Just days after watching gaming megastar Steve Wynn walk away with the Boston area casino deal, Mohegan Sun’s supreme commander was stoic.
“We lost the battle, not the war,” said Kevin Brown, chairman of the Mohegan Tribal Council and of the Mohegan Tribal Gaming Authority’s management board.
It’s an important distinction that has special meaning to the man also known as Red Eagle.
Just a year ago, Brown had returned to Uncasville after a 25-year career in the U.S. Army and assumed the leadership roles with his tribe. As a colonel, he’d worked to rebuild infrastructure in war-torn Iraq and served in a city manager-like role at Fort Riley, Kansas. As leader of the Mohegans, he is faced with increasing competition and diminishing revenue.
During a pause in the jammed-packed program at the Global Gaming Expo (G2E) in Las Vegas Oct. 1, he reflected on his new challenge by calling on military images. When your position is threatened, he said, one of the options is to refortify. “I’m reaching for extra sandbags,” he said.
For Brown and the Mohegan Tribe, that means enhancing the appeal of the tribe’s gaming properties while moving toward diversification.
It might even mean collaborating with the tribe’s ancient rivals, the Mashantucket Pequot tribe, operators of Foxwoods casino.
Brown is enthusiastic about the addition of the professional lacrosse league franchise. The New England Black Wolves will help keep the arena humming during the off-season of the WNBA’s Connecticut Sun team, he said. The tribe has moved into the business of franchising two restaurant chains — Smashburger and Arooga’s Grille House and Sports Bar, both of which will soon debut in eastern Connecticut. And there’s the recent rash of acquisitions of wood pellet manufacturing facilities.
But there’s no doubt, gaming and hospitality are the core industries.
Against the backdrop of a G2E where slot machine manufacturers felt the need to defend their industry’s relevance, it’s clear gaming has hit a flat spot. Regional saturation is a factor, but not enough to keep the Mohegans from pursuing bids for casino licenses in Pennsylvania and New York or a deal to develop a casino with the Cowlitz tribe along I-5 north of Portland, Ore.
Last year, Internet gaming was the talk of the show with Mohegan Sun CEO Bobby Soper suggesting 2015 would be the time to push the legislature for authorization to launch full casino gaming online. This year, in the wake of New Jersey’s disappointing debut of full online gaming, Brown shrugged off any talk of Internet gaming.
Instead, he’s energized by G2E’s attention to non-gaming amenities. That’s a subject Brown is eager to explore.
The concentration of hotels and gaming around Norwich is an asset, Brown said. Mohegan Sun Arena and the entertainment venues at both casinos draw visitors. The new shopping complex at Foxwoods also is an attraction. So are Mystic and the aquarium. But collectively, it’s not enough, Brown explained.
He said preliminary talks with southern Connecticut stakeholders suggest a consensus may be building for a regional marketing effort and a push for state assistance in landing that missing piece.
Brown acknowledged that it might take a game-changer the magnitude of a southern New England Disneyland. He also said he isn’t sitting by the phone waiting for a call from Orlando. Instead, he’s interested in exploring ways Southern Connecticut can leverage its strengths in ways that help everyone.
Tony Sheriden, president and CEO of the Chamber of Commerce of Eastern Connecticut, is one of those stakeholders who has been talking with Brown. He said the talk of needing to add one more major attraction is “probably right but probably impossible.”
Sheriden has been working for months to pull together a summit on the subject but acknowledges nothing is going to happen until after November’s election. He’s penciled in a January meeting and is talking up the idea that the state needs to commit $20 million to an integrated statewide marketing campaign.
That level of support would be a long way from the $1 budget Gov. Dannel P. Malloy inherited four years ago, but also almost double today’s level of marketing support.
Sheriden said both Brown and Rodney Butler, chairman of the tribal council that runs Foxwoods, serve on the chamber board and have shown the ability to work together when their goals intersect as they would in a regional marketing push.
But cooperation is a subject for January’s summit.
In Las Vegas, Brown was leading a team of a half-dozen tribal gaming executives working various aspects of the G2E program to gain an edge on rivals. He admitted squirming through portions of Wynn’s keynote presentation, which was heavy on his plans to build a “grand hotel in Boston.” And he said he’d left a few business cards at a session on sports betting.
Could using the tribe’s status as a sovereign nation to trigger sports betting be in his plan? He smiled. “It has crossed my mind,” he said.
That could be a game-changer for Mohegan Sun and for the state.
Joe Asher, the man sports betting firm William Hill USA has tabbed to handle its ready-to-go betting shop at Monmouth Park, told The Associated Press the New Jersey sports betting handle could triple Nevada’s $3.7 billion a year. But if a judge says no — and Governor Christie has already lost once — the field could be open for a tribal offering. “This is an area with some of the most storied franchises in American sports where billions of dollars are already bet on sports illegally,” Asher said.
Meanwhile, Brown finds himself in a tough spot but so far, he said, he’s relishing the challenge. The biggest difference he’s found in converting to civilian life? “Nobody’s shooting at me,” he said.
