Most Influential: Tod Leiweke

No one is more central to the unexpected success of the Seattle Sounders FC than Tod Leiweke, CEO of Vulcan Sports and Entertainment

Tod Leiweke [ CEO, Vulcan Sports and Entertainment ]

Flying in the face of the gnarliest recession in decades came the Major League Soccer expansion team Seattle Sounders FC, scarves held high and expectations guardedly low. Selling out every home game at Qwest Field, the Sounders have confounded futbol skeptics and local economic analysts. While credit goes to many, none is more central to the caper than Tod Leiweke, CEO of Vulcan Sports and Entertainment, Paul Allen’s amusement park that also includes the NFL Seahawks and NBA Portland Trail Blazers. Leiweke helped Allen fulfill a promise from 12 years earlier when Allen told statewide voters that if they helped fund a stadium, it would host soccer matches along with football.

“People asked us for a long time, ‘When is it going to happen?’” Leiweke, a 26-year veteran of pro sports administration, says. “I would often say, ‘When we do it, we will do it right, so that it has a chance to succeed for the long haul.’ Now, when you look at this partnership between [majority owner] Joe Roth, [part-owner and general manager] Adrian Hanauer and Paul Allen, you can check the box that we put the right partnership together.”