The Backroom Sport (Maddux Business Report)

By Bob Andelman
Maddux Business Report June 2008
Cover Story

In the business of luring Super Bowls, communities must nail the brutal politics of pro football, tackle the gentle embrace of team owners, try a quarterback sneak with free golf, and, most of all, pound the importance of patience.

Tampa Bay hosted its third Super Bowl for the National Football League in 2001 and by all accounts performed magnificently. But then it was back to the end of the line and the re- start of the unofficial eight-year city rotation.

Opportunity came knocking – sort of – in October 2004, when the area was invited to Chicago to bid for the 2008 Super Bowl against Phoenix, Washington, D.C., and Miami.

“We lost that bid to Phoenix,” recalls Paul Catoe, president of Tampa Bay & Co., the Tampa convention & visitors bureau. “We kind of knew going in that we would lose that. The NFL invites you to the table; we felt good about being invited. But we knew we were there to be one of the competing cities. It was told to us that Phoenix, which just got a new stadium, was going to get that.”

Still the Super Bowl Task Force summoned an all-star squadron for its presumed futility, including General Tommy Franks and Outback Steakhouse co-founder Chris Sullivan.

A year and a half later, Tampa Bay took the NFL’s call again. Going into the May 2005 dog-and-pony show for the 2009 Super Bowl, the invitation list also included Miami, Atlanta, and Houston.

“We felt we were seeded higher this time; we felt we were No. 2,” Catoe says. “But we thought it was going to Atlanta. They had committed millions to their stadium. Their owner, Arthur Blank, the co-founder of The Home Depot, was very impressive. We thought they would get the nod. We thought Miami was there for window dressing because they had already been awarded the 2007 Super Bowl. Houston had the Super Bowl in 2003; we didn’t think they’d go back to Houston so soon. Our competition was Atlanta, the favorite son. We thought with Arthur Blank’s personality, that they would win.”

But Tampa Bay’s business, civic, and governmental leaders nonetheless chose to put their best foot forward and take a whack at the billion-dollar pigskin piñata.

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All stories and interviews (c) 2008 by Bob Andelman. All rights reserved. Some stories may appear in unedited versions that are different from their print counterparts.

Under the Microscope (Maddux Business Report Cover Story)

A close look at two potentially huge research deals. Details as to how they came about have been widely publicized, but there's more. Like what will it take for them to succeed?

By Bob Andelman
Maddux Business Report
July 2007
Cover Story

Tampa Bay's boosters could tout existing biotech and marine science clusters in the Tampa Bay area until they were blue in the face before some skeptics would ever take them seriously. But as 2006 drew to a close, two blockbuster developments suddenly made yesterday’s homers seem positively prescient.

Merck & Co., Inc., the $113-billion global pharmaceutical manufacturer, announced in December 2006 the beginning of a partnership between its Rosetta Inpharmatics subsidiary and Tampa's H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute to conduct gene expression studies.

But as big a noise as that made, it was actually the second major research affiliation announced around that time.

The first, that Menlo Park, California-based SRI International would absorb the Center for Ocean Technology at the University of South Florida and create a new marine science technology division in St. Petersburg, was equally monumental.

“These deals reflect what we’ve been preaching,” says Stuart Rogel, president and CEO of the Tampa Bay Partnership, “We have a strong, robust and developing research community within the university and cancer center. There are smart people there doing important things for the world we live in. In the case of Merck, it’s a large research project that might lead to drug discovery and commercial applications. But it has a tremendous research application for Moffitt. And with SRI, it’s a matter of transferring the technology within USF that can create viability entities and opportunities. We’re excited to have them both here.

“This is a start, not an ending point,” he says. “The goal is to fulfill the promise that these deals represent and make sure we continue to grow the technology presence in the Tampa Bay region. These two major successes give us visibility and recognition.”

That view is shared in Washington, D.C., as well, where Under Secretary of Commerce for Technology Robert Cresanti is well versed in developments here in the bay area; he was at USF in February.

“I think it is a hallmark of your area to attract companies like that, through the investments the state has made,” Cresanti says. “These guys have access to equipment in Florida that they wouldn’t have elsewhere. It’s fascinating, the research that’s going on at Moffitt in particular. There is a breakthrough just around the corner that will make the quantity and quality of life significantly improved. We’re going to see cancer as a manageable disease and not a death sentence.”

Neither the dust nor the dollars have settled in either partnership yet, but the imaginations of regional research, technology and economic development communities are in overdrive.

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