THE OTP: Steve Underwood's Exit Interview

until just days ago. Steve Underwood, your exit interview on the Official Titans Podcast, We welcome. I'm looking forward to it, Mike, and thanks to our friends at Farm Bureau. That's good stuff,

all right. So we have done interviews with you in the past, and we've talked about so much history, and if people haven't listened to your ot from twenty eighteen, we certainly want to encourage them to do that because the talk of the move and everything that went with it is fascinating, particularly as we enter sort of the second stage of the Titans, going into the second generation. But I want to talk about the most recent incarnation

of your time with the team and how fascinating. It is from the standpoint you retire in two thousand eleven, you head back to Texas. You love retirement. Things are going well, Texas is good, and life is good, and everything's going well, and then in two and fifteen the phone starts ringing. Did you consider turning it down? And did you think you'd be here five years? I never necessarily considered turning it down. I did go to my wife, Francis and asked her if she was going to be

okay with it. Of course, what I've to her, Mike, was what Amy had pitched me, which was a couple of months. Francis and I had or I had had a project under the way for many years, which was to buy a brand new Corvette and take delivery of it at the assembly facility and boweling brain, and I had put aside the money. It had taken me many many years to save the money for the car, and because we still had children at home and still going to college, I had never committed money to buy the car.

And Francis said, I'll go along with it, see if you'll go ahead, and the order year of car wow, which I did, and we she and I picked it up in July, after I had started work in Nashville in March. Actually started to believe it or not, Mike at the NFL's annual owner meetings, which that year were in Phoenix at the Billmore and that's where my first day on the job was. Of course, I know most of all those people I knew, and many of them remembered me from other clubs and from the league office

and so forth. Then it was several months later and he said, Hey, we're still going through the transition. Would you mind staying through the end of the season That would have been the twenty fifteen regular season. And again I consulted with Francis and we were okay with it. But all that time I was trying to help them look for someone to be their permanent resident in charge

executive in charge. And from time to time I would send them lists and resumes and this guy might be good, you might want to interview this guy, and I would never hear anything back from an After several months of that, I mean, I was still sending things, but I think any sort of cut off for foreclosed further discussion of it by saying, well, could you stay through the end of the season, so we put all that on the hole, the search for someone permanent, and kept working on the

projects that we were trying to address. Now, I want to hit something personally about you before we move forward. I would bet that the thought about a Corvette started when you were a young man coming from You don't come from royalty, as you mentioned on many occasions. You come from most humble beginnings, right, And many people in this country have who have come from humble beginnings have

a car dream. We are the land of cars. Obviously they were invented here, and so that that sort of factored into the process, is that this had been a lifelong dream? Correct? Oh? Well, in high school I worked at a gas pumping gas, which is something, of course people don't do anymore except in the state of New Jersey.

But I was pumping gas and making dollar and a quarter an hour, and there was a guy in town who had a silver steam Ray of the fastback model in nineteen sixty three, and I became just totally enamored of his car. And then from that point on, every time I would see a Corvette while I was I would get at least a little excited and became more and more in love with the car over time, and then finally, some time in the mid eighties, I started

a secret slush fund to buy a Corvette. I eventually told Francis about it after I had a few thousand dollars in it, and some weeks I was not able to save anything. Other weeks I would stay, you know, a few dollars. So the savings process for the car lasted almost thirty years, and over that time I built up enough money to actually buy the car. But by then I had two kids at Baylor, and you know, was a little concerned about making sure that we could

pay for all that. Our son was still living up until twenty eleven, so I had had that concern as well. But all of those things were pretty much taken care of by the time I went back to work, and my wife had pity on me and said, we'll go ahead and order the car and then I'll be okay

with you. Got I think it's an important part of the Steve Underwood story, though, because where you come from, how you came up with mister Adams, how hard you had to work, how you advanced through the organization, and the fact that you would save in that way tells a lot about your story, which is why I wanted to bring it out, and I think it also tells why she picked up the phone and called you at this point, because when you walked back into Saint Thomas

Sports Parks, mess Let's face it. So let me ask you, at the moment you walked back into the office in the spring of twenty fifteen, what were the first things that had to be addressed to get the taiton straight. Of all the concerns that Aby and I had at that moment in time, the biggest one to me was what I was described as among our staff, a sort of deep, abiding concern about the direction the team was

going and our future outlook as an NFL club. Mister Adams had passed away, but people there really never gotten much of a chance to interact with Tommy and Susie. Tommy became with the president immediately after mister Adams's death, and Susie was controlling owner. We had a relatively new head coach in ken wizen Hunt. Now we had another new owner that no one really knew, an interim president who had just finished being retired for over three years.

