Born and raised in Los Angeles to parents who supported his dreams with love and money, Brown confesses to having been a low-performing student and a “jerk” to other kids around him. In high school, he broke the jaw of a popular class president who had humiliated him with a cake in the face following a stunt Brown thoughtlessly played on birthday celebrants. He never actually finished his formal education. But it was his passion for sports—first baseball, then kart racing—that saved him, he says, giving him a reason to think of how to get good at something and keep striving to be better. A decade pursuing race-car driving in Europe taught him he was not top-grade material behind the wheel, but while looking for sponsors he discovered a talent and passion for “deal-making,” which eventually put him on track to rise up in the world of sports management. A deal he negotiated between Crown Royal and NASCAR that led to the end of a decades-long ban on hard liquor sponsorship in motorsports (and other sports soon after) made Brown the first serious money to convince him he was on the right path. And up the corporate ladder he raced. Patient readers who suffer business clichés will find surprisingly humanistic principles in Brown’s lessons for managers and leaders: “You want a summary of my management style?” he asks. “I’m a democratic, diplomatic leader. A benevolent leader.” Not a pushover, by any means, he led his team from the basement to the top within 10 years, with a world-stopping pandemic in-between.
