April 8, 2025 • 17 mins
Paul Corvino sits down with Dean Spanos, an American businessman who is the owner and chairman of the San Diego / Los Angeles Chargers of the National Football League. He is the son of Alex Spanos, who purchased majority interest in the team in 1984
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is CEOs.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
You should know with division President of iHeartMedia, Paul Corvino.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Today I have the honor and privilege of talking with
Dean Spanos, owner and Chairman of the board of the
Los Angeles Chargers.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Welcome, Thank you, Paul. It's great to be here with you.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Before we start these interviews and learn about your journey.
What I like to do is a quick Q and
a rapid fire question that gets the mind working and
the mouth moving.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
You ready, I'll give it my best.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Gotta go quick though, Okay, Okay, beat your ski vacation
ski Michael Jordan or Tom Brady.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Tom Brady, she said, justin Herbert.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Okay, we'll get that next time.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
A true question and tell me they're gonna be true questions.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Beatles are stones, beatles, star Wars or godfather Godfather Sean
Connery or Daniel Craig, Sean Connery. Celebrity people say.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
You remind them of Jim Belucci.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Jim Belucci. Okay, I was going to say maybe Kelsey Grammar.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Maybe he's got more hair.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Let's talk a little bit about your journey. CEO and
chairman of a professional sports team, which to many people
is the ultimate dream I wanted to learn a little
bit more about how it started. We first talked a
little bit about your father child of a Greek immigrant family.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
Yeah, he was a child of Greek immigrants, as was
my mother, from different parts of Greece, but all four
of their parents came over from Greece, so they were
the first generation here in America. But they were raised
as one hundred percent Greek from Greece, if you will, okay.
And my dad met my mother during the war. He
(01:42):
was stationed in Tampa. Dad was raised in Stockton, California,
and they got married in I think nineteen forty eight,
and I came along shortly thereafter.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
What was your parents' business?
Speaker 3 (01:55):
Okay, So my father was in the bakery business. His father,
my grandpa there was a baker by trade, and my
mother's father was a cobbler. He was a shoemaker, and
you know, they were both raised during the Depression, so
they came from poor families obviously, but that's their background.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Funny, Like, my grandfather is a shoemaker also, oh really okay,
and a bootlegger.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Oh, I don't know about that.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
We'll stuggest with the shoemaker. You know, Italian immigrant family
similar stories. You and I are similar age. How did
your father go from you know, living in Stockton in
a family that owned the bakery right to building up
an empire and becoming an owner of a sports franchise.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
Well, he was in a bakery nineteen fifty fifty one,
you know, fifty two, and he wasn't making very much money.
My grandfather wouldn't give him a raise, and he decided
to go on his own and he started a catering business.
And back then, this is pre automation, you know, stocking
in an agricultural community, and everything was handpicked, all the crops,
(03:05):
the tomatoes, everything, and so the farmers had no way
to feed the farm labor that was out there harvesting
the crops. So my dad knew most of the farmers,
he grew up with them. So we started making box lunches,
my mom and dad, and delivering them to the farmers
to feed the farm labor. And then from there it
grow in grew into where he actually went out to.
(03:28):
It was called Stockton Field, the airport, and there was
one of the biggest military depots during World War two
for deporting stuff to Europe, you know, bombs and whatever
they used to make and men, and there was about
twelve thousand barracks for twelve thousand men out there during
the war, obviously soldiers. And now he could house and
(03:50):
feed and transport the labor to and from the crops.
And that's how we started in business, and that's how
we started making his money, you know, so to speak.
And then in the late fifties, nineteen sixty or so,
automation started coming around. He could see the end of
that business because it was taking all that labor out,
(04:11):
and so he had transcended in the mid to late
fifties investing in real estate and he was in the
Bay Area, mostly San Jose, San Francisco, Oakland, that part
of the Bay Area, and started building small apartment complexes
and phased out of the catering business and went into
the construction business.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
And that was the.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
Start of our company, our Famili's company, where we really
started building apartments all over the country.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Nineteen sixty What year did he buy the team and
how did that all come about?
