Episode 36: James Mercer
John Twork 0:09
Welcome to Redbird Buzz. I'm John Twork from University Marketing and Communications. Our guest today is James Mercer joining us from London where he's the commercial director for Envision Racing's Formula E team. Mercer graduated from Illinois State University with a degree in history in 1991, and he earned a master’s from the University of Richmond and sport business in 1994. His career in sports management spanning the past 30 years has included work as a player agent and as a commercial director for various tennis, rugby, and motorsports organizations. In 2019, Mercer joined Envision Racing’s Formula E team, which competes in the FIA Formula E World Championship and features world-class drivers and electric-powered race cars that reach 200 miles per hour.
And it's my pleasure to welcome James Mercer to Redbird Buzz, what's the word, Redbird? Tell us a little bit about yourself James and your journey from history major at Illinois State to Formula E Commercial Director, how'd you get there?
James Mercer 1:22
Well, first of all, hello everyone. Do you want to make me feel very old. All those timeframes that you just talked about, it does seem like a long time ago since I was in Bloomington Normal, but always has a piece of my heart and always, always will do, to be honest with you. So, I left a very happy person from Illinois State and, you know, from there went on to do an internship in Washington DC with a big sports agency. And that's really how I got into sport. I started managing professional tennis players shortly after that, and then was moved back to help start the London office for the agency. So that was a great experience. And then from there, I went to work for the International Tennis Federation and then became the commercial and media director for the World Rally Championship. And after that, rugby and, and into tennis again, and found myself in back in motorsport, which was, it's been a wonderful journey, actually.
John Twork 2:29
How did you end up at Illinois State as a history major?
James Mercer 2:34
It's a good question. I came over on a tennis scholarship actually. So, all those years ago, so yeah, I had a great time traveling all over the United States and, and hopefully winning a few tennis matches for Illinois State. So yeah, that's why I came over originally.
John Twork 2:53
So, you're from the UK originally then?
James Mercer 2:57
Correct! Yes, I was headhunted by the tennis coach then to come out to play for the team. So yeah, I was in the UK. I thought “Wow, fantastic. Illinois. Sounds amazing. Let's do it”. So jumped on a plane and literally came straight over without knowing very much about Bloomington Normal, or about Illinois itself, to be honest with you.
John Twork 3:22
Much different but I'm glad to hear it sounds like you have good memories from your time here and normal.
James Mercer 3:28
Yeah, fantastic memories. This was a great, great four years of my life. And if you ever find a way of turning back time, I do it all over again.
John Twork 3:37
Why did you decide to major in history as a tennis student-athlete?
James Mercer 3:44
Yeah, look, history was something that I was interested in, you know when you first start your undergraduate degree, I'm not sure how many of us are ever entirely sure what where that, where that degree and where that path will take us to be honest with you. So, I had no idea where my journey would end up. So, what I did know is that history was something I enjoyed. And then it would also give me an idea of, of how to how to look into the future and how to you know how to approach life in a positive manner. So that's really why I jumped into history. Again, something more out of passion than sort of thought process I'd say, John.
John Twork 4:27
And then you proceed your master in sports management was it pretty evident early on that you saw yourself in a career where you were already a student athlete, but making a career out of out of sports in some way? Was that was that your goal pretty early on?
James Mercer 4:43
Well, you know, my, my, what I really wanted to do was manage tennis players and what I was surprised how quickly I ended up doing exactly what my dream job was. So, you know, within a year and a half of of coming out of my master's degree, I was already working for one of the biggest three sports agencies in the world. And managing tennis players, which is something that I really wanted to do. So, it all happened at lightning speed. And again, in hindsight, it maybe if I was to do it all over again, I'd probably start off in a maybe doing something else in sports first, and to move up to your dream job. So, I almost got my dream job too early in my life, I think.
John Twork 5:30
Was it everything you had imagined it would be?
