How Fire owner Joe Mansueto’s background shapes his vision for the team (2024)

If your family purchased a Christmas tree on Hohman Avenue in Hammond, Indiana in the late ’70s at a fenced-in lot touting “Fine Pines and Awesome Balsams,” chances are you met a college student who would go on to become the CEO of global financial analysis firm Morningstar and the owner of the Chicago Fire.

As a fourth-year business student at the University of Chicago, Joe Mansueto was in the early phases of developing an entrepreneurial spirit.

“I got a lot of satisfaction out of selling a Christmas tree to a father with a little girl and watching their eyes light up,” Mansueto told The Athletic in an exclusive interview from his office in Chicago’s iconic Wrigley Building. “I was curious how this whole business thing worked. As I did that, I began thinking that a career path for me might be as an entrepreneur.”

Renting a truck and a vacant lot in Hammond to sell Christmas trees was one of the first steps toward establishing a career in business. Mansueto also hocked soda from a pair of refrigerators in his college dorm room that would generate around $500 per quarter.

Mansueto spent his childhood in northwest Indiana. At Munster High School, football, baseball, basketball figured into his free time recreationally, but his school activities included speech, debate and theater. Soccer was an afterthought with little organized play in the region and the NASL struggling to gain traction.

With an interest in architecture and journalism, Mansueto enrolled in the liberal arts program at the University of Chicago, where his guidance counselor suggested a future in business. After initially thinking it was “too boring,” Mansueto took the description of business as a creative outlet to heart.

Upon graduating, Mansueto and his college roommate started a business selling market research to radio stations across the country. But his passion didn’t lie there. After a couple years, Mansueto left to work for venture capital and security analysis firms in Chicago as a stock analyst.

“I came across a guy who today everybody knows but back then he was pretty obscure – Warren Buffett,” Mansueto said. “I read about his company and his philosophy and that really resonated with me. He was a guy practicing investing and had a methodology I could understand and make sense of. He was doing it with a lot of enthusiasm, fun and integrity. It really appealed to me. The firm I worked for here in town (Harris Associates) practiced the Warren Buffet style of investing and that’s why I went into it.”

Mansueto began gathering mutual fund reports to track what the top investors like John Templeton were investing in. Analyzing what people were buying and selling, and the reasoning behind those transactions, Mansueto taught himself more about the business.

In his mid-20’s, Mansueto came to a crossroads. He could continue as a stock analyst or a portfolio manager with a solid career path or follow his entrepreneurial inclinations toward making fund information available to the masses.

“This was at a time in ’84 when people in their 20’s were starting businesses, which was kind of revolutionary at the time,” Mansueto said. “The Bill Gates and the Steve Jobs of the world were doing it in a Silicon Valley-like culture in formal dress. I was the youngest person at this asset management firm, and I’m wearing a tie every day and I’m taking the 22-Clark (bus) in 90 degrees in the summer and sweaty. I thought I kind of liked a more casual thing and Morningstar became more appealing. They were a little stunned that I left. My parents were a little stunned but I really wanted to do this.”

Mansueto left Harris Associates and began formulating his own financial analysis company out of his apartment in Lincoln Park. He made an initial investment of $80,000, but he needed a business plan that didn’t necessarily involve huge sums of his own capital to get off the ground.

That November, Mansueto took out an ad in Barron’s, an investor publication, announcing a “new tool for the smart mutual fund investor.” The ad included an 800 number and a coupon. Customers provided a credit card or sent in a check, so money was on hand before fees for the ad were due. Morningstar was born.

The company name was inspired by the final line in the 1854 book “Walden” by Henry David Thoreau: “the sun is but a morning star.” The memoir serves as a personal declaration of independence, and the line stuck with Mansueto after reading the book in college.

“I thought to myself — what the hell does that mean,” he said. “As I thought about it, it became clear that it meant that something that has been around as long as the sun is still in its infancy and still rising. No matter where you are in life there’s always possibility of a rebirth and there’s more ahead of you. The sun is but a morning star indicates that it’s always rising. It’s a very positive statement and I liked the ring of the word. When I was naming the company, I thought of all the values of Thoreau and it was a good foundation for a company name.”