Had to try to be constructive about it. Had not really had very competitive football teams for a number of years. All those things I think weight on the staff. On top of that, there was an owner who seemed to be inexperienced about what to do about an NFL team. Now you understand this, Mike, and many of our listeners will understand. NFL teams changing hands sends a very difficult message to your staff because new owners do things like

fire everybody in sight and start over again. So I think there was this sort of overlay among all of the people on the football and business side about Okay, well, what does all this mean for us and for our families? Where are we going and who are these leaders and what do we know about them? But to me, the single largest concern was getting our staff on board with what was going to happen and having a program that they could be leaving and could trust, because those are

the things that make for successful organizations. But that was the biggest, single problem in resetting this thing and gaining stability. Probably the most important factor to me was people getting to know Amy Adam Strunk and for the league totally and for everybody. I mean, it seems like that is the real story of her success Over five years. Is that once people got to know or whether it was other owners, whether it was the NFL office, whether it was our fan base, whether it was the staff, it

didn't make any difference. Once that was in place, things started to stabilize. Was that the key people getting to know her, oh totally. You know, getting to know her or anyone else for that matter, is a process that takes time. It's just like restoring the confidence of our staff.

We had to work at any getting exposure because, as you suggest, once people get an opportunity to meet her, see how down to earth and friendly she is, which, by the way, and again without trying to cast as versions was those were not necessarily qualities that mister Adams had, but his daughter has them richly. So getting exposure to the league's staff to lead officials to our own employees who never really had much way to know anything about Annie.

My view has always been that mister Adams left the impression and with other owners, that he suspected his children would sell the team, and I have reason to believe that that's the impression that he intended to leave. But as it turned out, Annie had no intention at all of so neither did Kenneth and his family for that matter. They wanted to be successful in our business and make a name in a mark for themselves, which is very understandable.

And once it became clear to everyone that Amy was not going to sell, by the way, another process that took some time. There were a lot of non believers about all that. But once they became convinced not only that she wasn't selling, but that she was going to do whatever was necessary to be successful in our business

on and off the field. As you can see, not only with our business and with our football, with the draft and with improvements at Nissan Stadium and all of the other things that have happened, to say nothing of our playoff run last year, they became believers in aiming. And that was probably the greatest single thing that happened during that time period that she made the impression on people that it was not time to give up on us,

it was time to double them. In her time owners, she's gone from being an unknown figure almost in oiler history. Fairly or unfairly, she was not known by many people to where she now has a position of prominence not only in this community, but she has an amount of respect around the league that most owners don't have as you, and I'm surprised some business school hasn't studied it because it really is quite a case study. Why is she

so good at this? What is it about her that allowed her to come from such a different business and step into this and do this so well? There are at least two or three things, in my opinion. First of all, Amy has remarkably good instincts about our business. You know, you sit down an interview five executives who have made their own mark in the NFL as player personnel directors are in charge of scouting departments, our assistant GM,

and pick the one person. I'm not saying there weren't other people in that group who couldn't have been a GM, because Chris Ballard has done a great job at Indianapolis. But Amy's decision about John was the product, in my opinion, of having great instincts, not necessarily about football, but about people. She's very good, I think at reading people, not just John Robinson, but all of us. She's very insightful in that way. I think another gift of Amy's is that

she has great and good common sense. She does the right thing for the right reason. Almost every time. That doesn't exist in every owner that I've ever met. Amy is more a student of people and more trying to get to know and understand them, and has the ability, which is not commonplace Mike, to pick out great people from a crowd. Those are some of the qualities that I so admired her. It seems like two. She has something that a lot of you Texans seem to be

quite proud of. She has quite a bs meeter. Yes, she has a be She can identify it from a from a good ways away. And I almost always return to this because it's been such an important part of the five years that I've been back. John's hiring is a great piece of our history and one of Amy's boldest moves as an owner. We had assembled a great

group of candidates, you know. Martin Mayhew was in that group, still an executive with forty nine ers, Chris Ballard, who is a general manager of great standing in his own right, and we spent three or four hours with each of the five or six men that he interviewed. Kenneth was also in the room, I might add, but when it was over, John Bull, I mean, Amy believed that John was the best choice, and her instincts had proven to

be sound, I think is a good word. So picking someone out of a group like that, that's a quality that's, in my opinion, Mike pretty rare. And while her dad did from time to time exhibit a good instinct. You know, he hired Mike Halliback when Mike was seventy four years old. That was another kind of bold thing. I thought Mike had worked kind of behind the scenes and labored in

