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HBSE names Thaddeus “Tad” Brown as CEO |
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Harris Blitzer Sports Entertainment announced that former Houston Rockets executive Tad Brown will be named CEO of HSBE, which owns the Philadelphia 76ers, New Jersey Devils and Prudential Center.
My Take:
As a business move, HBSE got someone with experience and can grow the brands exponentially. Brown’s resume includes having experience in creating a regional sports network, elevating the Rockets into a global brand (especially in China), and orchestrating a then-record sale of the NBA team back in 2017. During his tenure with the Rockets, Houston had the second best record in the NBA.
That is all fine and dandy. The question is: Will that translate to wins for the New Jersey Devils?
Under former CEO Scott O’Neill, Devils fans heard about “Trust The Process” mantra from his time with the 76ers and under his leadership, they ripped the entire Devils organization down completely. So far, it resulted in a never-ending rebuild that resulted in only one playoff win and appearance (thanks to Taylor Hall’s MVP season) since Joshua Harris and David Blitzer taking over the team from Jeff Vanderbeek in 2013.
Brown is a successful basketball guy. His biggest challenge: Can he take that same success and bring it over to the New Jersey Devils? Hockey is more of a team sport than basketball. You can’t just have “Big Three” players collude with monster contracts and just win games by playing majority of the minutes in the game. It will be interesting to see if he can adapt.
For sure, I believe Brown can bring some game day experience excitement to the Prudential Center. But the Devils need to start winning first before any of this is meaningful.
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Sam Woo is co-host and executive producer of the Let's Go Devils Podcast which can be heard live every Sunday at 9pm ET and Wednesday at 8:30pm ET.
You can follow Sam on Twitter: @PrimetimeSamWoo
New Jersey Devils Blogger • 
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