Speaker 3 (04:43):
He bought the team in nineteen eighty four from Baron Hilton,
who was a friend to his. Prior to that, my
dad had always, unbeknownst to his family wanted to buy
an NFL team, and the San Francisco forty nine ers
came for sale, and he had a friend, Al Davis,
who everybody knows who Al Davis is, and Al Davis
(05:06):
mentored him a bid about you know, what it's like
to own a team financially everything, and it was trying
to persuade him to put a bid in on the
forty nine ers, which he did, and then shortly thereafter,
it was like three or four days before the bid
was approved was going to be approved by the more
Beadle family who owned the San Francisco forty nine ers.
(05:28):
Al called my dad and said, you're going to have
to raise your bid by thirty forty percent because I
think they're going to there's going to be somebody coming
in who's going to pay substantially more money. And you know,
my dad, he looked at me and I said, God,
I was just a kid at the time, you know,
I was in my early twenties. I didn't know, and
I said, sounds like a lot, you know, of an
(05:49):
increase at the last minute. And then he stayed the number.
He stayed with the bid that he put in, and
then obviously Eddie Debarto outbid us and ended up with
the team. Now was a big disappointment to him. And
along that same lines, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers was an
expansion team, and I was living in Florida time doing
(06:11):
the construction for my dad. Seattle and Tampa became expansion
teams and he been on that team, was unsuccessful. And
then shortly thereafter he was best friends with Baron Hilton
and he played golf with him, played cards when he
was purely social, no business, and he was telling him about,
(06:31):
you know how he wanted an NFL team and you know,
should he invest in you know, it was the USFL
at that time, you know, non NFL leagues so to speak.
And Baron said, oh, you don't want to do that.
You know, I still own thirty percent of the Chargers.
As you know, Baron Hilton was the founder of the
LA Chargers in nineteen sixty and he still retained thirty
(06:53):
percent because he subsequently sold it to Jane Klein in
nineteen sixty six and he said, I'll sell you ten percent,
and they were playing golf at bel Air Country Club
and they shook hands and made a deal. My dad
bought ten percent of the San Diego Chargers then and
that's the true story, and sent him a check on Monday.
There was no contract or anything. That was in nineteen
(07:14):
eighty and ended up with ten percent of the team
and then four years later bought the team from Jeane Klin.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Well that's exciting. So now tell me about your relationship
with your father and how you mentioned that Al Davis
mentored him.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
Well, we had an individual that worked at the University
of California, Berkeley back in the sixties and he was
from Stockton, grew up with my dad, and he actually
came to work for us and ran all our public relations.
He actually introduced my dad Al Davis. And there was
no reason why he just met him. He said, an
interesting character. You want to meet the guy, and so
(07:47):
he befriended him. They liked each other, and I guess
when this whole thing came about, you know, they started
talking a lot and they became even closer, and I
think he was the mpluencing factor and getting my dad, really,
as I said before, to get.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Him to make a bit on this team.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
He's the right guy to be mentored by. To me, yeah,
by a team. So tell me about how you learn
the business and how your father taught you not just
to run a franchise, but you were in the real
estate business and.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
A construction business.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
So I started in nineteen seventy two, moved to the
East Coast, Florida, that's where my mother's from. And I
was there for seven years, and you know, my dad
took me there. Was calling him every day, twice a day,
you know, for a couple months, and he said, stop
calling me. He said, just make the decisions yourself.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
And I was young, I mean, and.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
From my prospective was this nineteen seventy three, seventy four,
seventy five, and I, you know, my thing was, I
just didn't want to make a mistake. And he said,
you're going to make mistakes. Just make your mistakes, just
don't make them again. That's what he always used to
tell me. But stop calling me so And it was
a little unsettling because I'd always looked to him, you know,
it was easy. What do you want to do? You know,
(09:02):
he said, you got to do what you think is right.
