My Take On The TFC Dream Job

Earlier this month the Toronto Football Club, TFC to the locals, embarked on a rather curious endeavor of hiring a fan for a position within their sales and marketing group. The winner would be given a 'talent contract' and this person would become the face of the club. However, over the course of the last couple of weeks the contest has had its fair share of controversy and sparked heated debate across the interwebs with the TFC faithful. So what do I think? Well here we go . . .

At first glance, many of you are probably saying to yourself, 'Panos this is perfect for you.' As one of my friends said, 'finally you can become the white Cabbie for the soccer community.' For those of you outside Canada, Cabbie or Cabral Richards is a sports personality who is known for his very intimate interviews and infectious personality. To be honest, Cabbie's gimmick has run its course and he is venturing into annoying land. 

Regardless, I did give serious thought to applying for the position. As many of you know, I am a big a fan of football, hence the blog I suppose, but also spent a great deal of effort after my MBA trying to infiltrate MLSE, Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment, the organization that owns TFC, the Toronto Maple Leafs, the Toronto Raptors and the Toronto Marlies. I applied regularly for positions in finance, marketing, sales and with the game operations team. I cold called general managers, presidents and vice-presidents throughout the organization and even managed to snag a couple informational interviews with those people who were kind enough to take my call and listen to my elevator pitch. Beyond submitting my resume, I also prepared business cases and proposals on what improvements I would recommend as an account manager for MLSE. Alas, nothing worked out with MLSE. Unfortunately or fortunately, dependent if you are a contestant in the application, I chose to not apply for the TFC Dream Job.

So that brings us to today and the TFC Dream Job competition. Each contestant has been asked to submit a photo and 200 word bio on TFC's facebook page. Then it goes to the masses as TFC fans are asked to vote for their favorites. The Top 5 vote-getters and 10 more candidates selected by the TFC talent team will proceed to Round #2 of the competition.

So who is leading the competition with a day to go:

First Place - Megan Shaw Megan Shaw Application

Second Place - Stacey Anderson Stacey Anderson Application

Third Place - Faizal Khamisa  Faizal Khamisa Application

Fourth Place - Gary Chauhan Gary Chauhan Application

Fifth Place - Jaspal Sangha Jaspal Sangha Application

What Is Wrong With The TFC Dream Job Contest:

1. No current MLSE employees should be allowed to participate in the contest. This is more or less to ease public perception that the contest is being rigged. It is a common practice for employees of the organization that is hosting the competition to not be allowed to participate.

2. MLSE should have not allowed a comments section for each applicant. The abuse and language that some people have levied on some of the contestants is pathetic and embarrassing. Some of TFC's most loyal fans are attacking the contestants that are leading the competition and to be honest it looks poorer on them than on the actual applicants.

3. Each contestant should be allowed to modify their application. There are plenty of grammar and spelling mistakes that are rampant through many of the applications. I assume that many of the contestants rushed to get their application online and to start collecting votes and simply did not pay enough attention to their entries. We should allow each contestant the ability to adjust their application at least twice throughout the process.

4. Some applicants are using online voting tools to boost their voting totals. This should be illegal, but I doubt MLSE has caught this. The applicant in sixth place, Bobby Brasz (Bobby Brasz Application) has used an online voting tool - http://getonlinevotes.com/tfc-dream-job-bobbybrasz/. I am not sure how many votes he gained using this online tool, but the people running the competition should be made aware of this development. I am sure Booby Brasz is not the only contestant using an online voting tool, he is just the lucky one I googled.

So Who Gets The Posts By Panos Endorsement:

Honestly, I have gone through many of the applications and I have yet to vote for a single person, but if I was going to select one contestant that best represents TFC, Toronto and the soccer community, well that would be David Rowaan (David Rowaan Application) Just reading his position paper and the work he is done in the past, I think he is by far the best candidate.

What do you think of the competition?

Just to put things into perspective I have held season tickets for TFC since Day 1 in sections 110 and 111. I am not affiliated to any supporter's group because I like to go the game and enjoy myself and don't feel a need to align myself with a certain supporter group based on where I sit. However, that being said the TFC supporter groups are a vital component of the game experience at BMO Field, so I appreciate all of their hard work.