obscurity for all those many years. Not two other football executives, but to the league in general, most most everyone knew Michael was a superb football talented later, but getting to be able to pass judgment on someone with just three or four hours together with them, and you know, John doesn't really have what I would consider to be you use the term bs. He doesn't really mence a lot

of words about That isn't something that he does. He thinks about what his position is, he tries to gather as much information as he can, and he makes a decision. And he has never tried to lay behind the log with me. In our conversations and discussions, they've been very direct and very candid, And those are qualities that great general managers into it. You immediately put together a team of people that you work with on an executive level.

When you came back at twenty and twenty fifteen and you had what you called strategic imperatives, Yes, what were the strategic imperatives and why are they important for the Titans to establish those? Even if they aren't as sexy as trading the first round pick and picking Jack Conklin and things like that, But you were trying to lay down some things from the business side that would improve

things strategically and for the fan base. Yes, every executive, whether you're with the NFL or xon Mobile or the flower shop down the street, needs to have a set of super priorities that relate to the future of the business. What do we need to look at or work on to be successful, not just now, but five years from now, ten years from now. What we do now and what current problems we're facing those matter, of course, but what we want our business to look like a couple of

years from now, ten years from now. Those are things that need to be set out and everyone needs to get on board about it. So one of the things that any leader, a business leader needs to do is make sure that his team understands what is most important to him and in this case, to our owner, because

we review those with aiming as well. If you have your senior staff on board and people thinking about and working on and working toward those objectives, you're likely to have a decent chance to meet the need when it finally comes. So our strategic objectives were established fairly on and they included our local revenue growth. We're in a small market. There are teams that have multiples of our local revenue. We have to compete with them both on

the stadium side of the football side. There are a lot of competitive circuit breakers that the league uses to try and ensure equal competition on the field, but you still have to pay everyone. You still have to have money to do that. Another objective that we have worked on very hard is stadium security. I realized from time to time we've irritated some fans about the links we go to to try and make sure there are no

weapons in the stadium. But stadium security has been a long time strategic objective of ours, and when I have been asked about it in other settings, yeah, we do go through a lot of effort about screening, and I realize nobody thinks anything is very likely to happen. There are also very few people who thought that terrorists were going to fly airplanes into skyscrapers. You know, we want to be able to say about our stadium security. We did everything we knew to do and everything the experts

told us to try and keep everybody safe. And if there's never an issue, great, you won't find anyone happier about it than I am. But if there is an issue, I want us to be able to say, hey, we were given a list of things to do, protocols to follow, objectives to achieve, and we did everything that we could

within reason to get that done. Capital spending at Nissan Stadium is another strategic objective of ours, not only because we're spending so much money to try and make the stadium better and more fan friendly, but also because we have a metropolitan government and sports authority to think about.

And of course we have many things waiting in the queue to get done, and they fit into a number of categories, but it suffices to say they are something that we have to look at strategically because we care what the stadium is going to look like and be like in terms of the fan experienced five and ten years from now. The physical growth of our facilities is another strategic objective of ours. As you know, we have added a net of eighty incremental people since I came

back to work five years ago. All those people need a place to work. I mean they're all working from home at the moment, or most of them are, but they do have to have a place to be in a workspace. I think that's something that is important to every employee and every staff person. Well, we had to get a new building, and it's going to be a forty thousand square foot building, and it's going to take a lot of planning, a lot of effort, and a lot of money to get it built and get it

furnished and occupied. Those are some of the things that we've worked on. The twenty nineteen NFL Draft and Nashville that we hosted was another strategic objective of ours. It's off the list now, but there'll always be something to try and take its place, because you need four or five or six things that everyone is dialed into and working on pretty much all the time at every NFL club. We're not a static enterprise, and we have to continue improve.

When Phil Brettison wanted to bring pro sports to Nashville, one of the reasons was the infrastructure that it would help to bring to finish off his downtown plan. The arena and the stadium as part of that infrastructure. Obviously, the arena is used for many different dates. People may not realize the stadium Nissan Stadium last year was used for over four hundred different dates. And that's something that

has been expanded greatly in the last five years. Is the nine football use of stadium on a regular basis, and that relates to our strategic objective about local revenue. The stadium has been underutilized, in my opinion or much of its existence. We have two beautiful clubs, one of which overlooks downtown and the other overlooks the confluence of three interstate highways. Maybe not quite as appealing as the river and downtown, but still something people enjoy being part of.

