park is affected by what's offered in that park," Delaware North's Jacobs said.
—By Jacob Pramuk

 

Tiger Woods injured; status for PGA Championship uncertain

AKRON, Ohio -- Tiger Woods was stricken with more back pain Sunday and withdrew after eight holes at the Bridgestone Invitational. He struggled to even take off his golf shoes before being driven away to an uncertain future.

In his third tournament since returning from back surgery, this had the look of a serious setback.

Woods injured himself playing a shot from edge of a bunker on the par-5 second hole. With all weight on his right leg, he took an awkward slash at the ball, fell back toward the sand and landed with a thud, and kept jogging out of the bunker from sheer momentum of the steep drop.

"I just jarred it, and it's been spasming ever since," Woods told a PGA Tour official before leaving.

Woods kept playing, hitting a number of shockingly bad shots. He hit one into the water from the fairway on No. 3, coming up some 30 yards short of the flag. And on the par-3 fifth hole, his tee shot was 65 yards short of the hole. From a bunker left of the seventh green, he blasted out and back into the fairway and made double bogey.

He grimaced at impact when he hit a 315-yard drive into the left rough on No. 9. Woods slowly stooped over with his right hand on his leg, reached toward his back and slowly bent down to remove the tee from the ground. Moments later, he stepped into a cart and headed for the parking lot.

At his car, Woods could barely switch out of his golf shoes. His caddie, Joe La Cava, drove him away.

"It's just the whole lower back," Woods said. "I don't know what happened."

With the pain he showed leaving the course, it would seem unlikely that Woods plays next week at Valhalla, where he won the PGA Championship in 2000. That would mean his 2013-14 season is over, for he would have had to win the PGA to be eligible for any of the four tournaments in the FedEx Cup playoffs.

In six starts on the PGA Tour this year, Woods finished all four rounds only twice

Woods had back surgery March 31 to alleviate an impinged nerve, forcing him to miss the Masters for the first time and the U.S. Open. He returned after three months to Congressional -- three weeks ahead of his own schedule -- and reported no pain in missing the cut by four shots at the Quicken Loans National. He also reported no pain in four rounds at the British Open. He finished 69th, 23 shots out of the lead, his worst 72-hole result in a major.

Woods was 3-over par for his round -- and 18 shots off the lead -- when he withdrew at Firestone.

He did not say whether he would be able to play the PGA Championship next week -- "Just trying to get out of here," he told the tour official -- though this surely would make it difficult for Tom Watson to consider Woods as a captain's pick for the Ryder Cup.

Watson has said for the last few months that he wanted Woods on the team if he was healthy and playing well.

Woods was doing neither.

Even so, he had not suggested until the shot on the second hole that his back was bothering him.

"Hey, this is supposed to be my second tournament back, not my third," Woods said after Friday's round at Firestone. "Everything is going pretty good. I've gotten a little bit better, and the good news is I'm still getting stronger."

This was the second time this year Woods had to withdraw in the middle of the final round. At the Honda Classic in March, he stopped after 13 holes. Woods chose to play the next week at Doral, and his back problems showed up Sunday after an awkward stance for a shot out of the bunker.

Woods said it was his physical training over the years and his discipline in following doctors' orders following microdiscectomy surgery that allowed him to recover quickly. He has gone through four operations on his left knee over the last 20 years, and said the back injury was "way more debilitating than I thought."

"Most of the people I talked to who have had the procedure have no idea how I'm even back here playing," Woods said at the start of the week. "They just can't understand that. When you have great protocols and you do everything perfectly, everything fell into place. I was able to get back. But now it's just continuing, and I still need to get much strong than I am now, and I still need to g t much more explosive than I am now. That's just time."

By Doug Ferguson

AVP's Sun brings bright outlook to sport's future

After working 13 years at his father’s multibillion-dollar company, Donald Sun thought he might be getting a promotion when his dad, David, called him into a meeting two years ago.

Instead, the elder Sun told Donald that there was nothing left for him to learn at Fountain Valley-based Kingston Technology, and that it was time for Donald to branch out on his own.

“In my head, I was starting to burn out a little and I think he saw that,” Donald said. “So when he talked to me, he was like, ‘… If you stay here, it’s fine, but no one’s going to let you fail, which mean’s you’re never going to learn faster because there’s this safety net of Kingston.’”

Suddenly Donald, who had even spent his middle-school summers folding boxes for computer parts at Kingston, was looking for something he could call his own.

Given his experience working for a computer-memory titan, Donald says his father expected him to buy a corporation within the industry. Instead, Donald took his next step in the polar-opposite direction.

A former indoor player at Irvine’s University High, Donald fell in love with playing beach volleyball as a teenager and admired the world’s top players on the Association of Volleyball Professionals tour.

Memories of those high school summers fueled his decision to purchase the AVP for $2 million in April 2012 — a move that even his father didn’t see coming.

