Rob Higgins’ Leadership Drives Tampa Bay Sports Commission To Set The Pace

Rob Higgins was attending College Football Playoff meetings in Atlanta earlier this year when he shoehorned a side trip into his itinerary. He boarded a 6 a.m. flight Saturday, two days before the national championship game, and flew to Vegas for that evening’s preseason soccer match between Messi and Inter Miami against Club America.

Higgins flew back after the game and, with the time change, landed at Hartsfield-Jackson International at 6 a.m. Sunday. He attended the championship game between Ohio State and Oregon the following evening.

“It was not the brightest thing,” he said. “It was a brutal trip that took a toll, but I was so glad because I did it.”

It was a trip he took less than one month after completing treatment for colorectal cancer.

“While I didn’t do anything without my doctor’s permission, I also did not let it affect the things I love such as my family and the opportunity to showcase our hometown,” he said.

It is that drive and determination that serves as the bedrock of the Tampa Bay Sports Commission, of which Higgins has been executive director since 2004 when he joined the private non-profit entity.

Sporting events flock to Tampa

Among other events, the Tampa Bay Sports Commission has brought five Super Bowls, four women’s Final Fours and three Frozen Fours to Tampa. Higgins and his team are in discussion with the College Football Playoff committee about hosting the 2029 championship game at the end of the 2028 season. It would be Tampa’s second CFP championship joining the memorable 2017 clash between Clemson and Alabama.

“I would categorize us as being in the red zone and we are making sure we dot all of the i’s and cross all of the t’s,” he said. “This is a community that loves college football, and it is something we have been anxious and eager to host again. We are doing everything we can to punch it across the goal line.”

Such events could not continue to take place in Tampa if the commission was busy highlighting what it did yesterday. Indeed, there is something that has not and will take place as long as Higgins is at the helm: patting oneself on the back.

To that extent, Higgins credits the late Leonard Levy, a titan when it came to getting Tampa Bay included on the major-league sporting landscape, for imparting lessons on how impetrative it is to improve a product so that it grows into something more and more appealing. Certainly, you will not succeed all of the time, but one should operate with that mindset.

“He would always say, ‘If they like us, they will leave us, but if they love us, they will come back,’” said Higgins. “We don’t ever deem an event successful unless it decides to return. We have to continue to make sure that we are executing with excellence and not resting on our laurels.”

Hence, Higgins felt the need to squeeze Messi into his schedule so that he could get a feel for the mega-watt spectacle that would surround the mega-watt star when Inter Miami played a preseason game in Tampa in a matter of weeks.

“With our resume of hosting, I think a lot of times we feel fearless when it comes to having seen a lot of different events,” said Higgins, whose first day on the job was June 7, 2004, the day the Tampa Bay Lightning won their first Stanley Cup. “With Messi, that was an event we truly had not seen and I was glad that we went through the due diligence of it all, no matter how hard it was. In the lead-up to the event, I could tell our community stakeholders that this is a different deal. I know we have hosted five Super Bowls and a variety of college championships, but Messi has a magnetic draw that we have to prepare for in a different way.”

Having traveled so soon after an appointment that concluded a six-week string of daily treatments, the whirlwind of activity served to supply Higgins’ sails with bursts of fresh air that guided him and his staff through a packed calendar. It was a stretch that included Messi’s appearance at Raymond James Stadium, the Savanah Bananas for two games at the sold-out venue in March and the women’s hoops Final Four in April at Amalie Arena, which is a centerpiece of activity in a downtown that has flourished post-pandemic with its Water Street development.

“To have the greatest soccer player of all-time playing here in February, the Bananas playing in an NFL stadium for the first time in March, and then our fourth women’s Final Four in April, those are all things that communities would give anything to host once in five years and we had all three in 50 days,” said the 46-year-old Tampa native and University of South Florida grad, whose experience at the school ranges from being an eight-year-old ball boy with the men’s basketball team to event management responsibilities under the late, great Lee Roy Selmon, the university’s athletic director from 2001 to 2004.

While it has been par for the course for the commission to attract major professional and collegiate events, not to mention a bevy of other sporting interests such as club soccer and travel softball that do not attract billboard-type promotion, but are vital to a community’s vibrancy, perhaps the course would be more challenging to traverse if not for a staff that has a combined 90 years with the commission.

