Interview with AEG/LA Kings’ VP of Communications & Broadcasting Mike Altieri

Now imagine this. You are a die-hard fan of the Los Angeles Kings as a kid growing up. Okay, I know that is very easy to imagine as most of us were just that and can relate, but what if it didn’t end there? What if later in life, you became an adult and then got to work for the LA Kings’ organization? And what if then, you work your way up the organization for twenty years or so, only to find yourself now in a high ranking position for your favorite team? That would be amazing, right? Well, that just described the life and experience of one fellow long time Kings’ fan, who is now the Vice-President of Communications and Broadcasting for AEG and the Los Angeles Kings. And that man is Mike Altieri. I was fortunate enough to get to talk over the phone with Mr. Altieri and discuss his journey from becoming a Kings’ fan, to working high up in the organization, amongst other topics. So get your hot cocoa ready, put some logs in that fireplace and put your feet up, (but if you hate hot cocoa, don’t have a fireplace and don’t want to dirty your furniture with your feet, then just pretend), and enjoy this in-depth interview that will give us all a sneak peek behind the curtain of the Kings’ organization, with someone who has played a huge part in it for over twenty years, and has been a fan even longer. Enjoy!

I know you are an extremely busy man, so thank you so much, Mr. Altieri, for taking the time to do this interview for us today.

Oh, you’re welcome.

Growing up as a child, were you a fan of the sport of hockey?

I was. I am born and raised here in Los Angeles and when I was probably 12 years old, my uncle took me to an LA Kings’ game. From what I remember, it was a playoff game with the New York Rangers, and there was a bench-clearing brawl in the game and that was something that I had never seen in a sporting event before in my life, so I was just absolutely hooked. I began following the team, following the game, learning the game and I’ve been a fan ever since.

Did you have any favorite players, hockey heroes back then?

I did and ironically enough it was Luc Robitaille. He came into the NHL around 1986, so I was 21 and I just really gravitated towards his style, his whole look with his big mullet. He was a rookie and scoring all these goals, and I was thinking, “Here’s a guy that is exactly my age,” and I just connected with his game and I became a huge fan of his for sure and now I work for him. <Laughs>

Nice. It’s funny how life works out sometimes right?

Yeah.

As you mentioned, you grew up as a fan of the Los Angeles Kings, so years later, how did you join and get to work in the Los Angeles Kings’ organization?

I made a commitment to myself when I was in my mid-20’s to find a way to work in professional sports. I didn’t know where that would take me, but I went back to school and got my degree in communications, and I was lucky enough to get an internship with the LA Lakers back in 1991. While I was working for the Lakers, I would just go down the hall because my favorite sport was hockey and I started to get to know the folks at the Kings. I continued to work with the Lakers and they brought me on part-time, and right around ’94, ’95, when there was the NHL lockout, the Kings were hiring at a very low entry level position and they hired me. So I was finally in the door, so to speak.

A lot has changed in the Kings’ organization from 1994/95 in comparison to what we have today, as back then Wayne Gretzky was still with the team, though shortly he would leave for St. Louis, what was it like to work for the team back then in 1995?

I would say back in 1995, things were run very, very differently. I think in all sports you had to be a jack of all trades. You had to be able to do multiple things in order to excel at your job. So I came on board in a very low entry roll, but I was involved with everything communications wise, information wise, statistics, game notes, some of those type of things. I worked countless hours and you didn’t get paid overtime, like you really had to grind it out and make a commitment early on.

There was a lot of turmoil behind the scenes within the franchise back then, from the legal issues and removal of owner Bruce McNall, and the team going into bankruptcy. What did you and your colleagues, and everyone running the team have to do to turn that franchise around from where they were in 1995 to the successful franchise the Kings are today?

