The ROAR Podcast: Mike Carney

He started his career as an engineer at NASA. A few years later, he was working at a concession register at a big league ballpark. Mike Hardy will tell you, those two things are closer together than they might sound. Mike spent a decade with the Washington Nationals. He arrived in 2015 when the club was collecting almost no usable data about his own fans. He left running business operations with a World Series banner in between. But the memory he goes back to isn't the parade. He's coming out of the shutdown, zip-tying seats, re-manifesting the ballpark. Everybody doing work that was nowhere in their job description. Today, he's building On Deck Partners, a minor league baseball venture platform inside Avenue Capital's group sports fund. Three clubs so far. Vassella, Montgomery, and Wilmington. And here's where it gets interesting. Most sports real estate conversations start with the same premise. The venue is the anchor. The district around it is the return. Mike's thesis runs the other direction. On Deck isn't a developer. It isn't trying to earn its return on real estate. It wants whatever gets built around the ballpark to push more people through the ballpark gates. Symbiotic, not one way. In a small and mid-sized market, he argues, that isn't a stretch. The ballpark already is the entertainment hub for the whole community. Adam and Mike get into it all. what institutional capital unlocks in minor league baseball, what multi-club ownership buys a lean front office, and why Mike sees AI in minor league baseball as a growth play, never a headcount play. Plus, where he's still unwilling to let it near the fan. I'm Bryce Clinton, and this is The Roar Podcast.

Welcome to The Roar Podcast. I'm your host, Adam Grossman. With me today is Mike Hardy. Mike, welcome to the podcast. Thanks so much for having me, Adam. Yeah, thanks for joining. We were just talking a little bit before we jumped on about how we're friends and we're hoping this conversation resembles some of our conversations that we've had in many ways. In some ways, some of the things we both had to deal with when we've been talking in terms of calls from bosses or owners. So hopefully we'll just, we'll be able to carry our friendship into this conversation. So looking forward to it. I want to start the conversation. We start all our conversations, which is tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got to the role that you're in today.

Absolutely. Well, again, thanks for having me here. Joined what is now called On Deck Partners last year in May as part of the Avenue Capital Group under Mark Lazzari and Sonya Gardner. And really, you know, our purpose was to, you know, come into minor league baseball communities and build something great and really leverage all the great things in these towns and continue to add upon all those great things. Prior to this new venture was with the Washington Nationals for 10 years, the last half of which was leading business operations for the team. Really loved the Washington Nationals, loved Major League Baseball, wanted to be able to stay in the industry and try something new and really invest in these local communities. And this opportunity