And then we have a bunch of other discrete spaces inside the building where you can have smaller meetings. But we also have the parking lots and so many places. You know, people love to go down to the sidelines and stand on the field kind of do the tour. We're also have a growing tour business. All of it's been sidelined at the moment because of COVID nineteen, but I think all that'll be back, and the venue business in Nashville generally is growing, mostly because Nashville is such

a great town. There's so many things to do there on the entertainment side, so many world class restaurants, attractions, things to do downtown, all of which got super viewed during the twenty nineteen NFL draft, and the events. But the events business is yet another reason why we need to continue looking for ways to grow our businesses at the stadium and utilize what is one of Nashville's greatest public works. This is the OTP presented by Farm Bureau

Health Plans. Don't get sacked by the high cost of healthcare. Make Farm Bureau Health Plans your first line of protection. They've been protecting Tennessee and since nineteen forty seven. Okay, Steve Underwood, some questions to conclude, what are you most proud of that the organization has accomplished in the last five years. You know, there are lots of accomplishments mine,

but I almost always go back to this. We're a football organization first, so winning playoff games on the road when you are a huge underdog, that is an enormous accomplishment, particularly when you haven't done well for so long. This past season is the greatest season that we've enjoyed competitively

in fifteen years or so ever. Anybody who should have their hats off to our head coach, our coaching staff, our general manager and his staff about what that means in terms of the phrase you use accomplishment, And because we are a football organization, I'm not sure you can have anything bigger than going deep into the playoffs if you're an NFL team. But there have been some other accomplishments that I think are worth mentioning. One of those

is four winning seasons in a row. Very few teams accomplished that over and over again, and I think it needs to be viewed in the light of where we came from. What were the four eight twelve seasons like that before? I think we did have one nine and seven season during Mike Munchack's ten years head coached, but it was not a playoff season. Another great accomplishment is the twenty nineteen NFL Draft that we hosted in Nashville.

I still believe that's easily the largest sporting event in the history of Tennessee and left so many positive impressions all over the country, not just about Nashville, Tennessee in general and our franchise. I thought it was a great thing too for solidifying our relationship with the League that somehow gets a little overlooked in that mix because you have six hundred thousand people and great TV ratings and

everybody having a good time. But the league also saw firsthand what Amy's management means and how committed she is to being a successful owner. So there was another knock tied in that somewhere that needs to be mentioned that doesn't get said very often. I think the designation of Nissan Stadium under the Safety Act is another under the radar thing that has happened that has benefited our club and stadium and each and every person that walks into

that build. It gives me a comfort knowing that the Homeland Security Department has looked at that building and said, you guys are doing everything correctly, We're pleased about the direction that you're going, and we're going to designate you under the Act. Again. It doesn't sound like something that's spectacular, but we devoted millions of dollars and huge resources to getting that done. My hat is still off all of our security folks, John Albertson, Floyd Hide, Bob Flynn, all

of the people that contributed to that. It's a huge accomplishment. I think our new building is also going to be another huge accomplishment. You may be able to see it up your window if you're in the building or if you're driving and buy. That's going to be a great thing for our franchise and for Amy's heritage. But all of those, as good as they are, all of those things taken back seat to being in the conference championship last game, a game we could have won, by the way,

and I think everybody should take huge pride. What's the biggest change in the NFL from your start in the nineteen seventies until now. I don't know where I read this, but sometime in seventy seven the league made a new deal with the three networks, so DLA negotiated at the same time. Because our business relies so much on live attendance, a lot of people don't think about the media and

entertainment outside of the stadium context. So that deal with the three networks was for five hundred and seventy six million dollars. That was the year. By the way, I started with the team as an outside lawyer some forty three years ago now, and five hundred and seventy six million dollars sounds like a lot of money. It is a lot of money, and it was a very big deal at the time. I think there were a lot

of people surprised. At the time. The league had just finished a sort of aboarded strike player strike, John Mackey lawsuit and so forth, and so the numbers looked huge then, but nothing in comparison to what they are now. Those numbers now are ten times that size, thousand percent growth

even over forty three years as being something small. But among the other facets of that that have to be considered are that NFL games on television, along with a few other sporting events, are really the only thing growing on network television. People more and more people are watching. There was the set back in the election year, but you know, the next two years it was up by in one case of double digits in terms of ratings. And that's not the only way people are consuming our