Really the big shift for the Kings happened when Phil Anschutz bought the team in 1996. And for the first time, stable ownership came on board. The Kings did not have a stable owner since Jerry Buss owned the team. So Phil Anschutz bought the team with a vision of not only turning the Kings into a perennial winner, which is what he wanted to do but also to develop the Staples Center and the whole LA Live project downtown. So really it was about him investing resources into those initiatives, investing resources into the team and growing the organization. Now we live in a time where every organization has specialists, so now you no longer have to be a jack of all trades. It is good to be that. To be able to get your hands in every area of the business, every area of the operations in order to be successful in what you’re doing, but at the same time, it was an owner that was willing to invest resources into the organization and I think over time that paid off. And now, we’re still a pretty lean organization, but at the same time, we’ve got a lot of very skilled, hungry and young employees that are really driving what we do on a day to day basis. And it’s a lot of fun for an older guy like me. It’s very energizing.

Speaking of Mr. Anschutz, as you mentioned he bought the team in 1996 and he is still the owner of the Kings today, so he obviously got into this for the long haul, and he is a man who is very influential as well, whether it’s for the Kings, the Staples Center, LA Live like you said, but as well as for the Los Angeles Galaxy and MLS, where his name in on the championship trophy for that soccer league. Even though he has been the owner now for 21 years or so, us Kings’ fans still don’t know that much about him. We don’t really get to see him and if we do, it is very rare like when he was on the ice with his lovely wife Nancy, celebrating with the team and staff when the Kings won the Stanley Cup in 2012 and 2014. Could you tell us more about the Kings’ long-time owner and tell us what he is like in person? Like is he a great golfer? Does he watch Game of Thrones or play a mean guitar?

<Laughs> Well I can’t really get into a lot of details there. I’ve worked with him now for over twenty years and I’ve known him and his family for a long time, and he is a very private person. He wants to maintain that privacy which is why as you said, a lot of people don’t know too much about him. But in my experience, he seems to me, after being with him all these years, he is a very family oriented man, and takes great pride in his family, his grandchildren and really the best thing about him is, as I said earlier, is he is willing to invest resources into what he believes in, but he also stays out of the way. He lets his people do the job. And you know, we meet with him, I would say at least, two or three times per year, where I have to sort of present business plans and show him what we’re working on and what our plans are. We do see him quite a bit at games too. He’ll come to quite a few games at the Staples Center and we see him come out on the road at times, so he is very active and engaged in the team and the organization as a whole, but he certainly maintains his privacy, because that is important to him.

Fair enough. As a Kings’ fan, I have to say things have worked out quite well with him as the owner so I definitely can’t complain.

I think for a while, it turned fans the wrong way a little bit because they didn’t know anything about him. We knew who he was because we got to deal with him, so we knew what kind of person he was, and the proof is in the pudding and you can say that all day long, but it wasn’t until we were able to show tangible results, which we finally did. But it was hard for the fans to really see that and understand that.

Yeah, in the beginning, and because us fans never really got to see him or hear from him, he came across as very aloof. Especially in comparison to other NHL owners such as Peter Pocklington of Edmonton, Harold Ballard, when he was alive and owned the Leafs, Ed Snider with Philly or Eugene Melnyk of Ottawa, who are or were always front and center in front of the cameras.

Right.

In time we did learn that the aloofness wasn’t true or in fact the case, and now we have a much better understanding of Mr. Anschutz, and are fortunate and grateful that he did buy the Kings during such a dark time in this franchise’s history, and has invested so much into the team and for so many years. As you said, the proof is in the pudding, and that proof is the long-time financial stability of the organization and the two beautiful Stanley Cup banners hanging up in the rafters of the Staples Center.

That’s right.

Now today, you are the Senior Vice-President of Communications and Broadcasting for AEG Sports and the Los Angeles Kings, correct?