Though computer memory and beach volleyball have next-to-nothing in common, Donald has steered the AVP with the same humble attitude that he inherited from his father.

Donald recalls going on business trips with his dad and watching David, whose net worth is valued at $4.8 billion according to Forbes, personally drive clients around and carry their bags.

“Some of the employees would go with us, and he would take the bags for the employees, too. You’d think it’d be the other way around, but no,” Donald said. “He never gets chauffeured around. He never has any of that stuff.”

While Donald applauds his father’s modest actions, he shrugs off his own. At last year’s Salt Lake City Open, Donald discovered that nobody had gotten food or drinks for the players, so he drove out to Costco with a car full of coolers.

“I don’t think any CEOs at any company volunteer to go make a Costco run,” said AVP star and Olympic gold medalist Phil Dalhausser. “Usually you go get an intern to do it or somebody else.

“He flies coach. In years past, CEOs for AVP I don’t ever think flew coach. They always were in first class.”

Sun’s eagerness to take on even the most minute task stems from his lifelong love of the AVP, which also separates him from previous ownerships.

“What they were trying to do was build up the equity in the hopes of selling it off so that they get whatever they need to get and they’re good,” Sun said. “It’s basically flipping a house. … For me, I don’t have that thought. Everything is an investment out of myself.”

But Sun’s passion and rose-colored memories of the AVP’s heyday don’t amount to anything fiscally for the league, which hasn’t turned a profit since filing for bankruptcy the first time in 1998.

Instead, Sun’s slow-growth plan and ability to attract sponsors will be the keys to financial stability.

“The AVP today is very much like a new start-up company,” David Sun said via email. “To be successful, you have to work hard, surround yourself with a great team and be smart about taking chances. There will be many challenges so you must also be patient for it to grow.”

It’s unsurprising that after so many years working for his father, Donald’s strategy mirrors David’s advice. He credits his father for being the “best mentor that anybody could have, not only from a business side, but for life.”

And Donald has brought his mentor’s lessons, no matter how small, with him to the AVP. Even to this day, Donald’s hands can assemble an imaginary package without missing a beat.

By: Joey Ramirez 

Twilight of the Pizza Barons

By Bryan Gruley

Tom Monaghan was once a billionaire. He owned 244 classic automobiles, including a rare Bugatti Royale. He built a $30 million resort on a Lake Huron island. He hopped helicopters from the headquarters of the company he founded, Domino’s Pizza, to watch the Major League Baseball team he owned, the Detroit Tigers.
The Tigers, the resort, and the cars are gone. The man who invented 30-minute pizza delivery sold Domino’s and eats less pizza these days because he’s gluten-free. He spent most of his fortune creating a foundation, a university, a law school, a mutual fund, and a radio station that embrace his Roman Catholic beliefs. At 77 years old, he rises each day at 1:50 a.m. After prayer, reading, exercise, and Mass, he goes to work in his cubbyhole of an office in the building that houses his old company, surrounded by milky glass statuettes of the Virgin Mary. Monaghan says his ultimate goal is “to get into Heaven and take as many people as I can with me.”
Mike Ilitch is still very much a billionaire. The founder of the privately held Little Caesars takeout pizza chain owns the Tigers, which he bought from Monaghan, the National Hockey League’s Detroit Red Wings, Detroit’s ornate Fox Theater, and tracts of vacant downtown land littered with rocks and broken glass. The man who drove rivals crazy by selling two-for-one pizzas now is being called batty for committing $292 million to Tigers superstar Miguel Cabrera. At 84, Ilitch is desperate for his team to win its first World Series since 1984. From his 10th-story office in downtown Detroit, he can see Comerica Park where the Tigers play near the lots he plans to develop into a commercial and residential hub revolving around a hockey arena. Ilitch declined to be interviewed.

 

Mike Ilitch and Tom Monaghan are Detroit’s unlikely pizza barons, and their stories are drawing to a close. Detroit is never confused with Chicago or New York as a pizza town, but Domino’s, the nation’s No. 2 pizza chain behind Pizza Hut , and No. 3 Little Caesars together claimed 20 percent of the $34 billion in sales at U.S. pizza restaurants in 2013, says research firm Technomic.

Monaghan and Ilitch barely know each other. The Domino’s founder says in an interview he can’t recall ever tasting a Little Caesars pizza, “though I must have a long time ago.” A sculpture hanging in the archives at Little Caesars’ headquarters makes fun of a Domino’s slice as having “hard, tasteless crust, topped with artificial, flat, and runny cheese.” It’s a fluke that the chains emerged from the same corner of Michigan at roughly the same time more than 50 years ago. Yet, in different ways, Domino’s and Little Caesars changed the way Americans eat pizza, helping to make it one of the country’s most popular foods. The pizza barons were great at selling pies. Now one wants to save Detroit, and the other wants to save everything else.


