Vinik Sports Group

As home to an NHL franchise, a collegiate athletics property, two event venues, a digital media company, and retail and e-commerce platforms, Vinik Sports Group has had many challenges over the past two years stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic.

The company, whose offices are in Tampa, Florida, saw most live and in-person events come to a standstill. However, Vinik’s leadership sought to make the most of a bad situation by ensuring that employees got help. That meant providing mental health support and a way they could make money, with opportunities to work in positions less affected by the pandemic, says Casey Rodgers, chief financial officer at the company.

As a direct result of the pandemic, Rodgers says, VSG had to suspend its match for 10 months, as it faced so much financial uncertainty. Once the match returned, though, participation in the plan increased as employees grew more optimistic about the future.

VSG’s leadership says its majority owner, Jeff Vinik, has a core belief in the company’s 401(k) plan and continually takes the steps necessary to help participants achieve retirement readiness. After evaluating what additional tools could truly make an impact on retirement readiness, VSG has implemented several key changes over past few years.

Specifically, the company added automatic enrollment and increased the default deferral rate from 2% to 3%, introduced an employer match of 100% of the first 3% of employee deferrals and 50% of the next 2%. It also increased the maximum automatic escalation rate from 7% to 10% and lowered the eligibility age from 21 to 18.

The governance of the 401(k) plan is taken very seriously, Rodgers adds, noting that the plan committee meets every quarter to review the current status of the plan. The plan was designed to be as transparent as possible, to build employees’ trust and show them exactly where their money is going, he says. Additionally, the committee is composed of people from throughout the organization, including from ticket sales, analytics, partnerships and finance. The members thus become able to answer questions about the plan within their team.

“We have people who are interested, who are engaged in the plan, who really want to make it better and make sure we can solve problems,” Rodgers says. “If we discover some aspect of the program that just isn’t working, we can make the change, and everybody understands why it’s being done, and everybody agrees on that. We come together to make the right decision, which is really what our owner drives us to do.”

Rodgers calls Vinik an “amazing owner.”

“He’s just constantly thinking about how best to help people,” Rodgers says. “The early part of the pandemic was a challenge. There was a tremendous amount of uncertainty, and it is certainly nice sitting here, on the other side, to be able to look back and see what we were able to accomplish during that period.”

The sports group saw success across the board as the changes began to take effect, the company says. The retirement plan participation rate increased from 55% to 98%, the average savings rate from 5.3% to 8.2% and plan assets from $9 million to $23 million. Ninety-two percent of participants accepted their auto-escalation, and 83% now use diversified investment options.

“Not everybody is thinking about this retirement stuff front and center. If we can constantly be making tweaks to the program, that gives us one more thing about the program to talk about, which then gets people talking about it, which hopefully gets them excited about it,” Rogers says. “We’re trying to keep it from going stagnant—from becoming something that is ‘set it and forget it.’”

—DJ Shaw