Yes, that is accurate. I would say my role encompasses a lot of things, but I would say there are three primary areas. Communications, Broadcasting and Team Operations. Communications is all of our daily communications whether it’s external or internal and communications outwardly, meaning the media. My department is the main contact for the media. The main resource of the media to come through and gain access to cover the team. And then there is the broadcasting side of things, which is obviously all of our broadcasting platforms. One of my biggest projects this offseason was hiring a replacement for Bob Miller with Alex Faust, and that was a huge initiative for us. And then team operations, which is the day to day operations of our team, and how we move from point A to point B over the course of a season. So it’s how we travel. How we take care of accommodations for our players with hotels on the road, all the meals, all the day to day planning itineraries for our players, all falls under my responsibilities as well.

Speaking of Bob Miller and Alex Faust, of course the legendary, Hall-of-Famer Bob Miller had to sadly retire due to health issues after 44 years of service to the Kings, and Alex Faust was hired to.. well, I’m not going to say replace Bob Miller as no one can truly replace Bob Miller, as those are big shoes to fill, but Faust was brought in to take over that position. Could you tell us about the process of searching for someone who would be the right fit to work alongside the Kings’ long-time color commentator Jim Fox, and why Alex Faust?

Yeah, that’s a great question. This was a very long process. The minute we knew that Bob was no longer going to continue, we immediately put the word out within the industry that we were going to be doing a search for a new television play by play announcer. And that brought in a flood of resumes and reels of talent tapes for us to review. Me and my partner over at Fox, Nick Davis, who is executive producer, we kind of vetted through the initial submissions that came from the outside, and we got it down to probably about twenty people. We then created an internal team of about eight or nine individuals that were all key influences from the Kings’ side and the Fox side. We met regularly, we looked at tapes and we kept narrowing down to who we really liked, and throughout the entire process, despite his lack of experience, and despite his age, we kept gravitating back to Alex. It just seemed like it was always Alex. So when it came time for everybody in the room to put their hands up and vote on who we wanted, it was a unanimous decision. We felt like he was someone we could build a whole new approach to Kings’ telecasts. We felt like he had the kind of voice and call, and sort of cadence within him calling the play by play that had a network feel to it, but at the same time, could be our own, and something new and different for us. Like I said, it was very unanimous within the group that he was the right choice for us so we went with it.

I think the biggest concern amongst Kings’ fans was the chemistry that the new announcer would have with “Foxy”, as Fox and Miller had an abundance of chemistry together, as do Nick Nickson and Daryl Evans. We are a quarter into the current NHL season right now and it seems that Faust and Fox do have some chemistry and have started things off on the right foot.

I think the big key to that is, you know, Bob and Jim had a great rapport. They had known each other for so long and Bob had been such a mentor to Jim that I think they really had an amazing chemistry because of that. So with Alex, what we liked is his pace. He has a very deliberate, methodical pace to the game that allows time and space, to use a hockey phrase, to allow the color commentator to come in comfortably and get out comfortably. And we really took note of that. We flew Alex in when we identified him as the guy that we wanted to move ahead with, and he and Jim called a mock game together back in August and he absolutely fulfilled everything we thought he would from his pacing standpoint. So we knew right then and there that because of that, the rapport would develop organically and naturally, and it’s starting to do that with them now. It’s still early, but we definitely know that the pace of the call is a good fit for Jim and for the information that he likes to tell on to the telecast, so we like that and we like what we’re hearing so far.

Yeah, definitely it has been so far, so good. How has the social media evolution changed the Kings’ approach to the press?

I think the biggest thing would be that we decided back in, I think it was in 2006, that it didn’t matter how hard we tried, or how much we pitched story ideas, no matter how much we tried to provide access to the media to tell the Kings’ story, hockey just was not a mainstream sport in a market like Los Angeles. Yet we still had a very robust fan base, a very, very loyal, supportive, passionate Kings’ fan base who were starving for information. So we made a decision to cover the team ourselves. We felt that we needed to cover the team in a manner that was authentic and not just a shill for the team, so we started investing in resources and opportunities to cover the team. Whether it be a beat writer, whether it would be video content, whether it’d be doing new platforms and new ideas to represent the team and to give our organization a voice for our fans, and that’s really what we have been investing in over the last 10 years. And that remains our philosophy, rooted in one primary word and that is what I would say is engagement. We want to engage our fans. We want to create a conversation, and we want them to feel like that they have a voice in that conversation. So we continue to try to launch new platforms, new content ideas that really feed that appetite that we know our fans have, on a regular basis, to consume Kings’ info and consume everything about their favorite team.