That's the only way you're going to learn. And that
was one of the most important lessons he ever taught
me about business.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Make your decisions. Learn from your decision.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
You are going to make mistakes, just don't make it
in that same mistrey, not to make it again. Yeah, yeah,
When did you take over the helms at the for
the Chargers?
Speaker 3 (09:19):
So in nine Dad bought the team, the whole team
control of the team. Nineteen eighty four and nineteen ninety four,
he kind of stepped back a little bit and said,
you know, why don't you go ahead and run it now.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
Between eighty four and ninety four, before you ran it,
were you working for the organization?
Speaker 3 (09:34):
I was working both in construction and the football business.
And we were in San Diego at the time, So
I was I was the family member who moved to
San Diego, and so mom and Dad stayed up in
northern California. But Dad would come down every week, as
would my mom, but they'd always go back there. He
was born and raised and lived to be ninety six
(09:55):
in Stockton, California.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
That was his home.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Running a sports franchise, a football team in particular, is
not just signing checks and bringing on free agents and
putting a team together. It is a lot that goes on.
What are some of the things that keep you up
at night that are really challenging that you've got to overcome.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
Well, it depends what time of the year you're talking about.
During the season, you know, you have a lot of
sleepless nights. I try not to because I can't control
anything once the season starts.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
You know, we're in.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
Motion, so there's not a whole lot you can do
at that point. Like right now, we have the draft
coming up. You know, we just finished pretty much free agency,
and so you know, there's not a lot I can
do about where we are right now today. But the
draft is a very important part of our season for us,
even though it's not the middle of the season. Pausily playing,
(10:46):
and so I worry about that because you know, we
need we have ten picks, and we want to get
as many of those guys as starting for us as
we possibly can. Again, I can't control that. We have
a great general manager and a great coach, and my son,
John Spanles is in charge. I used the president of
football Operations.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
To his family. So you're training him the way your
father trained.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
More than that, he's he's really running right now. So
that makes it a lot easier for me. But you know,
I try to keep even keeled. You know, I don't
want to get too many swings in my thinking because
you can't make good decisions. The worst thing you can
do is after a loss on Sunday, make a decision
on Monday because you're so emotional and you really need
(11:26):
to take a day to settle down.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
That's a good lesson for any business.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
Yeah, And you know, I just try not to get
too high and too low and till the end of
the season when it really starts counting if you're going
to make the playoffs or not. But you know, you
can't help. But that's just human nature, you know. I
get excited just like everybody else.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
I'm sitting here in this tremendous studio is spectacular and
this building is great. Tell us a little bit about
this building and what you plan on doing here.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
Well, this is our new training headquarters in Elseagondo. It
was about, you know, seven eight years in process of
you know, planning and everything else. And I think it's
close to one hundred and fifty one hundred and sixty
thousand square feet. Very proud of it, state of the art,
and we probably have about three hundred people that work
(12:14):
in here now counting everybody. And to me, we just
today I was down having breakfast and we have the
New York Giants part of their staff here visiting because
they're going to build a new training center and they
wanted to see what we did, and they were, you know,
just like blown away, like this is really nice, and
you know, it's a recruiting tool. It makes a statement
(12:34):
in the community about the Chargers. We're here, this is
where we want to be, obviously, and it adds to
El Segondo to La and when players come in here,
they go, Wow, this is pretty nice, and that's what
we want.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
I walked in.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
I'm in studios. We run radio studios and throughout the country,
and so I am I'm familiar with with what I'm
looking at and they walk in here and this is
very very impressive.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
And it was a lot of hard work went into it,
and we're still it's going to take us another season
to get everything finished the way we want. But in
the studio, we're very proud of.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
What advice would you give to someone who is in
business whose father was very successful and they're going to
move to the next level, not you know, you've seen
a lot of stories where it doesn't work and in
your case, yourself and your son, you've got a great
track record for success. What advice would you give someone
(13:31):
in a similar situation, Well.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
I would say that, you know, a lot of people
have been critical and are critical of nepotism, and my
dad was a firm believer that, and I've heard him
say it one hundred times. You know, nepotism can be
the greatest thing in the world. Too, Jealousy and all
those things that go along with failure is what kills it,
you know, and makes nepotism have a negative connotation to it.