The blinds in Monaghan’s office outside Ann Arbor, Mich., are drawn on a rainy spring afternoon. “I don’t like to look into the window when I’m talking to somebody,” he says. “I usually have no idea what the weather’s like outside.” His shelves are lined with glass tulip vases he collects, books about Catholicism, and busts of Mother Teresa and Ronald Reagan. His desk is strewn with yellow legal pads scribbled with ideas for new projects. “I usually have three or four running at a time,” Monaghan says. He looks fit in a navy suit, rimless glasses, and polished black wingtips. Before each of his predawn workouts, he weighs himself; today, he’s 157¼ pounds. “A little heavy,” he says. “We had a steak dinner last night.” He balks at saying how many push-ups he can do because he worries it’ll undermine the credibility of everything else he says. He finally admits he can do 800 in three sets, adding, “They’re not the best push-ups.”
His office is cocooned in Domino’s Farms, a prairie-style, copper-roofed, 0.6-mile-long building inspired by a lifelong Monaghan hero, architect Frank Lloyd Wright. It nestles in a pasture where a herd of buffalo roam not far from U.S. Highway 23. A big chunk of the building is the global headquarters of the company Monaghan started. He leases the space to Domino’s.
More than 40 percent of orders at Domino’s 4,986 U.S. stores today originate online, but the key to the company’s success remains the same as when Monaghan started selling pizzas in 1960 with a used oven and a rotary dial phone: the car. Monaghan’s first was a 1959 Volkswagen Beetle. He and his fellow workers used it to ferry pizzas to customers no more than 30 minutes after they ordered. Other pizzerias offered delivery, but Domino’s was the first to make delivery a differentiator. The trick, Monaghan says, wasn’t in stepping on the gas but in making pizzas fast. Believing more choices meant more chances for screwed-up orders, Monaghan insisted on a bare-bones menu: only small and large pizzas and Coke to drink. “We had to beg on our knees to get Diet Coke in,” says Harry Silverman, a former Domino’s chief financial officer.
Monaghan began to dabble in Catholic causes. He established Legatus, an organization for Catholic chief executive officers, and donated $50,000 to support a Michigan ballot proposal to ban state-funded abortions. After the National Organization for Women responded by calling for a boycott of Domino’s, Monaghan told the Ann Arbor News, “It made me realize why martyrs die with smiles on their faces.” He was equally busy giving interviews about his $40 cashmere socks, his obsession with the actress Debbie Reynolds, and his growing pile of pricey toys. He could afford them. In 1985, Domino’s opened 954 stores, bringing the total to 2,841. The year before, the Tigers, which Monaghan bought for $53 million in 1983, won the World Series. Today a replica of the trophy stands in a glass case down the hall from Monaghan’s office.


Mike Ilitch didn’t do delivery. The autoworker’s son and his wife opened a takeout store in a suburban Detroit strip mall in 1959. Marian Ilitch thought of her husband as a Caesar, albeit a small one, and the company was born. The original Little Caesars sold 296 pizzas in its first week, according to Marian’s handwritten record in a spiral notebook. Large pies sold for about $2.30 apiece, the equivalent today of about $18.50. An article in a local newspaper said Ilitch, shown in a black-and-white photo with his prominent nose and curly hair, had “big plans for the future.”
Marian handled finances while her husband oversaw pizza making and concocted ways to sell more pies. The couple had done some scraping by, prompting Ilitch to think he could entice families with low prices. He embraced coupons. An early one offered a five-quart plastic pail and a beanbag ashtray with the purchase of a medium or large pizza. Little Caesars grew slowly until the mid-1970s, when Ilitch started promoting two-for-one pizza deals. “Pizza! Pizza!” worked so well that he installed conveyor-belt ovens to keep pies coming.

 

At Little Caesars, dough was to be made fresh daily. Cheese had to be fresh, never frozen. Pepperonis had to lie flat. Crust—thicker than New York-style, thinner than Chicago deep-dish—had to be golden brown. “People don’t realize what he’s done with the pizza industry,” says Mike Scruggs Sr., a former Little Caesars executive who runs franchises in Colorado. “He’s the equivalent in my mind of Colonel Sanders or Ray Kroc.”
Ilitch tried to buy the Tigers—he’d played shortstop in the club’s farm system—and watched, heartbroken, as the team went to Monaghan. He settled for the Red Wings, then a struggling franchise known locally as the “Dead Wings.” Ilitch’s hockey stewardship reflected his quirky sense of what was possible if you didn’t care what others thought. He hired away the New York Islanders’ top scout while that team was in the midst of winning four straight Stanley Cup championships. He sent a suitcase of cash to lure a Soviet defenseman and smuggled a Czech player—along with his girlfriend—to the West in the trunk of a car.
The Wings purchase also began Ilitch’s close, sometimes fraught relationship with a city that businesses were abandoning. In 1987 he bought the dilapidated Fox Theater and spent millions rehabilitating it. Then he moved Little Caesars’ headquarters from a suburb to an office tower adjoining the Fox. “It was really a leap of faith,” says Emmett Moten Jr., then Detroit’s top economic development official.