After all, it helps to know what others on a team are thinking and neither player is bashful about promoting ideas and the like especially as Tampa, and the aforementioned downtown community in particular, continues to evolve into a top-shelf destination.

“When I think about how much continuity plays a role in this, I mean, we took lessons from the 2008 women’s Final Four and made the 2015 women’s Final Four even better,” said Higgins. “From there, we rolled those lessons into the 2019 women’s Final Four, and then 2025. It is all on a parallel path with the growth and transformation of our community. You have the acquired knowledge, thought process and innovation that we can continue to snowball while working consistently side by side with a transforming community. It has been a perfect combination that helps elevate our game.”

Dream Team

Higgins was recently inducted into the Sports Club of Tampa Bay Hall of Fame. He saw the achievement as a nod to the lean, mean, machine of a team he works with each day.

“It is incredible recognition for our team,” he said. “We are so fortunate to have seven individuals on our staff that pour their heart, soul and time into this to bring as many events of all shapes and sizes to our community.”

One of those individuals, Claire Lessinger, overlapped with Higgins in the USF athletic department where she spent 16 years as a volleyball coach, the last eight as head coach. It was during her time leading the Bulls that Lessinger served as a member of the host committee for the 2009 NCAA volleyball championship in Tampa. It was in that role that she worked side by side with the commission and caught Higgins’ attention for “how dynamic she was as an administrator.” He brought her on board in 2012.

Being part of a tight-knit team that will go above and beyond to accomplish its goals, or at least put forth its best effort, is the cloth from which the commission has been cut on Higgins’ watch. It is also what appealed to Lessinger.

“It’s a direct reflection of Rob’s leadership and the culture he creates,” said the Clearwater native, who played volleyball at the University of Florida. “All of us bring a different skill set to the table and he provides opportunities for us to grow. We joke that we can throw our titles out the door because we do whatever is needed to get the job done and make sure that we are elevating on every opportunity we get. It’s the mission that we are all so passionate about.”

Continuity allows for a firm grasp of an evolving sporting and community landscapes. It helps when the NCAA, the NFL and other entities deal with familiar faces who have provided a winning formula for a number of years.

“I am biased, but I feel we have the best person in their respective positions anywhere in the country working for us,” said Higgins.

Major events will continue to make their way to Tampa. The lineup includes NCAA tournament first- and second-round men’s basketball games at Amalie Arena next year, which will be played less than two months after Raymond James Stadium hosts an NHL Stadium Series game between the host Lightning and Boston Bruins.

“We have a pretty good recipe for success, so we do not necessarily change the way we do business,” said Lessinger. “What we do is that we are always making sure we are elevating and raising the bar, thinking creatively and outside the box. That allows us to continue to grow and continue to attract major events to our community.”

Health scare provides priceless lessons

Incredibly, Higgins’ cancer diagnosis was five weeks after his father, Jack, learned he had a form of cancer.

“I never thought I would be in the scenario where I go in for treatment, then walk back into the waiting room and my dad would be sitting there waiting for his treatment,” he said, noting Jack is doing well. “It was a surreal father-and-son journey that I don’t think any of us could have ever imagined.”

It was a time that provided Higgins an opportunity to take inventory and learn from what he had not done, but needed start doing. Immediately.

“Listen, everybody is really busy and certainly I stay ultra-busy when it comes to what we have an opportunity to do for our hometown while being committed to my wife and kids,” said the husband of Casey and father of Laney and Landon. “If you have a health challenge, it is too easy to want to fight through it. I wore the never-going-to-the-doctor as a badge of courage whereas it was a badge of stupidity. Now that I am in the clear, I feel I am stronger and better because I have learned a lot from my mistakes. I now have the opportunity to share those lessons with others.”

What Higgins has shared and will continue to share, in part, is the simple things may prove to be not so simple, as he can attest. Sure, a cough or headache may dissipate, and rather quickly. But is there something much larger at work? There is one way to find out, and it is not complicated.

“There is a smart way to approach it and that is to prioritize your mental and personal health,” he said.