entertainment offers. They're watching it on digital devices, they're streaming things on mobile devices, they're listening on satellite radio, on terrestrial radio, and they are of course also going to the games in person. But another facet of watching our games in person is the fact that virtually every person walking in that stadium is bringing in a handheld digital device, and while they're watching our game, they're also looking at

other things on their cell phones iPads. What if they're bringing in with That's the reason, by the way, that we had to install a new eight and a half million dollar Wi Fi network over the past yes, eight and a half million dollars. But that's because the fan experience is changing. People are watching more than one thing at a time. And that's true whether you're at home or in an NFL stadium, or on the subway or an airplane or whatever you're doing. People are doing more

than one thing at a time. It's a huge indisha of modern society. So I think the biggest change that has happened is how many different ways pete because nobody was watching anything in their seat except the game in nineteen seventy seven when I first began, that was all that was going on. Handheld digital devices were something that was twenty twenty five years away. So the media landscape is really what has changed the most. Yeah, our players getting paid more money, you bet? Is the quality of

play better? Yes? Are we facing problems that relate to the health and safety of players? Sure, all of those things matter and all of them represent changes. By the way, in nineteen seventy seven, when I started at the orders, there was about twenty people that were employees of the football team only as a half dozen coaches. There was a general manager and an assistant GM, handful of scouts and a few of the people that are working in the ticket office. Maybe get total of twenty five or thirty.

Now you know, we've got two hundred people on our

business side. So growth, however you want to measure, whatever metrics you want to use, is something that has happened to the NFL in huge is not a big enough word to describe it, but it includes huge changes in the media landscape that you would know, Mike oh so well from your perspective in the media business, and it's I think the biggest single change that has happened is how our entertainment is being consumed and by how many people on how many different platforms there used to just

be the one and now there are many. All right, let's wrap up with this. Five decades in the National Football League for Steve Underwood. You go from pumping gas in Baytown, I got it right, Baytown, right right, pumping gas, trying to find money to go to University of Texas, dreaming of owning a corvette someday, taking out loans or you know, paying fifteen dollars a quarter whatever, and you advance all the way to become president and CEO of an NFL team. It's a great country, right, oh gosh?

So and maybe best of all, you get to go to Bowley Green to pick up your corvette after you save in your own modern day piggy bank, so to speak. But I mean, it's an American dream type story. It's an American success story. It's something that I know you and your family are proud of, the people who have worked with you are proud of it. What is your overriding memory of your time with Bud Adams, the Houston Oilers, the Tennessee Oilers, and on two occasions, the Tennessee type.

You know, Mike of all the questions you've asked today. That's the easiest. My fondest memory of all of that are all of the great people that I got to work with. I don't care what kind of leader you are, you have to have a great supporting cast. And the people that I've had the honor and privilege of working with over the last forty years just some of the greatest folks in the world. And that includes, by the way, all of our honors. I would not be where I was,

where I am if it were not for them. I wouldn't have these memories and the privileges that I have enjoyed but for our owner. So all of the people that I have worked with, having those experiences with them, there's nothing like going through a crisis with somebody that you know and trust. And there's a bunch of those people that I have gotten to work with over the years. For example, I've worked with Randy Schofield, who is the

president of our parent company. I've known Randy within weeks of the time that I first came to work there. Janine Kaufman, I've worked with Janine for over twenty years.

Russ Hudson again over twenty years, Robbie Boring over twenty years. Well, you go through enough episodes of life and business people like that, and you develop a respect level, friendship level that just there's really nothing else like it, Mike, as far as I'm concerned, I would do anything for the people that I have gotten to know and work with. I've just mentioned a handful. You know, Burt. I hired

Burt almost five years ago. He's just been a huge friend and co worker and so many of the things that we've done, so you. I have to say this, Mike, since I have the floor at the moment, there isn't anyone that works for us that I have enjoyed working with any more than you. You're such a probe and always dependable with everything that we've asked you to do. And I know we throw a lot or have thrown a lot at you. Thank you for what you have

meant to our organization. I'll always be glad and respectful of our friendship. Well, thank you, and I'm so glad that five years ago you decided to come back for a couple of months and it lasted sixty one months. I think so a Texan is a Texan all his or her life. No matter what. Once you're a Texan, you're always a Texan. We'll just remember this too. You're

also a Nashvillion and so you have both honors. And we are most glad and most glad that you took this time with us for what we'll call the exit Interview on the OTP. The privilege, husband mine, Michael, thank you for staring us for it. Steve Underwood part of this organization now and forever with us on the OTP, sponsored by our great friends at Farm Bureau Health Plans for Steve. I'm Mike Keith. Thanks for joining us for this edition of the