(13:56):
And so he was always telling me, you know, as
with your son as I was with his son, I
want you to do better than I did, and I'm
going to do everything I can to help you get there.
So the big thing is, you know, the better you do,
the more we're all going to make. From a business perspective,
think about it that way, not more from an ego perspective.
(14:19):
You know, I want credit for this, I did this
or that. That was the one thing he instilled in me,
He said, be smart about it. You know, this is
your family, and who can you trust more than your family?
And now that's talking about our family per se. But
you know, somebody going into the next step, it's challenging.
I was again, like I said earlier, the thing that
really was difficult for me was I didn't want to
(14:41):
make a mistake. I just didn't want to make any mistakes,
and so I was overly cautious and I take maybe
too long to make decisions, and I overthought it, you know,
And my dad said, look, just it was good common sense.
And one thing he always used to tell me, Look,
if it's too complicated, it's probably not a good deal,
so keep it as simple as you possibly can.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
I like that advice. It seems today more than ever,
every deal, everything you do, is much more complicated than
it used to be. Of a similar age, I remember,
you know, doing ad deals where you signed a doily
in a restaurant over lunch, the way your father did
on the golf course. They may may even make a
decision on a negotiating point if I hit this butt yes.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
Well now, yeah, I mean, you have to have ten
attorney's in there before you sign anything. The world has changed,
as you know, very latigenous today, so you have to
be very careful. But that was not the way he
liked to do business.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
Yeah, No, no, the way I think a lot of
people like to do it in which we can get
back to some of that, Yes, for sure. So how's
the team looking. How are you feeling going into the season.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
Oh, you know, I feel good every year, so, you know,
I don't know if it's just I'm optimistic like that.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
You know. I just loved the change we made last year.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
You're with our new general manager, Joel Ortiz, and of
course Jim Harbar a new head coach, and we've changed
some other or football football individuals in that that area,
and I feel very good. The structure is a little
bit different, uh, the the attitude, you know, just the
way people feel in general around the office in all parts,
(16:16):
whether it's the business part of the football part. Jim
has brought this new I call it magic to this organization.
It's hard for me to describe to you unless you
spend time with him.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
I lived in Michigan and so I'm familiar with him
and what he did while he was there was pretty tremendous. Yeah,
is a sense of energy. Yes, there's an aura that's
there that can't be explained.
Speaker 3 (16:38):
Unless you sit and talk with him. And he's he's
he just gets you going, you know. And he's the
most positive person I've ever met in my life. Just
everything is positive. Positive. You know, you've heard him say
who has it better than us? And then you know nobody.
But the real answer is the future us. That's his
new answer to that. But you know it just that's
(17:01):
his mentality. And I've met his mom and dad and
you have to you know, if you meet his mom
and dad, you'll know why he's like that. Okay, And
there's a lot of credit to his mom and dad
for how they raised him and his brother John.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
Let's saying.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
It seems to be the theme of our interview today, Yes,
which which is nice. And once again I'm speaking with
Dean Spanos, the owner and chairman of the board of
the Los Angeles Chargers. Thank you so much for coming on.
This is Paul Corvino, Division President of iHeartMedia saying thank
you for listening to another episode of CEOs you Should Know.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
Listen to CEOs you Should Know on the iHeartRadio app.
This is CEOs.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
You should know with division President of iHeartMedia, Paul Corvino.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
Today I have the honor and privilege of talking with
Dean Spanos, owner and Chairman of the board of the
Los Angeles Chargers.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Welcome, Thank you, Paul. It's great to be here with you.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
Before we start these interviews and learn about your journey.