 

By 1992, Little Caesars, with about 4,000 restaurants, was gaining on Domino’s. The Red Wings were competing for their first Stanley Cup in 55 years. Ilitch bought the Tigers from Monaghan, vowed to build a new ballpark, and reinstated beloved Tigers broadcaster Ernie Harwell, who’d been fired. He was a hero in his hometown.

 For Monaghan, selling the Tigers was one small result of a spiritual epiphany. By his own admission, Domino’s faltered because he was distracted by his ball club and other material pursuits. In the early 1990s he read a passage by Christian writer C.S. Lewis arguing that pride is the greatest sin. Monaghan lay awake that night fretting over it. “I always hated a showoff,” he says now. “I realized I was a showoff. I wanted not just more, I wanted more than others. What I thought were virtues were really not.”
Photograph by Lennox McLendon/AP PhotoMarian and Mike Ilitch in 1992 after the Little Caesars founder bought the Detroit Tigers from Monaghan
He dumped his extravagances along with the ball club. In 1998 he sold his company to Bain Capital for more than $1 billion. His legal pads were crammed with ideas for building a conservative Catholic university that would churn out theologians, priests, nuns, and school principals. “There’s so much you can do at a university that can change the whole world,” he says. “I didn’t want a diploma factory, I wanted a saint factory.”
He put $300 million into the construction of Ave Maria University and a new town, also to be called Ave Maria, on a stretch of tomato fields inland from Florida’s Gulf Coast. The media lit up when Monaghan suggested condom sales would be prohibited in the town. Construction costs soared. Accreditation took longer than expected. Monaghan tangled with professors and others he’d hired at Ave Maria. He twice fired Catholic priest Joseph Fessio. “Tom is intelligent, very energetic, but nobody will contradict him,” says Fessio, who was fired the second time when he told a board member that the school’s finances were in disarray. “Just because you can afford a 747 doesn’t mean you should try to fly it.”

 

“I realized I was a showoff. I wanted not just more, I wanted more than others”

Enrollment at Ave Maria today is 900, with an expected incoming class of 400. The budget, once $10 million in the red, is balanced, says university President Jim Towey, formerly President George W. Bush’s head of faith-based matters. Monaghan loves pointing out that 20 percent of Ave Maria’s graduates are married to each other and that the most popular campus organization is a pro-life club.
Monaghan’s investment in the town, however, “has been a bloodbath,” he says. The town has grown slowly, partly because of the recession, forcing Monaghan to pay $5 million a year for roads and other upkeep. Although he’s far from broke, he’d like a steadier source of revenue to plow into his philanthropy. Monaghan’s trying to build a chain of hamburger delivery joints modeled on early Domino’s. So far he has one, called Gyrene Burger, in the college town of Knoxville, Tenn. “If it gets to 100 units, that could make me $3 million to $4 million a year,” he says.
Domino’s went public in 2004. Monaghan says he admires how the company has evolved, but he doesn’t own any shares. With a wife of 51 years (whom he met while delivering a pizza), four daughters, 10 grandchildren, and one great-grandchild, he says he has everything he needs. He drives a two-year-old Ford Taurus. “I’ve got better things to spend my money on,” he says.

 Wearing a blue blazer and waving from his box at Comerica Park, Ilitch appeared in public for the first time in months on a sunny Saturday in May. The occasion was a tribute to retired Tigers manager Jim Leyland. One after another, Detroit’s players talked about how badly “Mr. I” wants a World Series trophy like the one outside Monaghan’s office.

 

Six weeks before, the Tigers had rocked the sports world with a contract extension paying two-time American League Most Valuable Player Cabrera almost $300 million—what Monaghan put into his university. Cabrera will be 40 before the contract expires. Tigers General Manager Dave Dombrowski, who negotiated the deal, says it was classic Ilitch. “He brings a passion to win,” Dombrowski says. Ilitch also has had health problems in the past year, according to acquaintances and published reports. The Tigers have reached the Series twice in the past eight seasons, only to lose. The Red Wings have won four Stanley Cups since 1997 and made the playoffs 23 consecutive years. When recruiting baseball stars, Ilitch will show them one of his Cup rings and say, “I want one of these in baseball for Detroit,” he told SportsBusiness Journal.