And that voice that covers the organization for the fans, and creates that conversation is, of course, LA Kings Insider Jon Rosen. And it would greatly be a disservice for me to underscore the fantastic job that Rosen does on a daily and nightly basis. He is constantly creating content for our fans with LAKingsInsider.com and seems to be always working non-stop 24/7. So here’s the biggest question that I need to ask you, as it’s something that the public has strongly debated about and really need to know, so we need the inside scoop on this Mr. Altieri.

Okay, sure.

Okay, here it is. Does Jon Rosen actually sleep?

<Laughs> Yes, I believe he does. He recently was under the weather, and we were exchanging e-mails, and I suggested a project for him to work on but he was feeling under the weather, so I know that’s a product of his hard work and we want him getting his rest, just like our players because he puts out a lot of content regularly. Jon does such a great job for us.

Yes, he definitely does. Now how did you and the organization decide that Mr. Rosen, and before him, Mr. Rich Hammond, were the right guys for the LA Kings Insider job?

Yeah, like I said, we wanted to give our fans coverage of the team and I had been philosophically discussing the concepts with Rich Hammond, who was a beat writer for the L.A. Daily News. Rich was willing to come on board and help me launch this platform, which we did, and Rich did a great job. In the end, he moved on to a new opportunity and we really had to find the right replacement. Jon had been someone we had worked with at Fox Sports and we felt like he had the right background and the right passion for the game. So he came on board and he has done a wonderful job of taking LA Kings Insider to a new level and he does it through his hard work. He is one of the hardest workers I know. Like you said, it just seems like he’s go, go, go 24/7 with his platform and he’s relentless in covering the team, while also managing a lot of other personal commitments, which includes starting a family. He just never lets up on his work ethic and his approach to covering the team, and we are really pleased that he’s doing that in the manner that he is.

Back in 2012, as a Canadian that is a Kings’ fan, I found this very amusing, and most people I knew did as well, during the first round of those playoffs when the Kings faced off against and eliminated the Vancouver Canucks in 5 games, there was the, well I call it the famous tweet, some will call it the infamous tweet from the official LA Kings’ Twitter account saying and I quote, “To everyone in Canada outside of BC, you’re welcome.” I thought that was brilliant and it honestly made me laugh for a whole week, but what did you think of it? Was it something that was planned ahead of time if the Kings won the series or was that something that was off the cuff at that moment?

It happened at the moment very organically. It came from, and again I’m going back to that word – engagement. We had been running our twitter feed with that philosophy that we wanted that twitter feed to not just be about putting out ticket promos and when is the next game, things like that, we wanted it to have a voice and something that could communicate directly to our fan base. The guy that was running the twitter feed at the time was getting a lot of feedback from people in and around Canada that were rooting for the Kings because they just weren’t fans of the Canucks apparently.

Yes, that is true. As a native Canadian, I can confirm as a representative of all hockey fans up here that that was very true. Other Canadian fan bases were rooting for the Kings to take Vancouver out and were very happy when they did.

Yeah, I think the guy handling it just fed off of that. When the game ended, because he had been engaging with so many fans throughout Canada that seemed to be rooting for us and not the Canucks, I think that caught him off guard, and he put that tweet out. And I will say, it kind of turned everything from a social media standpoint on its ear. We were on every front page of every Canadian paper the next day, and our players were all asked about it the next day after practice. [LA Kings’ general manager at the time] Dean Lombardi and [LA Kings’ assistant general manager at the time] Ron Hextall were fuming about it, and felt that it created a distraction in a key point in the season and the playoffs that was not something that was needed for our players to have to deal with, and I would have to agree with them. But, it was a watershed moment in social media that I think changed the game forever. So yeah, I definitely remember that day, and to this day, it was one of the busiest days of my life.

