Tell us about your sports background growing up in Germany and your introduction to baseball. 

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As any good German kid, I started off playing football [soccer] until I was about 15. Then I switched to basketball, realizing my physical talent was much better suited for that. I played basketball all the way up to second league in Germany, which is semi-professional or entry-level professional.

There were always a couple of Americans on the roster, and I played with many U.S. soldiers in the parks during the summer. Around that time, it became easier to access college and professional sports on TV in Germany. I watched a lot of college and NBA, and there was an MLB broadcast service as well. I watched baseball for a few years, but to be frank, it’s not a big sport in Germany. 

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After your playing career, you co-founded Germany’s first-ever basketball players union, SP.IN. How did that opportunity come about, and what did you learn?

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My coach at the time, Walter Palmer, had just retired and talked to a bunch of local players and foreigners about setting up a players association. He enrolled me to help out, when I was literally still finishing high school. I did things like survey players, support team visits, and run the website to help launch the union in its early startup phase.

When I started Googling literature about this, I found [Marvin Miller’s book] “A Whole Different Ballgame.” It shaped my strategic understanding of how these organizations should operate, build influence, bring collective motivation out of players, and create impact. My entire professional career ever since has been in the players association movement.

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You eventually transitioned from working in that small union to FIFPRO, which protects about 65,000 soccer players around the world. What’s the biggest challenge of player advocacy on a global scale?

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I think the biggest challenge is in the complexity and diversity of issues the players are facing and the many countries, cultures and legal systems. FIFPRO is a union of all unions in football, so you have everything from Premier League and La Liga players to men and women’s footballers in Gabon, Honduras, Ecuador, etc. The diversity of the players’ needs, experiences, and stages of professionalism are so vast and so are those of the PAs representing them. 

On top of that, you’re talking about some of the biggest sporting competitions in the world, their structure, player participation and commercial benefits. The international regulatory frameworks are applicable to so many different regions. Whichever little screw you turn has very, very different impacts for players in different countries. 

Nevertheless, I believe we created significant impact on each of those stages through all the means a union has at its disposal – campaigns, court cases, negotiations. So that scale of issues and responsibilities is the biggest challenge of that role.

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You were also on the board of the World Players Association, which facilitates collaboration between sports unions worldwide, including the MLBPA. What is the benefit of having international unity? 

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We started with creating EU Athletes, an umbrella of players associations across Europe with a focus on the impact of legislation and government policy on athletes in the mid-2000s. From that experience of uniting athlete unions across sports, we realized that the same type of organization would be beneficial to create on a global level. It’s a valuable platform to bring people who do our work of representing players together regularly and share in the inspiration and challenges we have in common. In that room, there is a good chance you’ll find somebody who solved the problem you’re currently trying to figure out because all these unions go through similar stages. You walk in there to discuss issues and you find somebody who can help you solve something that you couldn't by yourself. That is very powerful and really embodies our solidarity as players associations.

In periods like the pandemic, the coordination we had about medical protocols, safety requirements, and the economic impacts on different leagues and competitions, those were the moments when we really saw the benefit come through and where every players association, no matter how big or small, could learn from each other.

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Did any initial interactions with the MLBPA and Executive Director Tony Clark stand out or foreshadow your new role? 

 

Tony and I had discussions about international strategy, probably going back two years or more, about the international opportunities that exist for U.S. players associations and how we can export some of their sophisticated solutions to other unions in the world, whether that's the collective bargaining system, economic negotiations, labor protections, or commercial opportunities through group licensing and different programs. 

Now felt like the right place and time to implement some of those ideas in practice. For me, the history of this union and its approach today felt like an optimal platform to put into place things I believe can be truly revolutionary for our members, other baseball players around the world, and athletes in general internationally. So, it's quite an exciting opportunity to apply all those thoughts in this framework and through this organization.

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Soccer’s already an incredibly global sport—baseball less so. What are you looking to accomplish as part of the MLBPA’s international team in terms of growing the game? 

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Well, I would say baseball is “regionally global”, as in, there are pockets in many different parts of the world where it's incredibly popular, but then other pockets where it is not truly visible. I think there's a lot of potential for baseball to reach new audiences and get new groups of people excited about the sport. Interacting with players in other countries ultimately will help talent development. The more talent there is in more countries, the more international the playing pool is, the better opportunities it'll attract, the more revenue potential our sport has, and the more job opportunities will be created for players here and abroad.
 

Being guardians of the game itself is also important. We can play a role in internationalizing the game and working with groups who truly care about the game to make it stand the test of time and eclipse where people may see its ceilings.  

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What qualities do you value in a successful workplace?

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I think intrinsic motivation is incredibly important. There’s no activity you will spend more time on in your life than work other than maybe sleep. So, I think it’s important that the motivation to do what you do comes from within a certain passion or belief system. That’s what I’ve always pursued—less so because of my passion for sport, but more so because of my passion for representing athletes as people and working for them to make sure they are protected and can exploit their opportunities in a dignified way.  
 

I believe it's a very different motivation when you represent people rather than institutions. You need to have a connection to those individuals, and you need to replicate their values and diversity within your team and principles so that you can get a sense of who they are and how to best represent them. That's always a collective effort and I enjoy working in teams that share this ambition. 

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Outside of work, what do you do for fun?

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Most of my free time is family time. I’ve got two sons, 11 and 13. They’re busy at that age, so I’m trying to spend as much time with them and my wife as I can playing sports and living family life. I am quite active, working out and spending time in nature, and also reading good books, things like that.

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Have you introduced your sons to baseball yet?

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No, not yet. I have one very motivated soccer player. He plays at one of the youth academies here in Germany. And the other one is anything from a swimmer to a climber to a mountain biker. All things you can do great together. But we’ll find a batting cage next time we are in the U.S.