 

In 2005, Ilitch handed day-to-day operation of Little Caesars to a Domino’s alumnus, David Scrivano. Little Caesars briefly tried and ditched delivery in the 1990s and offers no online ordering today. “There’s no need, because we’re already ready,” Scrivano says. “Most of our customers live within five minutes of our stores.”
Ilitch is a notoriously private man. Lately he’s been thrust into the Detroit media spotlight because of his proposal to build an 18,000-seat hockey arena with a neighborhood around it. Ilitch and city officials say the project will generate an additional $200 million in investment in housing, restaurants, bars, and other amenities, along with more than 1,000 full-time jobs. More important, they say, the development will link midtown Detroit with the downtown core and increase pedestrian traffic on days when no sports teams are playing.
The Ilitches stand to benefit, too. The city’s Downtown Development Authority will own the arena and lease it to Ilitch’s company essentially rent-free for as long as 95 years. Ilitch will pay the authority $345 million over the first 30 years while collecting all ticket, concession, parking, and naming-rights revenue. Public funds will pay for more than 50 percent of arena construction. A recent cover of the Detroit Metro Times depicted Ilitch as a puppeteer of local politicians. Christopher Douglas, an economics professor at the University of Michigan at Flint, says public money targeted for the project could be better spent fixing all of Detroit’s thousands of broken streetlights.

 

Ilitch supporters say it’s preposterous to doubt his commitment. “I don’t know anyone who would have done more for this community,” says Scrivano, who was born and raised in suburban Detroit. In a way, by remaining closer to Detroit, Ilitch has given the city more to complain about. As for Monaghan, he estimates he’s put $600 million to $700 million of his own money into his post-Domino’s projects, a lot of it in Florida. He says money is all he misses about selling pizzas.

By 1992, Little Caesars, with about 4,000 restaurants, was gaining on Domino’s. The Red Wings were competing for their first Stanley Cup in 55 years. Ilitch bought the Tigers from Monaghan, vowed to build a new ballpark, and reinstated beloved Tigers broadcaster Ernie Harwell, who’d been fired. He was a hero in his hometown.

 For Monaghan, selling the Tigers was one small result of a spiritual epiphany. By his own admission, Domino’s faltered because he was distracted by his ball club and other material pursuits. In the early 1990s he read a passage by Christian writer C.S. Lewis arguing that pride is the greatest sin. Monaghan lay awake that night fretting over it. “I always hated a showoff,” he says now. “I realized I was a showoff. I wanted not just more, I wanted more than others. What I thought were virtues were really not.”

He dumped his extravagances along with the ball club. In 1998 he sold his company to Bain Capital for more than $1 billion. His legal pads were crammed with ideas for building a conservative Catholic university that would churn out theologians, priests, nuns, and school principals. “There’s so much you can do at a university that can change the whole world,” he says. “I didn’t want a diploma factory, I wanted a saint factory.”
He put $300 million into the construction of Ave Maria University and a new town, also to be called Ave Maria, on a stretch of tomato fields inland from Florida’s Gulf Coast. The media lit up when Monaghan suggested condom sales would be prohibited in the town. Construction costs soared. Accreditation took longer than expected. Monaghan tangled with professors and others he’d hired at Ave Maria. He twice fired Catholic priest Joseph Fessio. “Tom is intelligent, very energetic, but nobody will contradict him,” says Fessio, who was fired the second time when he told a board member that the school’s finances were in disarray. “Just because you can afford a 747 doesn’t mean you should try to fly it.”

“I realized I was a showoff. I wanted not just more, I wanted more than others”

Enrollment at Ave Maria today is 900, with an expected incoming class of 400. The budget, once $10 million in the red, is balanced, says university President Jim Towey, formerly President George W. Bush’s head of faith-based matters. Monaghan loves pointing out that 20 percent of Ave Maria’s graduates are married to each other and that the most popular campus organization is a pro-life club.
Monaghan’s investment in the town, however, “has been a bloodbath,” he says. The town has grown slowly, partly because of the recession, forcing Monaghan to pay $5 million a year for roads and other upkeep. Although he’s far from broke, he’d like a steadier source of revenue to plow into his philanthropy. Monaghan’s trying to build a chain of hamburger delivery joints modeled on early Domino’s. So far he has one, called Gyrene Burger, in the college town of Knoxville, Tenn. “If it gets to 100 units, that could make me $3 million to $4 million a year,” he says.
Domino’s went public in 2004. Monaghan says he admires how the company has evolved, but he doesn’t own any shares. With a wife of 51 years (whom he met while delivering a pizza), four daughters, 10 grandchildren, and one great-grandchild, he says he has everything he needs. He drives a two-year-old Ford Taurus. “I’ve got better things to spend my money on,” he says.


Wearing a blue blazer and waving from his box at Comerica Park, Ilitch appeared in public for the first time in months on a sunny Saturday in May. The occasion was a tribute to retired Tigers manager Jim Leyland. One after another, Detroit’s players talked about how badly “Mr. I” wants a World Series trophy like the one outside Monaghan’s office.

