He’s always been a deal-maker.
Back in grade school, Joe Perello, AS ‘91, relentlessly lobbied his father as to why he, and not his sister, should attend the first game of the 1977 World Series at Yankee Stadium.
"My dad bought two tickets for the first game and I hounded him to take me," recalls Perello. "Since it was an afternoon game, Dad came to my school and got me out of class, which really impressed my buddies. Well, my sister wound up going to the next game he had tickets for, game six. You might not remember, but that’s the game where Reggie Jackson hit three home runs."
Perello relates the tale from his office in Yankee Stadium, where he is vice president of business development for the New York Yankees. His responsibilities include managing the areas of sponsorships, sales, advertising, marketing and publications, as well as merchandising and licensing operations. Oh, and, of course, answering to "The Boss."
To the uninitiated, "The Boss" is the infamous George Steinbrenner, long-time owner of the Yankees and purveyor of press box tirades, blistering clubhouse orations and wind-burnt cheeks from the revolving door of certain Yankee organization positions–most notably, managers.
As a young boy growing up in Bloomfield, N.J., Perello idolized the New York Giants football team and the mighty Yankees. At Seton Hall Preparatory School, about a dozen miles outside New York City, he competed in baseball, football, track and swimming. After enrolling at Delaware, Perello says he gradually fell into a history/journalism major and worked as a contributing editor at The Review.
"Back then, I didn’t want to be a business major; I was pretty unfocused," he concedes. "After my junior year, I traveled out to San Diego State University to visit a friend, and I wound up taking a couple of history courses and one in water skiing."
When he returned for his senior year at Delaware, Perello took a job as a part-time telemarketer for MBNA America, the credit card giant headquartered in Newark. He discovered there his gift for closing sales deals.
After graduation, he was offered a position as a manager and, though he never foresaw himself settling in Delaware, Perello worked for nine years for MBNA, with managerial positions in telemarketing, corporate sales, account management, insurance marketing, customer retention and vendor management. The New Jersey native eventually headed to New York City to help open the company’s office there.
During his two-year tenure in Manhattan, Perello managed the marketing efforts for MBNA’s sports sector, which included major league baseball and the National Football League. He developed and implemented one of the largest marketing efforts in the endorsed card industry, resulting in MBNA’s successful acquisitions of one million NFL credit card accounts.
In 1997, the Yankees were looking for a new business development vice president. A contact at Madison Square Garden referred Perello to Steinbrenner.
"Mr. Steinbrenner is someone who constantly challenges his people," explains Perello. "For many people, it’s not easy to work in this type of environment. You need to be flexible and very organized.
"You need to think everything through. He gets involved in a lot of the details, for which he takes a lot of criticism. But, it’s also the reason for the success–it’s in the attention paid to the details."
Perello’s job description is simple: Generate more revenue. He came aboard the season after the Yankees won the World Series in 1996.
"There’s so much history and tradition," he explains, raising his voice slightly. "There are so many great players and moments on the field at Yankee Stadium. What I attempt to do is partner our sponsors with that legacy, which provides them with the value they’re looking for."
Baseball surveys have shown that the Yankees have the most widespread fans of any major sports franchise, with deep pockets of loyalty in Florida and Arizona. Perello’s task is to generate fresh ideas to reach them. To that end, he initially produced a targeted database and utilized it to reach out to Yankee fans with a subscription magazine, a fan club and news on the club’s web site.
"The emotional attachment with some fans is based on winning games, and it’s obviously not always going to be like this season," observes Perello. (The Yankees won the World Series in 1998, the 24th national title in the team’s history.)
All through the ‘90s, pundits have been lamenting that baseball’s appeal to youngsters has been spiralling downward.
"When I was growing up, everyone played baseball as their first sport," he remembers. "Today, it’s not the same. You have a ton of kids playing soccer, rollerblading, spending time on computers. There are so many more choices. We’ve come up with a fan club that’s marketed especially to kids. We overload them with T-shirts, water bottles, decals and a quarterly update on their favorite players. It’s a good way to reach the next generation."
In keeping with the national love affair, in May, Perello organized a "Beanie Baby Night" at Yankee Stadium, with 25,000 distributed. That evening, David Wells pitched a perfect game.
"That was a very special night for all those kids," Perello says. "They came out for the Beanie Babies, but they saw history. If they were too young to understand, I’m sure their parents will explain the perfect game in the coming years.
"For the others who realized and cheered Wells on, it could be the cornerstone on which their allegiance to baseball is based."
–Terry Conway