After a year working out of his apartment, Mansueto moved downtown. The following year, Morningstar earned $80,000 in revenue. The next year increased to $120,000, and subsequent annual revenues continued to rise. In 2019, Morningstar earned over $1 billion in revenue.

Morningstar currently has offices in Chicago, New York, Japan, London, Paris, Sydney and Mumbai, among others. Mansueto stepped down as CEO three years ago but still maintains some involvement as executive chairman.

Mansueto’s two forays into investment journalism yielded Inc. Magazine (founded in 1979) and Fast Company (1995), with both publications tied to his passion for entrepreneurship. He has also begun foraging into real estate with the purchase of the Wrigley Building in 2018 and the vintage Belden-Stratford building in Lincoln Park.

While Mansueto now spends most of his time focusing on the Fire, he is still actively involved with both the University of Chicago and the Munster community.

Over the years, he and his wife Rika, who is also a U of C graduate, have donated $60 million to the school to help fund the Joe and Rika Mansueto Library on campus and the Mansueto Institute for Urban Innovation, which focuses on helping to address violence, housing and the well-being of youth in urban environments. They have also established a Teacher of Merit Award in Munster that helps make up shortcomings created by budget shortfalls in his old school district.

Mansueto’s involvement with the Fire was developed while coaching his son’s AYSO soccer team and continued to grow as he learned more about the sport. The growth potential of the professional game and the rise of MLS naturally drew his attention.

After making some calls and meeting with the Sacramento expansion group, a mutual friend connected Mansueto to Andrew Hauptman, from whom he bought 49 percent of the team in June 2018. At that point, Hauptman was not interested in selling 100 percent ownership, but circ*mstances changed and Mansueto purchased the remaining 51 percent last September.

Mansueto’s 15 months as minority owner afforded him a chance to observe the inner workings of MLS and the club.

“It gave me a chance to learn about the organization I would be buying before committing to the other half,” he said. “It was sort of rent to own and sort of kick the tires. I was really impressed with the organization that Andrew had set up. There were a lot of good people. I could see Bridgeview, it’s a terrific stadium, but it’s just not the best location. I could see that needed to be addressed. I had to learn about the league. The league is unique with a single entity structure and your fellow owners are competitors on the field but partners off the field. They were very welcoming and supportive because I had a lot to learn. I started going to the board meetings to see how it functioned and I was very impressed with Don Garber, who does a phenomenal job. It’s very well managed and you could see the growth, popularity and the rising values of the teams. I think it performs really well at the league level. It took a good year to understand the foreign language of the league rules.”

This offseason, the team underwent plenty of change, from the announcement of the move back to Soldier Field, to Nelson Rodriguez moving exclusively to the business side, to the dismissal of coach Veljko Paunovic, to the hirings of new sporting director Georg Heitz and coach Raphael Wicky.

Mansueto seems to be set on running the Fire in the same fashion as Morningstar, in that managers will be given the freedom to do their jobs without constant second-guessing.

“I like to hire really good people and give them some autonomy,” he said. “People take a lot of satisfaction from controlling an area and I learned long ago in business that you want to give up the pawns but fight for the kings and queens. If you’re making a brochure and you want it blue and I like red, I’ll leave it blue. If it’s a big deal and it hurts the company then you have an obligation to step in. I like to hire people, give them some space and see what they can do. People rise up. I try to create a very trusting environment.”

Heitz wasn’t hired until mid-December, so he and his new staff haven’t had much time to assemble a roster.

But Mansueto is happy with the progress Heitz’s staff has made so far. Heitz and Wicky have yet to go into much detail on what the first team will look like in 2020, but Mansueto outlined what he liked about the new technical staff’s process for identifying players.

“I’m really optimistic about this year and where the team is headed overall,” he said. “I love Georg’s approach to the game. I love the way he thinks about players and how he thinks about putting a team together. He had a very successful run at FC Basel with eight championships and identified, recruited and developed a long list of premier soccer players. I can see that skill. He’s very good at looking around the world and finding great talent. I like the way he works in not reacting to names and a lot of the big names out there. He’s putting together profiles of every role and every position and what he wants in that, starting with the profile first and then recruiting for that profile versus here’s a big name, let’s throw that name in there. What’s the style of play you want to achieve? What are the profiles? It’s a very logical approach to the game.”