What I like to do is a quick Q and
a rapid fire question that gets the mind working and
the mouth moving.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
You ready, I'll give it my best.
Speaker 1 (00:31):
Gotta go quick though, Okay, Okay, beat your ski vacation
ski Michael Jordan or Tom Brady.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
Tom Brady, she said, justin Herbert.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Okay, we'll get that next time.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
A true question and tell me they're gonna be true questions.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
Beatles are stones, beatles, star Wars or godfather Godfather Sean
Connery or Daniel Craig, Sean Connery. Celebrity people say.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
You remind them of Jim Belucci.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Jim Belucci. Okay, I was going to say maybe Kelsey Grammar.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
Maybe he's got more hair.
Speaker 1 (01:05):
Let's talk a little bit about your journey. CEO and
chairman of a professional sports team, which to many people
is the ultimate dream I wanted to learn a little
bit more about how it started. We first talked a
little bit about your father child of a Greek immigrant family.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
Yeah, he was a child of Greek immigrants, as was
my mother, from different parts of Greece, but all four
of their parents came over from Greece, so they were
the first generation here in America. But they were raised
as one hundred percent Greek from Greece, if you will, okay.
And my dad met my mother during the war. He
(01:42):
was stationed in Tampa. Dad was raised in Stockton, California,
and they got married in I think nineteen forty eight,
and I came along shortly thereafter.
Speaker 1 (01:53):
What was your parents' business?
Speaker 3 (01:55):
Okay, So my father was in the bakery business. His father,
my grandpa there was a baker by trade, and my
mother's father was a cobbler. He was a shoemaker, and
you know, they were both raised during the Depression, so
they came from poor families obviously, but that's their background.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
Funny, Like, my grandfather is a shoemaker also, oh really okay,
and a bootlegger.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
Oh, I don't know about that.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
We'll stuggest with the shoemaker. You know, Italian immigrant family
similar stories. You and I are similar age. How did
your father go from you know, living in Stockton in
a family that owned the bakery right to building up
an empire and becoming an owner of a sports franchise.
Speaker 3 (02:39):
Well, he was in a bakery nineteen fifty fifty one,
you know, fifty two, and he wasn't making very much money.
My grandfather wouldn't give him a raise, and he decided
to go on his own and he started a catering business.
And back then, this is pre automation, you know, stocking
in an agricultural community, and everything was handpicked, all the crops,
(03:05):
the tomatoes, everything, and so the farmers had no way
to feed the farm labor that was out there harvesting
the crops. So my dad knew most of the farmers,
he grew up with them. So we started making box lunches,
my mom and dad, and delivering them to the farmers
to feed the farm labor. And then from there it
grow in grew into where he actually went out to.
(03:28):
It was called Stockton Field, the airport, and there was
one of the biggest military depots during World War two
for deporting stuff to Europe, you know, bombs and whatever
they used to make and men, and there was about
twelve thousand barracks for twelve thousand men out there during
the war, obviously soldiers. And now he could house and
(03:50):
feed and transport the labor to and from the crops.
And that's how we started in business, and that's how
we started making his money, you know, so to speak.
And then in the late fifties, nineteen sixty or so,
automation started coming around. He could see the end of
that business because it was taking all that labor out,
(04:11):
and so he had transcended in the mid to late
fifties investing in real estate and he was in the
Bay Area, mostly San Jose, San Francisco, Oakland, that part
of the Bay Area, and started building small apartment complexes
and phased out of the catering business and went into
the construction business.
Speaker 2 (04:32):
And that was the.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
Start of our company, our Famili's company, where we really
started building apartments all over the country.
Speaker 1 (04:39):
Nineteen sixty What year did he buy the team and
how did that all come about?
