The sports industry took him away from his hometown, but it accomplished the same when John Davis decided to return to the city of Wheeling.
Davis is now the chief operating officer of the Wheeling Nailers, and that position follows a plethora of others in minor- and big-league baseball, the NFL and the NHL. He was graduated from Wheeling Park High School in 1994 while working for the Wheeling Thunderbirds as their mascot, and then earned his undergraduate degree from Xavier University and was employed by the Cincinnati Cyclones.
“It became apparent to me very early on that I wasn’t going to be able to continue playing sports at the next level, but I wanted to be around it. I loved being around the atmosphere, and I enjoy the emotional tie that people have to their sports teams,” Davis said. “Serendipity took place when the Thunderbirds moved here because my father was the sales manager at WTOV and he had me dressing up as the Snow Bird for the weather reports in the wintertime.
“So, when he made contact with the new team, he suggested me for their mascot. That’s how it came together,” he said. “That’s when I knew I just wanted to be around professional sports.”
Cincinnati. Dayton. New York. Frisco, Tx. Back to Cincinnati. Then Cleveland and Louisville. Home to Wheeling.
That is the career course traveled by Davis while he managed ticket operations for professional baseball, football, and hockey teams in five different states.
“Each time I changed jobs I felt the new position was a promotion,” Davis said. “In this industry, there are a lot of places that you go where there isn’t a lot of vertical movement because the people love their jobs and they don’t go anywhere. For example, when I went to the Reds as a young executive at 32, my supervisor had been with the Reds for more than 30 years.
“That’s why you have to move from job to job because it was the only way to chase opportunity,” he continued. “So, that is what I did, and then this opportunity came to me and I grabbed it.”
The Homecoming
He grew up along Lynwood Avenue in Woodsdale and was a huge fan of each sports franchise in Pittsburgh. When the Penguins won the Stanley Cup, Davis celebrated, and the same was true when the Steelers won the Super Bowl.
“But when it comes to baseball these days, I’m a Reds fan because I worked there,” Davis admitted. “So, if Cincinnati wins the World Series, I’ll be very happy.”
When it comes to professional hockey, though, Davis has experience in both the minors and in the NHL with the Islanders, and Davis feels those years offer him an edge when it comes to his position with the Pittsburgh-affiliated Nailers. The ECHL is the equivalent of Class AA baseball in the minor leagues, and the Wheeling organization is the league’s longest-tenured franchise.
“The opportunity with the Nailers brought me home to Wheeling,” Davis said. “It was divine intervention, I believe. I was working for Churchill Downs in Louisville and the Kentucky Derby that is such a big machine that I think it loses track of its people. It’s so big and it’s so driven by stock price that I think individual accomplishments are missed.
“I left Churchill right at the start of the pandemic, and the pandemic was such a right hook to the sports industry. It was hit very, very hard, and sports just disappeared,” he explained. “So, I was weighing my options, but I honestly never thought of coming back here. But then the phone call came and it made all of the sense in the world. I started my career here and my parents are still here, so it just made all of the sense in the world.”
The Evolution
Approximately half of the teams in the ECHL refused to participate last season because of concerns involving the pandemic and safety, and several of the Nailers’ games were postponed because of exposures and positive tests. Wheeling completed the regular season with a 22-39-6 record while finishing seventh in the Eastern Conference.
Derek Army was named interim head coach last year after Mark French resigned, and the former Nailers player returns this season as the full-fledged head coach. While Davis has ideas concerning sales and marketing, he cited previous staff members for developing an operation which with he has been impressed.
“There is a ton of great strategy that’s already in place here, and there has been great measurement of the data, too,” Davis said. “And there are great people that work here, so there is a lot going for this organization. I think our biggest challenges are going to be addressing the overall value of our product in the marketplace. I feel like, in the past, there seemed to be a whole lot of discount offers, so I think what has been yelled out to people is cheaper, cheaper, cheaper as opposed to us talking about the value.
“There is a value involved with coming to the games, so I want to dive into that aspect. Where can we take our seating in the arena so the difference between the best seat in the house and the worst seat isn’t just location? That’s a question we need to answer,” he said. “We’re also looking at adding amenities involving the food and beverage options, the merchandise options, and looking at different packaging so we can add value for our fans.”
Davis also has been impressed with the communicated enthusiasm from local business leaders and city officials.
“Just like any other professional sports franchise, the Nailers have had their ups and downs through the years, but this corporate community has always supported this organization,” Davis explained. “I was inundated by business leaders in this community as well as city leaders who reached out to me and met with me when I returned home for this position just to reinforce their desire to support this team. They educated me, too, about how things work here.
“That’s why there are going to be mild adjustments that we make to add value for our corporate partners so we can drive those partnerships,” he added. “There’s just so much good that’s already in place here and I was overwhelmed by the support that was offered me. So, I plan to move forward and continue to do it the right way just like the people who were here before me did.”
