Indiana Pacers Make Executive Changes

The Indiana Pacers have made some personnel changes of late.

Pacers Sports & Entertainment (PS&E) made a leadership move, promoting Rick Fuson to president. That post was previously held by Jim Morris, who at 71 years old will now move into the role of vice chairman.

Fuson has been with the Indiana Pacers since 1984, starting out as director of special events for Market Square Arena and then overseeing the construction of the Fieldhouse. He has also managed many marquee events in Indianapolis, as co-chair of the 2012 Super Bowl Village Committee and co-chair of special events for the Final Four in 1991, 1997, and 2000.

“Rick Fuson over many years has shown himself to be a brilliant manager and trusted steward of PS&E and all its assets and will continue to do so,” said Morris.

According to Scott Agness of Vigilant Sports, Fuson also serves on the board of directors for Indianapolis Downtown, Inc.; the Greater Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce; Indiana Repertory Theatre; Indianapolis Urban League; and Visit Indy.

New Player Relations Execs

Early in September, the Indiana Pacers hired Carl Daniels to vice president of player relations, a role vacated when Indiana sports legend Clark Kellogg stepped down in June.

“In his previous position, he has been around our team, he knows our players and he is well-established in our community,” said Larry Bird, Pacers president of basketball operations.

The team has also moved Carl Nicks to manager of player relations, a position that will support Daniels, according to Agness. Nicks was previously a scout and has been with the team for eight years. He was a college teammate of Larry Bird at Indiana State University in the late 1970s.

Indy Star Finds a New Home

The Indianapolis Star has moved its newsroom to the Circle Centre Mall. The mall is owned by Simon Property Group, the company that helped Indiana Pacers owner Herb Simon amass his fortune.

The paper, owned by Gannett Co., revealed its move to the space formerly occupied by Nordstrom earlier this month.

"Where Nordstrom once purveyed Burberry coats, Ugg boots and Armani suits, a sleek newsroom and offices for The Star are taking shape. The newsroom will include a mission control-style digital hub and a glass-walled boardroom with a write-on table. And it will have escalators.Spending $10 million to create a newsroom with escalators, located with retailers like Victoria’s Secret and Cinnabon, might sound unlikely.But executives from The Star and Simon describe the move as a no-brainer. It comes at a time when both newspapers and malls are looking to remake themselves in the face of revenue-sapping competition from the Internet."

According to the Star, the move is also a boon for Simon Property Group, which had been struggling to find a tenant that could fill the giant space since Nordstrom left in 2011.

"Other big retailers in the market, including Macy’s and Target, had little interest in the huge Downtown space, said the president of Simon’s mall business, David Contis. Subdividing the space and leasing it to multiple retailers wasn’t an attractive option for Simon, either.Then The Star came along.Contis said the Nordstrom space has what no other Downtown building could offer The Star: large available floorplates of up to 50,000 square feet, direct street entry and lots of nearby garage parking.“We can provide a space no Downtown office building can,” Contis said. “We just thought it was a great use.”Contis said mall tenants should benefit by having all those Star and Gannett employees under the same roof. “To get 800 people who are going to be there virtually 24/7, think about that. It activates Circle Centre,” he said."

The Indianapolis Star will be the first media company to occupy the mall, and this naturally creates a potential conflict of interest in the paper’s coverage of the Pacers.

I can’t imagine this will have much, if any, effect on coverage; Indy Star beat reporters, like Candace Buckner and Mike Wells, have been among the best in the country, and the paper made its real estate decision on factors that had nothing to do with sports.

Additionally, in the age of dying media, business relationships have become common among the media and those they cover. The Boston Globe is owned by the owner of the Boston Red Sox, for example. And we have all recently seen how uncomfortable it can get when ESPN has to cover controversies in the NFL, one of its largest business partners.

Though such conflicts could potentially have an larger impact in a small media market like Indianapolis (than, say, a major market like Boston), fans can expect unbiased coverage that is unsullied by the business relationship. If this were an era when half the Pacers players were getting arrested and the franchise was hemorrhaging money, perhaps things could be different. But I can’t see this new relationship affecting coverage.

Still, the fact remains that the employees the paper has covering the team now work in a building owned by the Indiana Pacers owner.

Peter Dinwiddie’s Days Numbered?

According to Tom Ziller of SB Nation, Peter Dinwiddie is in hot demand around the league. He is currently vice president of basketball operations under Bird, and was a candidate for the vacant Memphis Grizzlies GM job this summer.

But Ziller is hearing that some team will scoop him up soon to run their team.

Correction: An earlier version of this post said that Carl Daniels was promoted to his position. In fact, he worked for adidas previously and knows some of the players through work he did there.