Speaker 3 (04:43):
He bought the team in nineteen eighty four from Baron Hilton,
who was a friend to his. Prior to that, my
dad had always, unbeknownst to his family wanted to buy
an NFL team, and the San Francisco forty nine ers
came for sale, and he had a friend, Al Davis,
who everybody knows who Al Davis is, and Al Davis
(05:06):
mentored him a bid about you know, what it's like
to own a team financially everything, and it was trying
to persuade him to put a bid in on the
forty nine ers, which he did, and then shortly thereafter,
it was like three or four days before the bid
was approved was going to be approved by the more
Beadle family who owned the San Francisco forty nine ers.
(05:28):
Al called my dad and said, you're going to have
to raise your bid by thirty forty percent because I
think they're going to there's going to be somebody coming
in who's going to pay substantially more money. And you know,
my dad, he looked at me and I said, God,
I was just a kid at the time, you know,
I was in my early twenties. I didn't know, and
I said, sounds like a lot, you know, of an
(05:49):
increase at the last minute. And then he stayed the number.
He stayed with the bid that he put in, and
then obviously Eddie Debarto outbid us and ended up with
the team. Now was a big disappointment to him. And
along that same lines, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers was an
expansion team, and I was living in Florida time doing
(06:11):
the construction for my dad. Seattle and Tampa became expansion
teams and he been on that team, was unsuccessful. And
then shortly thereafter he was best friends with Baron Hilton
and he played golf with him, played cards when he
was purely social, no business, and he was telling him about,
(06:31):
you know how he wanted an NFL team and you know,
should he invest in you know, it was the USFL
at that time, you know, non NFL leagues so to speak.
And Baron said, oh, you don't want to do that.
You know, I still own thirty percent of the Chargers.
As you know, Baron Hilton was the founder of the
LA Chargers in nineteen sixty and he still retained thirty
(06:53):
percent because he subsequently sold it to Jane Klein in
nineteen sixty six and he said, I'll sell you ten percent,
and they were playing golf at bel Air Country Club
and they shook hands and made a deal. My dad
bought ten percent of the San Diego Chargers then and
that's the true story, and sent him a check on Monday.
There was no contract or anything. That was in nineteen
(07:14):
eighty and ended up with ten percent of the team
and then four years later bought the team from Jeane Klin.
Speaker 1 (07:20):
Well that's exciting. So now tell me about your relationship
with your father and how you mentioned that Al Davis
mentored him.
Speaker 3 (07:27):
Well, we had an individual that worked at the University
of California, Berkeley back in the sixties and he was
from Stockton, grew up with my dad, and he actually
came to work for us and ran all our public relations.
He actually introduced my dad Al Davis. And there was
no reason why he just met him. He said, an
interesting character. You want to meet the guy, and so
(07:47):
he befriended him. They liked each other, and I guess
when this whole thing came about, you know, they started
talking a lot and they became even closer, and I
think he was the mpluencing factor and getting my dad, really,
as I said before, to get.
Speaker 2 (08:04):
Him to make a bit on this team.
Speaker 1 (08:06):
He's the right guy to be mentored by. To me, yeah,
by a team. So tell me about how you learn
the business and how your father taught you not just
to run a franchise, but you were in the real
estate business and.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
A construction business.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
So I started in nineteen seventy two, moved to the
East Coast, Florida, that's where my mother's from. And I
was there for seven years, and you know, my dad
took me there. Was calling him every day, twice a day,
you know, for a couple months, and he said, stop
calling me. He said, just make the decisions yourself.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
And I was young, I mean, and.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
From my prospective was this nineteen seventy three, seventy four,
seventy five, and I, you know, my thing was, I
just didn't want to make a mistake. And he said,
you're going to make mistakes. Just make your mistakes, just
don't make them again. That's what he always used to
tell me. But stop calling me so And it was
a little unsettling because I'd always looked to him, you know,
it was easy. What do you want to do? You know,
(09:02):
he said, you got to do what you think is right.
