Daviess County native Eric Clouse is making a name for himself in professional sports—not as an athlete, but as a dynamic executive—most recently as Chief Commercial Officer for the Cleveland Browns.
Haslam Sports Group hired Clouse for this role after a successful 10-year stint with the Cleveland Cavaliers, where he was the Senior Vice President of Sales and Service from 2019. As CCO, he oversees revenue and marketing departments for the Cleveland Browns to maximize ticket sales and services, business analytics, fan engagement, corporate partnerships and digital content and production.
So how does a kid from Sorgho end up working for an NFL team?
“I think it’s pretty much like anybody who gets into the world of sports business. When they first get started, they’re sports fans,” he said. “I was following Kentucky sports a great deal when I was younger and I was just interested in it from a fan perspective. Then as you get further into it, you find appreciation for the business behind sports and the team behind the team, if you will. Understanding how tickets are sold, how partnerships are sold, kind of how marketing is run and community relations—just kind of the whole basis of the business.”
Clouse found an interest in the business of sports while he was interning for the athletics department at the University of Kentucky. He then decided to go to business school and transitioned into a full-time role as Director of Ticket Sales for the University of Louisville.
In his current role, Clouse says, there’s a new challenge every day. He focuses on keeping the fan in mind with every decision made. “We talk a lot about being fan obsessed,” he said. “You have a responsibility to the fan, and you have a responsibility to your ownership group. And really, you have a responsibility to the brand to make sure that you’re representing it in the right way and you’re respectful to the history that it has.”
All of that has to be balanced with keeping the lights on. “It is a business,” he said. “You have to focus on how you generate revenue to be able to create the sport. You have to be able to pay the players and the coaches and all the staff that make it run.”
For Clouse, who manages a team of about 120, the real joy in his day-to-day operations is the people he works with and seeing them grow their own careers.
“It all kind of starts with people and that’s really my favorite part—the family that you create, as you go through the day, building careers and getting people promoted…” he said. “That’s what, at the end of your career, you’ll look back on and take pride in. Business successes come and go. But for years, their happiness and their successes live on for a very, very long time. And those are the things that really matter most to me.”
That people-first mentality is something he credits to his upbringing in Owensboro, his strong family background and his friend group at Apollo High School.
“I had a dad who taught me the meaning of hard work ethic and discipline and stick-to-itiveness,” he said. “My mom was the one that gave me my confidence and empathy. Those things are really what kind of pushed me.”
Clouse’s core group of friends also pushed him. “I came from a class that had a lot of intellectually inclined people who worked hard, and when you’re surrounded by those people, it’s helpful,” he said. “Apollo gave me that foundation, and that friend group gave me that, as well.”
He, his wife, Sara, and their two children like to make it back to Owensboro and visit his parents when they can. His kids especially enjoy it. “They’re in a relatively big city,” he said, “but in many ways, they still have kind of roots in the farming community, which is where I got my start. They enjoy all those things that come with that.”
And it’s those same small-town Owensboro roots that have propelled Clouse to such great heights in the world of professional sports. OL
