Episode Summary

Football is synonymous with Sundays in America and the NFL draft has become almost like a celebrity awards show. What makes it so popular? Why have other sports not achieved that status? Kevin Demoff, Chief Operating Officer of the Los Angeles Rams, not only answers that question but also talks about how data drives the draft, why defense isn’t the best offense when it comes to hiring diversity, and how the NFL is continuing to operate under COVID. Get unprecedented access to the talent beyond the playbook, in this episode of The Sydcast.  

Syd Finkelstein

Syd Finkelstein is the Steven Roth Professor of Management at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. He holds a Master’s degree from the London School of Economics and a Ph.D. from Columbia University. Professor Finkelstein has published 25 books and 90 articles, including the bestsellers Why Smart Executives Fail and Superbosses: How Exceptional Leaders Master the Flow of Talent, which LinkedIn Chairman Reid Hoffman calls the “leadership guide for the Networked Age.” He is also a Fellow of the Academy of Management, a consultant and speaker to leading companies around the world, and a top 25 on the Global Thinkers 50 list of top management gurus. Professor Finkelstein’s research and consulting work often relies on in-depth and personal interviews with hundreds of people, an experience that led him to create and host his own podcast, The Sydcast, to uncover and share the stories of all sorts of fascinating people in business, sports, entertainment, politics, academia, and everyday life. 

Kevin Demoff

Kevin Demoff is in his 11th year as Chief Operating Officer with the Los Angeles Rams football team. In this capacity, Demoff serves as the team's top front office executive and liaison to owner and chairman, Stan Kroenke, on all organizational matters. After serving on the working group that helped Kroenke return the Rams – Los Angeles' original professional sports team – home to L.A., Demoff played a significant role in delivering on Kroenke's vision to design and construct the 298-acre sports and entertainment district in Inglewood that will serve as the future home of the Rams. The campus will include SoFi Stadium, a retail district and office complex and is currently the largest entitled real-estate project in Southern California. 

Since joining the Rams in 2009, Demoff has been responsible for re-organizing the club's business efforts with a focus on delivering a better overall experience for Rams' fans and increasing the club's presence in the community. As part of his vision, Demoff spearheaded the organization's efforts to become one of the strongest philanthropic partners in professional sports. Demoff serves on the boards of the United Way of Greater Los Angeles, Los Angeles Sports and Entertainment Commission and Los Angeles Sports Council. 

Prior to joining the Rams, Demoff spent the previous four seasons (2005-08) with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, where he served as a consultant before being named Senior Assistant in 2006. In this capacity, Demoff assisted General Manager Bruce Allen in contract negotiations, salary cap management, strategic planning and both college and pro scouting. 

Demoff was recognized by the Sports Business Journal as one of its "Forty under 40" class members of 2016, and in 2010 he was named one of the "NFL's 10 Future Power Brokers" by Sports Illustrated. 

Born and raised in Los Angeles, CA, Demoff received a bachelors' degree in history from Dartmouth College in 1999 and an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth in 2006. Kevin and Jennifer have two children – a daughter, Claire and a son, Owen.

Insights from this episode:

• Details on the NFL draft, its singular popularity among sports drafts, and how COVID has affected how the draft is held.
• Reasons why the Rams have a majority female staff, how hiring practices have changed, and how COVID has highlighted the need for greater work-life balance.
• Strategies used for recruiting talent to the team, how technology has improved player research, and why being the fastest might not be what gets you on the team.
• Similarities between running a business and running an NFL team.
• How to promote and improve diverse hiring practices within the NFL and why status quo hiring practices have hurt teams and created a poor candidate pool in terms of diversity.
• Difficulties specific to running a NFL franchise under COVID and how to move forward as safely as possible.

Quotes from the show: 

• “What’s so unique about the NFL draft right now, I would say, is the collision of what I believe are the two most popular sports in America which is the NFL and college football.” – Kevin Demoff
• On working from home during COVID: “Seeing people at home, in their environments, has helped people understand more the importance of that work-life balance.” – Kevin Demoff
• “Once you have people in senior leadership who are diverse, be that gender, be that, racial, be that LGBTQ, they are much more open to hiring people who are diverse underneath them.” – Kevin Demoff
• “If you bring someone in who is super talented but doesn’t fit your culture, who does not have the ability to do what is most important within your culture, they’re probably not going to be a fit.” – Kevin Demoff
• “In the NFL we are bad at developing head coaches. When you look at the turnover in the NFL in head coaches, we are terrible at hiring.” – Kevin Demoff
• “Imagine every team had an offensive-oriented head coach, all of a sudden it’s not the same league anymore, there’s going to be an advantage to having someone on the defensive side.” – Syd Finkelstein
• On hiring coaches: “Winning the press conference and making the big hire was not ultimately what was going to set us up for success, it was finding the right fit for our organization at that time.” – Kevin Demoff
• “You’ve got to give people a chance to make things happen.” – Syd Finkelstein
• “If we really want to improve the minority pipeline, we can be more patient with all of our coaches so that those coaches get a chance … for success.” – Kevin Demoff
• “I think, much like the rest of the world, we have to get to a point in the NFL where one case does not shut down the NFL and one case doesn’t shut down the world.” – Kevin Demoff

Stay Connected:

Syd Finkelstein

Website: http://thesydcast.com

LinkedIn: Sydney Finkelstein

Twitter: @sydfinkelstein

Facebook: The Sydcast

Instagram: The Sydcast

Kevin Demoff

Website: therams.com/team/front-office-roster/kevin-demoff

LinkedIn: Kevin Demoff

Twitter: @kdemoff

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This episode was produced and managed by Podcast Laundry (www.podcastlaundry.com)