Sixers news on a Tuesday morning:

CAMDEN – JUNE 7, 2022 – Philadelphia 76ers President of Business Operations Chris Heck announced today that he will depart the organization at the end of June after nine years as he pursues new professional opportunities.

Heck has served as President of Business Operations since 2017 after joining the organization in 2013 as Chief Sales and Marketing Officer. During his tenure, the 76ers built one of the largest season ticket member bases in the NBA, while also setting franchise records for sponsorship growth. Heck also led efforts to reinvigorate the 76ers brand by implementing innovative strategies across marketing, sponsorship activation, game presentation, alumni integration, social media and content.

Additionally, Heck oversaw the growth of the brand to include the Philadelphia 76ers Training Complex in Camden, New Jersey, as well as the rebrand and relocation of the 76ers’ G League franchise, the Delaware Blue Coats, to Chase Fieldhouse in Wilmington, Delaware. The Villanova University graduate also led efforts to launch 76ers Gaming Club of the NBA 2K League, which has the winningest record in league history to date.

“I want to thank the leadership of Harris Blitzer Sports and Entertainment for this incredible professional opportunity to lead one of the most important brands in professional sports,” Heck said. “The last nine years have been the most rewarding and challenging of my professional career. Alongside some amazing colleagues, we filled our stands with passionate fans, created memories for a lifetime, and earned the support and loyalty of dozens of world-class partners. Thank you to our tremendously talented marketing, sales, and sponsorship staff at the Sixers – you are the best in the business. And most importantly, thank you to the fans of Philadelphia, you truly are the best in the world.”

“We deeply appreciate Chris’ contributions and leadership over the last nine years,” 76ers Managing Partner Josh Harris and Co-Managing Partner David Blitzer said. “He was instrumental in fueling our business growth and helped establish the 76ers as a truly global brand. Most importantly, Chris had a passion for ensuring the team used its platform to make a positive impact in the Philadelphia community. We wish him much success in the future and thank him for his dedication to the team and city.”

The Sixers will not be filling this position. It’ll remain open and they’ll have the other executive-level people handle these duties.

Heck did an admirable job as team President. Agree with him or not, he made himself available and was transparent with fans and media. Some people have this default knee jerk reaction to anybody or anything on the business side of a sports team, like “the suits only care about making money,” but that’s naive because there’s a business component to everything. Of course you have to sell tickets and sponsorships and find a jersey patch partner and schmooze with clients. It all comes with the territory.

Perhaps the thing people associate more with Heck than anything is the famous interview where he made the comments about “New Philadelphia” and admitted that he hated the black uniforms. I appreciated the honesty, but people hated that episode because he said “blue collar is important for the city, but it’s not the only component,” which was 100% true.

This is part of what I wrote about that non-controversy back in the day:


“When Heck says “New Philadelphia is about the arts, it’s about culture, it’s about education, it’s about diversity. We like that narrative more than the blue collar hockey thing,” it does sound high brow and perhaps patronizing. I get that. But I think he’s really just speaking to a younger generation of more progressive sports fans who look at things a little bit differently. There’s certainly nothing wrong with “blue collar,” which, let’s be honest, is code that means a little older and a little whiter, but the truth is that Philadelphia is more than that. Sixers fans trend younger. They’re black and brown. They are college educated and work in non-blue collar sectors. We’re not telling the full story when we cling to a term that only represents one specific segment of the Philadelphia sports fan demographic.”

I get how some people saw all of that as condescending, but all Heck was trying to say is that local sports fandom evolved over the years. “Blue collar” turned into a generational explainer of sorts when Philly sports became something more complex. It’s not just about hard hats and lunch pails and corny shit like that, it’s about analytics, and The Process, and load management, and concepts that are contemporary and different. It’s a big region with a diverse fan base and diverse thoughts, and that’s all he was really trying to say.

There are plenty of organizations rolling out empty corporate suits with no substance. At least Chris had convictions, whether they were right or wrong.

We’ll see what’s next for the Sixers. They have a “C-Suite” of various people. Chief Operating Officer Lara Price. Chief Revenue Officer Katie O’Reilly. VP of Business Ops Susan Williamson. One of these days I’ll be in a C-Suite. Maybe chief blogger.