 

Six weeks before, the Tigers had rocked the sports world with a contract extension paying two-time American League Most Valuable Player Cabrera almost $300 million—what Monaghan put into his university. Cabrera will be 40 before the contract expires. Tigers General Manager Dave Dombrowski, who negotiated the deal, says it was classic Ilitch. “He brings a passion to win,” Dombrowski says. Ilitch also has had health problems in the past year, according to acquaintances and published reports. The Tigers have reached the Series twice in the past eight seasons, only to lose. The Red Wings have won four Stanley Cups since 1997 and made the playoffs 23 consecutive years. When recruiting baseball stars, Ilitch will show them one of his Cup rings and say, “I want one of these in baseball for Detroit,” he told SportsBusiness Journal.
In 2005, Ilitch handed day-to-day operation of Little Caesars to a Domino’s alumnus, David Scrivano. Little Caesars briefly tried and ditched delivery in the 1990s and offers no online ordering today. “There’s no need, because we’re already ready,” Scrivano says. “Most of our customers live within five minutes of our stores.”
Ilitch is a notoriously private man. Lately he’s been thrust into the Detroit media spotlight because of his proposal to build an 18,000-seat hockey arena with a neighborhood around it. Ilitch and city officials say the project will generate an additional $200 million in investment in housing, restaurants, bars, and other amenities, along with more than 1,000 full-time jobs. More important, they say, the development will link midtown Detroit with the downtown core and increase pedestrian traffic on days when no sports teams are playing.
The Ilitches stand to benefit, too. The city’s Downtown Development Authority will own the arena and lease it to Ilitch’s company essentially rent-free for as long as 95 years. Ilitch will pay the authority $345 million over the first 30 years while collecting all ticket, concession, parking, and naming-rights revenue. Public funds will pay for more than 50 percent of arena construction. A recent cover of the Detroit Metro Times depicted Ilitch as a puppeteer of local politicians. Christopher Douglas, an economics professor at the University of Michigan at Flint, says public money targeted for the project could be better spent fixing all of Detroit’s thousands of broken streetlights.

 

Ilitch supporters say it’s preposterous to doubt his commitment. “I don’t know anyone who would have done more for this community,” says Scrivano, who was born and raised in suburban Detroit. In a way, by remaining closer to Detroit, Ilitch has given the city more to complain about. As for Monaghan, he estimates he’s put $600 million to $700 million of his own money into his post-Domino’s projects, a lot of it in Florida. He says money is all he misses about selling pizzas.

