Xavier Gutiérrez, CEO of the Arizona Coyotes and CEO of ImpactX Sports Group (left), and Pedro Guerrero, CEO of Guerrero Media.
Courtesy: Guerrero Media
When the National Hockey League's Arizona Coyotes sold their franchise to Utah last month, the league not only lost an Arizona-based team, it also lost its only active Latino CEO.
Born in Guadalajara, Mexico, Xavier Gutiérrez became the CEO of the Arizona team in 2019 after Alex Meruelo, a Cuban-American billionaire, purchased the Coyotes a year earlier. Gutierrez had previously been CEO of private equity firm Clearlake Capital Group and knew Meruelo for about a decade before becoming the NHL's first Latino CEO.
Gutiérrez explained in an interview that it was necessary for a Latino owner to hire a Latino CEO because Hispanics are not well represented in leadership positions in professional sports.
There are 153 major professional sports franchises in the US and Canada in the NHL, National Football League, National Basketball Association, Major League Baseball, and Major League Soccer.
Gutiérrez, who technically remains the CEO of the Arizona Coyotes even though the franchise is inactive, says he is the only Latino CEO who is not an owner. Jorge Mas, co-owner of Inter Miami CF of the MLS and who is also CEO, are two Latin CEOs, according to Gutiérrez.
That's something Gutiérrez promises to change. He is part of the founding group behind Latinos in Sports, a platform dedicated to bringing together Latinos and non-Latinos in professional sports, media and marketing to showcase Latino talent in leadership positions. CNBC is the official media partner of Latinos in Sports.
“The results speak for themselves that today we do not have that leadership,” said Gutiérrez. “If you look at the commissioners and their offices that depend on Latino consumers to be the spectators, the ticket buyers, the T-shirt buyers. I think there's a need to have Latino talent in those seats. Our goal is just to say, 'Listen , This is not because they are bad people. That's not all at all. It's because maybe they haven't met the cohorts that exist.'”
Gutiérrez and Pedro Antonio Guerrero, CEO of executive promotion company Guerrero Media, introduced Latinos in Sports at an event in Miami last week.
Vianni Lubus, director of audience and engagement at Guerrero Media, and Mike Valdés-Fauli, director of operations at Chemistry Cultura, a Latino-focused digital advertising firm in the US, are also involved in the platform.
The four executives share the goal of increasing Hispanic representation in the US in leadership positions in sports. José Feliciano, co-founder of Clearlake Capital and co-owner of the Premier League's Chelsea Football Club, also spoke at last week's event in Miami to promote greater Latino ownership in sports.
José E. Feliciano speaks on stage during the 2021 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Ripple of Hope Award Gala in New York City on December 9, 2021.
Slaven Vlasic | fake images
“My fervent hope is that we make more progress on the ownership front,” Feliciano said. “Decision makers in places of influence are beginning to recognize that Latinos can and should be owners in every sense of the word.”
The goal of Latinos in Sports is to be the reference place to foster a culture of Hispanic advancement in the sports industry, Gutiérrez said. Executives hope to grow the platform into a business that focuses on investing in Hispanic-founded startups, conducting research on Hispanic trends in the United States and bringing together Latino and non-Latino sports leaders for networking.
“You make deals with people you know,” Gutierrez said. “It really will be a place for commerce, talent acquisition, conversation, data and ideas.”
The organization also hopes to pressure Latino sports executives to make more conscious decisions about how to appeal to Latino audiences.
Warner Bros. Discovery premiered an alternative broadcast during last year's MLB playoffs called “Peloteros,” which featured current and former Latino baseball players speaking to a Hispanic audience. The broadcast had to be in English because Warner Bros. Discovery does not have the Spanish broadcast rights.
Having more Latino executives making content decisions can help attract audiences that have largely been ignored, said Luis Silberwasser, president and CEO of Warner Bros. Discovery Sports.
“It was a good example of how we strive to diversify content,” Silberwasser said. “You need diversity of voices in the production group to get to this.”
It is essential that Latinos in Sports connects Latinos with non-Latinos, Gutiérrez said, because non-Latinos overwhelmingly occupy leadership positions today.
The organization's next event will be at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, in September during the US Open tennis tournament. Gutiérrez and Guerrero chose that event specifically because it traditionally attracts white Americans.
“It's important to have non-Latino decision makers in the room,” Gutiérrez said.
“Latinos need to connect with each other to build partnerships like this in an effort to build our table,” Guerrero said. “At the end of the day, it is the priority of many Latinos in positions of power like Xavier [Gutierrez]. “The key for us is to increase the size of our population.”