That's the only way you're going to learn. And that
was one of the most important lessons he ever taught
me about business.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Make your decisions. Learn from your decision.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
You are going to make mistakes, just don't make it
in that same mistrey, not to make it again. Yeah, yeah,
When did you take over the helms at the for
the Chargers?
Speaker 3 (09:19):
So in nine Dad bought the team, the whole team
control of the team. Nineteen eighty four and nineteen ninety four,
he kind of stepped back a little bit and said,
you know, why don't you go ahead and run it now.
Speaker 1 (09:31):
Between eighty four and ninety four, before you ran it,
were you working for the organization?
Speaker 3 (09:34):
I was working both in construction and the football business.
And we were in San Diego at the time, So
I was I was the family member who moved to
San Diego, and so mom and Dad stayed up in
northern California. But Dad would come down every week, as
would my mom, but they'd always go back there. He
was born and raised and lived to be ninety six
(09:55):
in Stockton, California.
Speaker 2 (09:57):
That was his home.
Speaker 1 (09:58):
Running a sports franchise, a football team in particular, is
not just signing checks and bringing on free agents and
putting a team together. It is a lot that goes on.
What are some of the things that keep you up
at night that are really challenging that you've got to overcome.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
Well, it depends what time of the year you're talking about.
During the season, you know, you have a lot of
sleepless nights. I try not to because I can't control
anything once the season starts.
Speaker 2 (10:23):
You know, we're in.
Speaker 3 (10:24):
Motion, so there's not a whole lot you can do
at that point. Like right now, we have the draft
coming up. You know, we just finished pretty much free agency,
and so you know, there's not a lot I can
do about where we are right now today. But the
draft is a very important part of our season for us,
even though it's not the middle of the season. Pausily playing,
(10:46):
and so I worry about that because you know, we
need we have ten picks, and we want to get
as many of those guys as starting for us as
we possibly can. Again, I can't control that. We have
a great general manager and a great coach, and my son,
John Spanles is in charge. I used the president of
football Operations.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
To his family. So you're training him the way your
father trained.
Speaker 3 (11:05):
More than that, he's he's really running right now. So
that makes it a lot easier for me. But you know,
I try to keep even keeled. You know, I don't
want to get too many swings in my thinking because
you can't make good decisions. The worst thing you can
do is after a loss on Sunday, make a decision
on Monday because you're so emotional and you really need
(11:26):
to take a day to settle down.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
That's a good lesson for any business.
Speaker 3 (11:30):
Yeah, And you know, I just try not to get
too high and too low and till the end of
the season when it really starts counting if you're going
to make the playoffs or not. But you know, you
can't help. But that's just human nature, you know. I
get excited just like everybody else.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
I'm sitting here in this tremendous studio is spectacular and
this building is great. Tell us a little bit about
this building and what you plan on doing here.
Speaker 3 (11:51):
Well, this is our new training headquarters in Elseagondo. It
was about, you know, seven eight years in process of
you know, planning and everything else. And I think it's
close to one hundred and fifty one hundred and sixty
thousand square feet. Very proud of it, state of the art,
and we probably have about three hundred people that work
(12:14):
in here now counting everybody. And to me, we just
today I was down having breakfast and we have the
New York Giants part of their staff here visiting because
they're going to build a new training center and they
wanted to see what we did, and they were, you know,
just like blown away, like this is really nice, and
you know, it's a recruiting tool. It makes a statement
(12:34):
in the community about the Chargers. We're here, this is
where we want to be, obviously, and it adds to
El Segondo to La and when players come in here,
they go, Wow, this is pretty nice, and that's what
we want.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
I walked in.
Speaker 1 (12:47):
I'm in studios. We run radio studios and throughout the country,
and so I am I'm familiar with with what I'm
looking at and they walk in here and this is
very very impressive.
Speaker 2 (12:58):
Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
And it was a lot of hard work went into it,
and we're still it's going to take us another season
to get everything finished the way we want. But in
the studio, we're very proud of.
