Since playing his last major league game in 2021, former outfielder Dexter Fowler hasn’t slowed down. He’s become a part owner of Premier League team AFC Bournemouth, started a production company and worked as a TV analyst, among other ventures.
As part of a video series called The Playbook, which was created by Sports Illustrated and Entrepreneur, Fowler recently sat down with Mikey Tanha to talk business. Tanha is the cofounder and CEO of Noble 33, an eco-friendly hospitality company whose restaurants will soon include the Kansas City steakhouse 1587 Prime, a partnership with Chiefs stars Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce. Fowler and Tanha found they have quite a bit in common.
Dexter Fowler: So tell me about your background.
Mikey Tanha: I was born in Iran.
Fowler: Really? My wife’s Iranian.
Tanha: Nice. It was during the revolution in 1980. I was literally born in a war, and my parents, when I was 2 years old, decided, You know what? We’re not having our son grow up in this environment. We want to move somewhere where he has opportunities. So they made the ultimate sacrifice for me. So we moved to Northern California. My mom left her whole family. My dad left most of his family and his career. And that sacrifice was for me. And so that stays with me. That drives me to be successful because I want to make sure that they feel good about their decision.
So tell me about you.
Fowler: I was born and raised in Atlanta. My mom used to ask me, ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ I’d say, ‘A businessman.’ That’s what I would always say. I love getting in a suit and tie. I just love to dress up. My dad was the director of global accounts for Kimberly Clark. I’d see him getting in a suit and tie going to work, and I’d think, I want to be like dad.
My mom was a teacher ...
Tanha: My mom was a professor.
Fowler: Love it. My mom taught elementary school. I promised my parents when I got drafted—I said, ‘Hey look, I’m going to [Penn State] just to play baseball. I promise you when I’m retired, I’m going to go back to school and get my degree.’
I kept my promise. I didn’t have to go back to school, but I went back and graduated. So that was my upbringing. But [since] then, all these opportunities have popped up. I’m part owner in the English Premier League. Through my business mentors or sitting on boards, I’m learning. You talk to different people, you’re rubbing shoulders with all these people, and iron sharpens iron.
Tanha: So we’re going into a lot of new markets and there’s a business side of it, and then there’s the community side of it. So when we go into a new market, we obviously do our analysis on whether or not the restaurant can be successful. We take into consideration, demographics, marketing, competition, etc.
But then there’s a community side to it. We don’t want to go into a new market and take, we want to go into a new community and a new market with the mindset of giving. And so my business partner, Tosh Berman, and our CMO, Matt Smith, they actually came up with a program called Noble Neighbors.
It’s basically a corporate responsibility program we’re launching next year, where in every new market that we’re going, we’ll select family-owned restaurants—mom and pops that have been open for a couple years, that are doing O.K. They have their culinary down, but they need to get over the hump in one aspect or another, whether it’s operational efficiency or marketing or getting funding. And we’ll put our team on it.
I love that we’ll spend a couple hours a week with our team members helping them, diving in and looking to get them over the hump. That way we’re giving to the community that we’re going into. It’s good for them, it’s good for the community, it’s good for us.
Fowler: I love that. That puts a smile on my face. My mom, like I said, was a teacher and she taught in inner city schools in Marietta. And watching her go in, and [hearing] the stories of the kids ... It hurts my heart to say that they’re really going to school to learn and to get maybe two meals, breakfast and lunch, and then when they go home, their parents are at work.
I used to go talk to kids all the time [as a player], giving back to the community. Whether I was in St. Louis or Chicago, [I’d] go to schools and talk to kids. To have something in their community that they can actually lean on, that’s not too far out of their grasp, that’s awesome. Words can’t describe that.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as Dexter Fowler and Mikey Tanha on What It Takes to Build a Business Empire.