Top 10 things to do in Louisville | PGA Championship

This week, it’s all about the golf. But Kentucky is far more than part of a legendary chicken recipe; the Bluegrass State is famous for many things, among them thoroughbred racing, bourbon and college basketball. Many of the state’s top attractions are located in or near Louisville, and here’s a sampling of attractions away from Valhalla Golf Club.  BOURBON TRAIL The legendary Kentucky Bourbon Trail® experience, which includes a visit to eight distilleries in Kentucky, is not so much an actual road, but a series of tours that can be visited in any order. Get a passport at any of the distilleries and get it stamped at each visit. The reward at the end is a T-shirt and a wealth of knowledge about the drink that originated in Kentucky. No time for traipsing all over the state? Just go to the Bardstown area (40 miles south of Louisville), known as the Bourbon Capital of the World, and hit the major ones: Jim Beam, Heaven Hill, Maker’s Mark and Willett. The newest stop is Heaven Hill’s Evan Williams Bourbon Experience in downtown Louisville along the city’s famed Whiskey Row. Just outside of Louisville is Jim Beam, with a new visitor’s center in Clermont, Ky., just off I-65 South.  LOUISVILLE SLUGGER MUSEUM AND FACTORY Since 1884, Louisville Slugger has been perfecting the craft of manufacturing baseball bats. Take a tour through the factory and watch the bats being made. In the museum, enjoy a short movie called “The Heart of the Game,” and view bats used by baseball greats such as Ty Cobb, Babe Ruth, Pete Rose, Hank Aaron and Jackie Robinson. Louisville Slugger’s history includes lots of fascinating memorabilia. Not sure if you’re at the right place? Just look for the world’s biggest bat, a six-story behemoth — it weighs 68,000 pounds — propped up against the building.  MUSEUM ROW Lining Louisville’s Main Street are all kinds of museums, which give this stretch of blocks the nickname Museum Row. The assortment includes the Louisville Science Center and IMAX Theater, where visitors can participate in Kentucky’s largest hands-on science center. The IMAX theater features a screen that is four stories tall. Next up is the Muhammad Ali Center, a six-story, 96,750-square-foot museum devoted to the life and values of Louisville’s native son, Muhammad Ali. See all his boxing memorabilia, a film about his life, and a full-sized boxing ring, where a large projector shows Ali in his signature fight. At the Frazier International History Museum, visitors will be able to cover more than 1,000 years of history, with a focus on military artifacts, such as armor and weaponry. The entire third floor is an actual branch of the United Kingdom National Museum, which includes Royal Armories, a collection of British arms, armor, and artillery dating from antiquity to the present day. Artifacts from American history, such as the Daniel Boone family Bible and Geronimo’s bow, also are on display. See some of the Bluegrass State’s finest works at the Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft, which features the work of more than 200 Kentucky artisans, showcasing everything from folk art to handcrafted furniture.  CHURCHILL DOWNS Churchill Downs, home of the Kentucky Derby, is one of the city’s quintessential stops. Even if the thoroughbreds aren’t running — live racing is held in late spring and then again in the fall — visitors can soak in the experience at the adjacent Kentucky Derby Museum. Watch film footage of Derbies dating back to 1919, and enjoy historic memorabilia, including hats worn on Millionaires’ Row and jockey silks. Don’t leave without viewing the film, “The Greatest Race,” a 360-degree, multimedia presentation that uses 96 projectors to tell the story of the Kentucky Derby. The facility also offers a walking tour of Churchill Downs, which provides a unique look at one of the world’s most legendary sports venues.  LOUISVILLE MEGA CAVERN This former limestone quarry sprawls more than 100 acres under the city. With 17 miles of roads, all underground, this massive cavern is a sight to see. A 70-minute tram tour covers areas of interest, including the geological aspects of the cavern, the green initiatives of building underground, and the fact that, in 1962, it was designated an official bunker for the Cuban Missile Crisis. For thrill-seeking visitors, one stop not to be missed is a zipline trail that operates in the dark.  WAVERLY HILLS SANATORIUM Looking for haunted entertainment? Waverly originally opened as a tuberculosis hospital in 1910, high atop a hill where the air was clean for the patients. The current building opened on Oct. 17, 1926, and functioned as a tuberculosis hospital until 1961 and a geriatrics/nursing home until the 1980s. Today, the area is a well-known stomping ground for ghost hunters. There are claims of all kinds of paranormal activities and tours are offered, some overnight, for the more adventuresome visitors. One of the more eerie spots is the Death Chute, a tunnel the staff would use to transport dead bodies down the hill, to a waiting undertaker. Call for hours and tour availability.  LOUISVILLE MEGA CAVERN This former limestone quarry sprawls more than 100 acres under the city. With 17 miles of roads, all underground, this massive cavern is a sight to see. A 70-minute tram tour covers areas of interest, including the geological aspects of the cavern, the green initiatives of building underground, and the fact that, in 1962, it was designated an official bunker for the Cuban Missile Crisis. For thrill-seeking visitors, one stop not to be missed is a zipline trail that operates in the dark.  CAVE HILL CEMETERY These immaculately manicured grounds serve as a great way to take a break from the hustle and bustle of urban life. Dating back to 1848, Cave Hill is the eternal resting place for many famous Kentuckians as well as more than 6,000 soldiers from the Civil War. Among those buried at Cave Hill is Colonel Harlan Sanders, the goateed, white-suited gentleman who started Kentucky Fried Chicken. So many people ask where he is buried, officials painted a yellow line on the road at the entrance for visitors to follow. There are guided tours of one of the country’s most well-known cemeteries, but visitors are free to wander on their own.  OLD LOUISVILLE One of the largest collections of Victorian architecture in the United States, this 50-square-block section of the city is home to some 1,400 structures built between1885-1905. Walking or guided bus tours allow visitors to see these Grand Dames of Louisville: turrets, stained glass, bricka- brack and gingerbread. It’s impressive; remember, all this construction took place before power tools were invented.  Only in Louisville: Hungry? Chicago has its pizza. Philadelphia has its cheesesteak. And Louisville has the Hot Brown. Named for the legendary hotel where it was invented, this dish features turkey and bacon, smothered in cheese sauce and served on toast points. It has been on the menu at the Brown Hotel since the 1920s, obviously way before cholesterol tests were invented. The dish is featured on menus all over the state, but visitors to Louisville could hardly go wrong by heading to J. Graham’s Café at the Brown Hotel to experience the original. For visitors who want to live like a local in this horse racing town, make your way to Wagner’s Pharmacy, just out the back door of Churchill Downs. It’s a favorite of jockeys and trainers who know fancy accommodations aren’t required in order to get a good fried egg sandwich or burger. In business for about 100 years, Wagner’s is a staple in the community. While you’re there, listen up. Never know when you might get a good tip about an upcoming race. One of the finest restaurants in the state, in fact, the only one to be designated as a Five Diamond Restaurant by AAA, is right downtown. Oakroom at The Seelbach Hilton features an impeccable menu of steaks and seafood as well as some local favorites. The wine list, if you can call 1,200 choices a list, is the most expansive in the state. But the drink of choice at The Seelbach is the Mint Julip, the official drink of the Kentucky Derby. Traditionally served in a silver or pewter tall cup, the drink is made with shaved ice, bourbon, sugar and a sprig of mint. Everyone needs a piece of candy once in a while, and a trip to Louisville just isn’t complete without a bite of a Modjeska from Muth’s Candies. In business since 1921, Muth’s has been treating locals to fine candy for generations. The confectionary has a huge selection of sweets, such as bourbons, creams and jellies, but they are known for the Modjeska. This caramel marshmallow wonder, as it is referred to, is a heavenly combination of soft marshmallow dipped in chewy caramel. It was named for a famous Polish actress, Helena Modjeska, who appeared in Louisville several times during the late 1800s and was quite fond of the city. Maybe she liked caramel, too. By Deborah Kohl Kremer

PGA Championship's world-class field

PALM BEACH GARDENS, Fla. – The PGA of America announced today that the top 100 players in the Official World Golf Ranking have committed to play in the 96th PGA Championship, Aug. 7-10, at Valhalla Golf Club in Louisville, Kentucky. Barring any withdrawals before the opening round, this would be the first time any major championship would feature every one of the top 100 world-ranked players.