Oh yeah, I can imagine. It was huge news up here for some time and was constantly being brought up by not just the papers, but TSN and Sportsnet and all of the sports television networks. Everyone was talking about it, and I was loving it of course. Those very same playoffs ended with the Kings finally winning their first Stanley Cup in franchise history, which they won again for the second time in 2014. Did you get a day with the Cup after both victories, and if so, then how did you spend your time with Lord Stanley’s mug?

Yeah, I did. A got a day with it both times. When you win the Cup, somebody has to go over the responsibility of managing the Cup and its schedule and that fell to me and my colleagues that work with me. So the good news was we were able to make sure we got some time with it too, but at the same time to plan out the schedule for a large number of people in the organization, and all who wanted access to the Cup, and also people outside of the organization like the media, and those who wanted to take the Cup on tours to different towns so people get to see it and touch it and experience it- managing all that was a huge undertaking. But for me in 2012, I just had a small get together at my house that turned into a very large get together once word got out that the Cup was on my street. Then two years later when we won it in 2014, I organized a much larger event at a private location because now I knew that so many people would want access to be able to see and touch and experience the Cup and all that. So just two private events that were great. I even took it to my son’s school and was able to do that for him, which was probably my favorite moment. He goes to a very small school with about 300 kids, so to bring the Cup there to his school and have him showcase it for a show and tell type thing was a thrill for him.

Oh, I bet. That must have been an amazing experience for him. Could you also tell us a bit about the Kings Care Foundation and your role with them?

Sure. The Kings Care Foundation is huge, huge initiative and priority for our organization. I work very closely with Jennifer Pope, who is our VP of Community Relations and the Kings Care Foundation. I’m on the board for the Foundation and we have taken great pride in the amount of fundraising we’ve been able to do the last five, six, seven years, to the tune now that we were able to create some very significant programs that are having very tangible impacts on a large number of people. Our partnership with CHLA (Children’s Hospital Los Angeles), and the Bloodmobile, we have launched there for seven or eight years now and CHLA has been able to meet its blood requirements up to about 95%, wherein the past, they would have to go outside of their resources to really meet their needs from a blood donation standpoint, and our bloodmobile now allows them to hit 94 to 95% of that annually. A year ago we made a $1 million dollar commitment to the Ronald McDonald House and built out a big dining hall and activity center for the families that go and stay at the camp out in Idyllwild, where families dealing with cancer stay and we’re able to provide a great day to day experience there for them. Probably the other big initiative is the Science of Hockey exhibit at the Discovery Cube, which is an interactive museum that is science-based, and it allows kids to come in and experience the game of hockey and learn about the science of it at the same time. It’s a great program for young kids. Those are probably our three largest tent pole initiatives that we have been able to take that fundraising and invest into those opportunities and create tangible, impactful programs that help people and educate young kids at the same time. That is some big things, but there are a bunch of small things that we do every day, that impacts individuals and people in need, and we’re doing that on a day to day basis as well. I’m very proud of what we do with the Kings Care Foundation.

 

Last season was the Los Angeles Kings’ 50th anniversary of being in the National Hockey League, and the city of Los Angeles was granted with the 2017 All-Star Game, Skills Competition, and related events, which many teams were pitching and hoping for to get like the St. Louis Blues, Toronto Maple Leafs, and others. What did you and your colleagues need to do to gain a prestigious event like the All-Star Game, and why did the NHL choose the Kings’ organization to host it instead of so many others that were also celebrating milestone anniversaries?