Speaker 1 (13:08):
What advice would you give to someone who is in
business whose father was very successful and they're going to
move to the next level, not you know, you've seen
a lot of stories where it doesn't work and in
your case, yourself and your son, you've got a great
track record for success. What advice would you give someone
(13:31):
in a similar situation, Well.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
I would say that, you know, a lot of people
have been critical and are critical of nepotism, and my
dad was a firm believer that, and I've heard him
say it one hundred times. You know, nepotism can be
the greatest thing in the world. Too, Jealousy and all
those things that go along with failure is what kills it,
you know, and makes nepotism have a negative connotation to it.
(13:56):
And so he was always telling me, you know, as
with your son as I was with his son, I
want you to do better than I did, and I'm
going to do everything I can to help you get there.
So the big thing is, you know, the better you do,
the more we're all going to make. From a business perspective,
think about it that way, not more from an ego perspective.
(14:19):
You know, I want credit for this, I did this
or that. That was the one thing he instilled in me,
He said, be smart about it. You know, this is
your family, and who can you trust more than your family?
And now that's talking about our family per se. But
you know, somebody going into the next step, it's challenging.
I was again, like I said earlier, the thing that
really was difficult for me was I didn't want to
(14:41):
make a mistake. I just didn't want to make any mistakes,
and so I was overly cautious and I take maybe
too long to make decisions, and I overthought it, you know,
And my dad said, look, just it was good common sense.
And one thing he always used to tell me, Look,
if it's too complicated, it's probably not a good deal,
so keep it as simple as you possibly can.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
I like that advice. It seems today more than ever,
every deal, everything you do, is much more complicated than
it used to be. Of a similar age, I remember,
you know, doing ad deals where you signed a doily
in a restaurant over lunch, the way your father did
on the golf course. They may may even make a
decision on a negotiating point if I hit this butt yes.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
Well now, yeah, I mean, you have to have ten
attorney's in there before you sign anything. The world has changed,
as you know, very latigenous today, so you have to
be very careful. But that was not the way he
liked to do business.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
Yeah, No, no, the way I think a lot of
people like to do it in which we can get
back to some of that, Yes, for sure. So how's
the team looking. How are you feeling going into the season.
Speaker 3 (15:44):
Oh, you know, I feel good every year, so, you know,
I don't know if it's just I'm optimistic like that.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
You know. I just loved the change we made last year.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
You're with our new general manager, Joel Ortiz, and of
course Jim Harbar a new head coach, and we've changed
some other or football football individuals in that that area,
and I feel very good. The structure is a little
bit different, uh, the the attitude, you know, just the
way people feel in general around the office in all parts,
(16:16):
whether it's the business part of the football part. Jim
has brought this new I call it magic to this organization.
It's hard for me to describe to you unless you
spend time with him.
Speaker 1 (16:27):
I lived in Michigan and so I'm familiar with him
and what he did while he was there was pretty tremendous. Yeah,
is a sense of energy. Yes, there's an aura that's
there that can't be explained.
Speaker 3 (16:38):
Unless you sit and talk with him. And he's he's
he just gets you going, you know. And he's the
most positive person I've ever met in my life. Just
everything is positive. Positive. You know, you've heard him say
who has it better than us? And then you know nobody.
But the real answer is the future us. That's his
new answer to that. But you know it just that's
(17:01):
his mentality. And I've met his mom and dad and
you have to you know, if you meet his mom
and dad, you'll know why he's like that. Okay, And
there's a lot of credit to his mom and dad
for how they raised him and his brother John.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
Let's saying.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
It seems to be the theme of our interview today, Yes,
which which is nice. And once again I'm speaking with
Dean Spanos, the owner and chairman of the board of
the Los Angeles Chargers. Thank you so much for coming on.
This is Paul Corvino, Division President of iHeartMedia saying thank
you for listening to another episode of CEOs you Should Know.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
Listen to CEOs you Should Know on the iHeartRadio app.
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