Alex Anthopoulos

I don't care about the talent.

I don't care about the payroll.

Who do you work for?

Who do you work with?

That is, to me, all of it.

You can give me the smallest market, the worst city, worst stadium, worst facilities with an awesome owner slash boss, whoever you report to.

I'm in.

Give me the best city.

Greatest place to live, awesome payroll, everything else.

With a nightmare of an owner, I want no part of it.

And I can tell you, when I came here, a huge part of what was important to me was that I reported directly to ownership, and I report directly to Terry McGurk.

I didn't want to have a third party.

If I had something to deliver, something to say, something to explain, I didn't have to go through layers to make sure everything was being communicated correctly.

And it's been fantastic.

And this is as good a setup as I think any executive in sports can have.

I report directly to Terry McGurk, who's our chairman.

He has full trust and faith.

And I understand that obviously can change.

But I think as a sports executive, speaking for myself, if things are going to go right or wrong, you want them to go right or wrong because you made the decisions.

It wasn't because you were influenced, you were nudged, you were pushed.