ENGAGING 
THE COMMUNITY

The Emerging Business Program’s two key architects tell how the initiatives “prepares participants to compete on the world stage”

Friday, September 3, 2010 - 4:31am

PULSE OF THE PROGRAM: The NFL’s Frank Supovitz carefully oversees every facet of the initiative.

Frank Supovitz is the NFL’s Senior Vice President of Events. The North Texas Super Bowl in 2011 will be the sixth he has quarterbacked.

Tisha Ford is the NFL’s Manager, Events Business Development. They were generous enough to contribute to the following Q&A regarding the league’s vastly successful Emerging Business Program.

Do you recall what prompted the NFL to establish an Emerging Business Program?

Ford: It’s my understanding that because the Super Bowl is a tremendous community event, the NFL decided that it only made sense to engage local businesses, and to engage minority- and women-owned businesses, as an integral part in the implementation and the execution of an event of this nature. I think that was at the core of it all.

Did you ever think the 
program would take off like 
it has?

Supovitz: Yes, I did. The program has really grown over the last five years because we’ve taken some very concrete steps to demonstrate our commitment to the program and the good it can do to the community.

In 2005, for the 2006 Super Bowl in Detroit, the resource guide listing all the available businesses was made available on the Internet for the first time. Prior to that, a book was published and distributed in September to all of our key contractors and staff. By 2005, technology allowed us to provide that information as early as April, and in every step of our procurement process we were able to use it to select vendors. It was a very dynamic database because it could be changed right up to the moment that it needed to be used.

The next evolution was ensuring that each of our primary contractors had in their own contracts an obligation to the NFL to use the Emerging Business database in qualifying subcontractors. And that occurred in 2006, for the 2007 Super Bowl in South Florida.

As a result of making sure that the Emerging Business Program was an integral part of how we do business at the Super Bowl, the program doubled and tripled in size in terms of the numbers of dollars it generates in contracts for minority- and women-owned businesses of a community.

And so, despite its enormous success, the Emerging Business Program continues to improve and find new ways to educate business communities?

Supovitz: The program today better prepares the participants to compete on the world stage by experiencing, through seminars and symposiums, training on how to respond to RFPs, how to be competitive, how to work with large firms that are involved in major events — like the Super Bowl, but not exclusive to the Super Bowl.

I feel that the instructional component of the Emerging Business Program is even more valuable than the database. That’s because 100 percent of the people applying for the Emerging Business Program benefit from that instruction, where a much smaller proportion will actually be selected to participate as a vendor.

Do you have a favorite 
success story involving Emerging Businesses?

Ford: Francine Powers in South Florida owns the catering company We’re Having a Party, Inc. Following her Super Bowl participation, she found herself receiving contracts for an Academy Awards party in Los Angeles and other large-scale events. Procurement is part of the process, but we enjoy it when people are able to transcend these skills beyond the Super Bowl.

Supovitz: When we were last in South Florida for Super Bowl XLI (41), we were walking on the upper concourses of the stadium early in the week when I realized the stickers for every cup holder in the stadium had been there for 10 or 15 years, baking in the Florida sun, fading, cracking, peeling.

I turned to Bill McConnell, who is our Director of Event Operations, and said, “I know it’s Tuesday, but we have to cover these up. We need 74,000 decals for these cup holders.” We didn’t have artwork for new decals. We didn’t have a supplier. We didn’t even have people who could put them in place before Sunday. He instantly accessed the Emerging Business database and hired a local minority-owned company, who supplied 74,000 of these things within 24 hours.

The only problem we had then was finding people we could put credentials on, then have them run around the stadium in the rain, sticking new decals on cup holders.