Perennially touted by many as the strongest field in golf, the PGA Championship has featured the most top 100 world-ranked players of any event in golf since 1994. The field for the 96th PGA Championship includes 29 major champions, 70 international players representing 24 countries, and all three of the year’s major championship winners. They will compete for the coveted Wanamaker Trophy as Valhalla hosts the PGA Championship for the third time.

The PGA of America announced 154 members of the 156-player field for Valhalla, with two more completing the field based on the results this weekend of the World Golf Championships-Bridgestone Invitational and the Reno-Tahoe Open.

 Defending Champion Jason Dufner heads 15 PGA Champions in the field. Dufner, who captured his first major championship last year at Oak Hill, is joined by Rich Beem (2002), Keegan Bradley (2011), Mark Brooks (1996), John Daly (1991), Padraig Harrington (2008), Martin Kaymer (2010), Davis Love III (1997), Rory McIlroy (2012), Shaun Micheel (2003), Phil Mickelson (2005), Vijay Singh (1998, 2004), David Toms (2001), Tiger Woods (1999, 2000, ’06, ’07), and Y.E. Yang (2009).

Kaymer and McIlroy also won the 2014 U.S. Open and 2014 Open Championship, respectively. Over the first two rounds at Valhalla, Kaymer, McIlroy, and Bubba Watson (2014 Masters) will be placed in the traditional grouping of the winners of the first three major championships of the season.

As the only major championship with an all-professional field, the PGA Championship also features 20 PGA Club Professionals, who earned berths in the field through their performances in June at the PGA Professional National Championship in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

Billy Beane on the Future of Sports: A Tech-Driven Revolution

The A's General Manager Says New Systems Will Transform How We Play—and Watch—Sports

By: Billy Beane

Baseball—my passion and profession for three decades—has been at the forefront of the analytics revolution sweeping through sports. And the game is just beginning.
The proverbial tip of the iceberg: Statcast, a 3-D tracking system that provides detailed metrics on the locations and movements of the ball, the players, and even the umpires. While the system is currently installed in only a handful of ballparks, Major League Baseball plans for all 30 stadiums to have it by 2015. Eventually, such systems will proliferate not just through the ranks of all professional sports but to youth sports, affecting everything from how games are taught to the statistical nomenclature of sport.
These technologies, combined with new media devices that will deliver that information, will give fans a new level of feedback about the action on the field and create unprecedented access to players and the game.
I also see change that goes far beyond the fan experience and new methods of performance analysis. Technology will transform the social fabric of sport.
Baseball, for instance, has always been a game of insiders, played by those who could hit, run, field and throw a certain way, and managed by those who played well enough to eventually earn the keys to the front office. The old ideas of who should play in the big leagues, and who should decide who should play, will be replaced with new ideas.

Leveling the Field

Having advanced performance data at even the most junior levels will make it less likely that players get filtered out based on 60-yard-dash times or radar-gun readings, and more likely that they advance on the merits of practiced skills. The ability to "paint the corners" of the strike zone, to swing only at pitches within that zone, and to manage the subtle footwork required of a difficult fielding play is accessible to any player willing to commit to the "10,000 Hour Rule" (the average amount of practice Malcolm Gladwell, in his book "Outliers," says is needed to excel in selected fields). A whole new class of players whose skill sets previously were not fully appreciated will be able to reach the highest levels thanks to a more nuanced understanding of their abilities.
The current modus operandi of building rosters to maximize the sum of individual talent also will be challenged; data compiled using new technologies will enable management to assemble players in new ways, emphasizing their ability to complement one another. Whereas current metrics describe players' performance in isolation, front offices will increasingly rely on statistics that measure a player's value in the context of the rest of the team, picking up externalities such as how a player's defensive abilities may compensate for the deficiencies of those playing around him.
In a new twist to the "old school vs. new school" debate in sports, technology-based roster-building and algorithm-driven decision-making thus will be the strongest propagators of the traditional virtues of teamwork and chemistry. (I should note here that these opinions are my own—and not those of my club, the Oakland Athletics, or Major League Baseball.)
Technology will create an equally drastic shift in front offices. Aspirants to the front office already are just one click away from decision makers, thanks to social media. It is not uncommon for a blogger's analysis post to show up in a general manager's Twitter feed—a level of proximity and access unheard of a decade ago. Many sports franchises are already hiring analysts based on their work in the public sphere; as social media become more targeted and efficient, the line between the "outsiders" and "insiders" will narrow.