Hoover Met Complex’s new leader an industry vet
The new general manager for the Hoover Metropolitan Complex is no stranger to the sports and event industry.
After a 20-year career in the U.S. Navy, John Sparks spent another 21 years in sports and entertainment facility operations.
He has managed buildings and complexes that include the AT&T Center in San Antonio, Barclays Center in Brooklyn and, most recently, the 60,000-seat Camping World Stadium (formerly known as the Citrus Bowl) in Orlando.
Sparks has experience dealing with organizations such as the NBA, WNBA, NHL, NFL and Major League Soccer.
Sports Facilities Management, which manages the Hoover Met Complex for the city of Hoover, hired Sparks to oversee the complex in August, filling the shoes of former General Manager Monty Jones, who left in July.
Jason Clement, SFM’s CEO and co-founder, said Sparks’ values of service, accountability and integrity are an excellent fit for the culture being built at the Hoover Met Complex.
Sparks, who turns 61 in October, said he thinks his background in the industry, coupled with his military structure and processes, will serve the city of Hoover well as it finishes construction on the outdoor portion of the complex and seeks to recruit more competitions and events.
A big bonus for him is that it brings him closer to family. He was the only one of three siblings not born in Alabama. His parents moved to California before he was born, and he grew up there and joined the Navy at age 19. For most of his Navy career, he was based in Virginia, but he still has a lot of family in Alabama and is eager to reconnect, he said.
He’s a diehard Crimson Tide fan and likes to follow the San Antonio Spurs, Atlanta Braves and St. Louis Cardinals, but is not tied down to any one professional sports team, Sparks said.
After he got out of the Navy in 1997, Sparks spent a year as the maintenance operations manager for the CNN Center in Atlanta and 3½ years as the director of building operations for the Philips Arena (now State Farm Arena), where the NBA’s Atlanta Hawks play.
He spent the next 10 years as vice president and general manager for Spurs Sports & Entertainment, overseeing operation of the AT&T Center in San Antonio. That center has been the home for the NBA’s San Antonio Spurs, WNBA’s San Antonio Stars and American Hockey League’s San Antonio Rampage.
Sparks then worked a year overseeing the startup of the Barclays Center, which is home to the NBA’s Brooklyn Nets, and 2½ years as a sports facility management consultant, specializing in technology such as scoreboards, audio systems, digital signs and Wi-Fi.
In December 2014, he became the stadium operations assistant division manager for the Camping World Stadium in Orlando, overseeing management and day-to-day operations of the stadium, home to Major League Soccer’s Orlando City Soccer Club.
In addition to having family in Alabama, Sparks said he was attracted to the Hoover job because youth sports is an up-and-coming industry that he finds appealing.
“I think this is a phenomenal facility,” he said of the Hoover Met Complex, which now includes Hoover Metropolitan Stadium, the 155,000-square-foot indoor Finley Center, five NCAA-size baseball/softball fields and an RV park. He looks forward to completing construction of five NCAA-size football/soccer/lacrosse fields, a 16-court tennis complex, splash pad and playground in January and helping make Hoover a bigger destination for sports and events.
He also sees potential in attracting more events to the stadium like the East Coast Pro showcase, which in August brought 155 top high school baseball players, 494 Major League Baseball scouts and 85 college coaches.
Sparks also said his staff is in conversations with some Northern colleges looking for places in the South to have pre-season spring training.
Hoover officials are eager to see the sports complex become profitable. Original forecasts called for it to lose money the first five years, but John McDonald, the vice president for Sports Facilities Management who oversees Sparks, said Hoover might reach profitability a little faster.
The complex is headed in the right direction, and Sparks has the organizational skills needed to make it succeed, McDonald said. “If he doesn’t get us where we need to be, I don’t know who can.”