Mansueto said that Heitz is not a big fan of hearing big names bandied about without first considering the profile. The Los Angeles Galaxy’s recent signing of Mexican star Javier Hernandez might have also played well in Chicago, but names won’t drive future big player acquisition decisions.

However, Mansueto has indicated a willingness to fill all three Designated Player spots and hasn’t placed any financial restrictions on Heitz and his staff.

“If the big name works into that, there is a willingness to spend,” he said. “I think I’ve hired world-caliber people in terms of recruiting talent and I have complete faith in Georg. If he needs my help picking players, we’re both in trouble. We talk through things so I can understand his rationale. We have a lot of conversations but ultimately when he explains why he likes a certain player, it’s very compelling. I like the idea of making names versus buying names although I’m not opposed to signing a big name, but I think finding a 20-year-old and developing that talent will make it super exciting for our fan base and that’s the direction that we’re heading.”

Yet another change this offseason was the team’s rebrand and new badge, which hasn’t been received positively by much of the fan base. Mansueto is aware of the backlash and is taking a measured approach before considering the next step.

𝚃𝚠𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚢 𝚝𝚠𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚢 𝚝𝚑𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚍𝚜. pic.twitter.com/TIl4yK69M2

— Chicago Fire FC (@ChicagoFire) February 7, 2020

“We expected an outcry when you change a badge that’s been around,” he said. “People do not typically like change. We expected some of that so there were no surprises there. On social media it has been pretty loud among some people. The negative people tend to be the loudest. If you’re neutral or positive, you’re probably not as vocal so you want to be a little careful to get a complete view and not have a selection bias as researchers would say. That said, we want to do what’s right for the club. Our interests are totally aligned with our fan base. We love the passion and concern that our fans have regarding the mark. They care a lot and I love that. I love the energy of our fan base and we’ll do what’s right for them. This is a club and we want to have great badge for a great club. If it’s not working, ultimately, we will fix it.”

Mansueto recently hired Ari Glass, a veteran Chicago real estate professional, to head up Mansueto Office Inc. He has been involved with the Fire’s front office move from Bridgeview to downtown Chicago and improvement of the SeatGeek Stadium facilities.

“Ultimately, we’d like a training center somewhere in the city,” Mansueto said. “We’ve agreed for five years to train at Bridgeview for the first team. Our academy could move and then after five years, the first team could move. Ultimately, we need a training center somewhere in the city so we’re starting to kind of casually look for some land to develop that. As far as a soccer-specific stadium, we have the option of doing that down the road. Our first priority is to make Soldier Field work in a very robust way.”

Mansueto also aims to make the Fire more visible in the Chicago market. The team is heading into its final year of an agreement with ESPN+, but broadcast television still may be an option at some point down the line.

“We have a terrific game day experience and if we expose more people to that, people will get hooked and they will love it. People just don’t know about it,” Mansueto said. “I grew up listening to Jack Brickhouse and the Chicago Cubs with every game broadcast on Channel 9. That’s how you create a fan base, you expose people to it. The Cubs became Chicago’s team through that repeated and easily accessible exposure. It’s important and it’s something we’re looking at. We have another year to run on ESPN+ and they’ve been a phenomenal partner but I would like to over time complement that with on the air broadcast television.”

With the collective bargaining agreement now settled, MLS and its owners can focus on the growth of the league over the next five years. Mansueto sees himself more in line with the new wave of ownership that appears to be encouraging a more aggressive approach to building teams and the league.

And while his goals for the Fire this season don’t necessarily include the added pressure of insisting on hardware right away, like his other ventures, measured success will take precedence.

“I’d like to see continual improvement with every game better than the previous one,” Mansueto said. “We want to push as hard as we can to get better and better. There’s always a bit of unpredictability in sports. I’d be disappointed if we didn’t make the playoffs. My approach to business and sports is pretty much the same. We always have to get better. I get frustrated if I see status quo or stagnation. If we do that good things will happen in terms of results.”

(Top photo: Kamil Krzaczynski / USA Today)