That’s a great question. It all started with Luc Robitaille, who has so much belief in the Kings’ organization and wanting us to be considered along with the Toronto Maple Leafs, and with the New York Rangers, and with the Philadelphia Flyers. He feels we should be viewed as an original six team from a brand standpoint. So obviously winning the Stanley Cup helps, but then also getting major events, such as the Stadium Series outdoor game that we did at Dodger Stadium back in 2014. Then the NHL All-Star Game in 2017 was something we worked hard on with our proposal for an extended period of time. We built a whole legacy program with the Kings Care Foundation that I think was very significant in helping us get that. And then additionally with the assets that we have downtown with LA Live, and all of the opportunities for programming that we can provide, I think was very attractive for the NHL. I think we ended up putting on a heck of a showcase for the weekend, and one that not only was a tremendous experience for the fans, but I know for a fact that the players that came in and played in that All-Star Game had an unbelievable experience that weekend as well.

You mentioned how you were a fan of Luc Robitaille when he was a player, and now you work with Luc within the Kings’ organization. How is it to work with Luc behind the scenes, especially since he was someone who you had looked up to as a fan, and with all honesty… who would win in an arm-wrestling contest between you two? The public must know!

<Laughs> I would say that working with Luc Robitaille is an absolute thrill for me. I first started working with him back in 1997 when he was traded back here and I was in the PR office. I really got to know him very well as a player as he finished out his career here in Los Angeles, and certainly, as someone, I really looked up to as a player when I was younger. It took me a little while to get over that star struck factor. Now I work with Luc, it’s been going on for twenty years and I consider him a tremendous friend and ally of mine, and he’s just an unbelievable person. Everything you see publically is exactly who he is. He comes to work every day with the best and most optimistic, positive attitude and that never seems to waver. But you know at the same time he’s relentless. Like I mentioned with the All-Star Game, when he really wants us to go after something, he is relentless in making sure that we do that. He pushes all of us, all the employees here every single day, but he makes sure to spend time with everyone. Whether you’re a sales associate, in the sales office, or an executive on the leadership committee, he makes sure he spends time with everyone, and that he gets to know everyone, and has a relationship with all of us. So he’s a real pleasure to work with on a daily basis. He’s really motivating and I couldn’t be more thankful to have someone like him to closely work with on a day to day basis. As far as an arm wrestling contest, I have never arm wrestled him. <Laughs> So I couldn’t really say who’d win, but he obviously has some pretty strong hands and forearms from scoring all those goals and having that release that he had in the NHL. So I couldn’t say wholeheartedly that I would win, but now I’m thinking of bringing it up when I next see him and maybe give it a shot. <Laughs>

<Laughs> Well, you definitely have to let us know how that goes?

You got it!

Well Mr. Altieri, on behalf of CaliSports News and myself, a long time, die-hard Los Angeles Kings’ fan, thank you so much for your time as we know you are a very busy man, but thank you again for granting us this interview today.

It’s my pleasure and I look forward to reading the article, and I enjoy listening to the show (LA Kings Road Talk Radio) too, as I tuned in the other night as our plane was about to take off on the road, and I got the whole show in, so I enjoyed that and you guys do a great job there, so thanks for having me.

*Special thanks to Mike Altieri, Joe Altieri, Augie Loya, Jeff Moeller, Ryan Cowley, “The Hipcheck” Scott Cahill, Mario Hicks and Theresa Walsh Duarte for their help and contributions to this article.

GO KINGS GO!!!

Stay with us at Calisportsnews.com as we will keep you up-to-date on all things Los Angeles Kings and the rest of the LA sports teams! All Cali, All the time

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3 Comments

1. 

   Robert Flanagan

   November 29, 2017 at 11:55 am

   Mr. Michael Altieri is a vital member of the LA Kings organization, it is always a pleasure to see him at games or events and he always takes a moment to visit.
   • 

     Jeff Duarte

     December 5, 2017 at 7:57 am

     Yes he is! And thank you for reading the article Rob! GO KINGS GO!!!
2. 

   Robert Flanagan

   November 29, 2017 at 1:38 pm

   Great interview with Mr. Michael Altieri – he is a vital member of the Kings organization who always has time to talk when our paths have crossed at games or events.