James Mercer 5:33
Well, look, I was 20. What was I 27-28 at the time, so I got to travel the world, I went to all sorts of incredible places, you know, from Japan, to Uzbekistan, to Russia to, you know, to crazy parts of Russia, you know, I went into Siberia to recruit young tennis players. And so, I looked, I saw, I saw everything I learned a lot about human nature about how people's minds work. And, you know, it's an incredible experience, at that point in my life, you know, probably as you as you start to get a bit older, and you know, you have kids and that sort of thing, you start to realize, well, you know, that's sort of life, as you know, it was I was traveling pretty much every week. So, it would have been tough now, but, you know, great, great period of my life, to be honest.
John Twork 6:21
And so, then you made the transition into becoming a commercial director. And that's your role currently for Envision Racing. So, let's jump to what you're doing now. And before we go any further Envision Racing fields, a team that competes in Formula E racing. So, what is Formula E racing?
James Mercer 6:47
Well, so good, very good question. So, formulary is only it's we're in our 10th year effectively, and it's electric racing. So, when you think so those cars are pure electric cars. So, when you think of Formula One, for example, you think of hybrid technology. Formula E is pure electric technology. And we own those global rights to have single-seat, electric car racing for many years to come, actually. So, you know, Formula E is the future of motorsport very much so. So, everything that the sport does, is designed to be purpose-driven, to make more people aware of the immobility about electric cars, and to adopt electric cars going forward. So, you know, and there's been a lot of studies done about how Formula E is supported the growth of immobility of electric vehicles throughout the world over the last over the last decade. So we've got, we compete against some of the biggest car manufacturers in the world from Porsche to, to Maserati, to Jaguar, Nissan, DS, so these are major car manufacturers, that we race, again, who are all designing there, our train the engine inside those cars, with one big eye on that technology, feeding down to all our road car technology. So, they invest, you know, hundreds of millions in, in getting those in developing that technology to make sure that, you know, the immobility the world of immobility transitions as quickly and as effectively and sustainably as it possibly can. So, Formula E has been acknowledged as the most sustainable motorsport and the most sustainable sport, should I say, in the world. It's in its 10th year, we will already have 354 million fans globally, we have a TV audience of just shy of 400 million annually. We're owned, we're owned effectively by the sister company of the Formula 1 owner. So, you know, everything in this sport is designed to be the number one motorsport in the world within the next 10 to 15 years. So, you know, you when you talk about when I was thinking about what my next steps should be in my career, it seems quite evident that this was a sport that was going somewhere. And, you know, it's a fantastic opportunity to join a sport right at the beginning. So, a lot of things we do in our lives have been around for decades and centuries. And there are all sorts of processes and committees and governing bodies and all sorts of things in place that mean making change. Making progress is quite often challenging. And the wonderful thing about joining a sport like Formula E is that hey, look, it's a new sport. You know, if we think of something, let's go ahead and do that something. So, yeah, and the team is a team is a perfect example of that. So, you know, probably not many of your listeners will know, if any will know who Envision is as a as an organization. So, Envision is one of the world's leading green tech companies. So, think wind turbines think solar energy thing, hydro energy, I think energy storage, Evie car batteries, they actually run about 20 odd percent of the world's renewable energy on their, on their platform, which manages the flow of energy. So, Envision is a is a is an incredible company to work for, because it's grown in 2009, from nothing to, you know, be a multibillion-dollar global corporation. So, and this racing team represents everything that's positive about that green tech business.
John Twork 11:00
If someone was flipping around on TV, or perhaps walked into a restaurant and saw, you know, these cars racing, I think they would assume it was a Formula One race, they look on the surface very much like a Formula One car, the races have, what appears to be similar types of strategy and so forth. But if you peel away the outside of these cars, what makes them so different from Formula One cars that folks might be more familiar with?
James Mercer 11:32
Well, I'm, you know, I'm biased about this, but I'm gonna say that better. Yeah. Well, look, let me tell you a fundament the fundamental difference about Formula E, and probably any other sport in the world. When I start my race, if I'm lucky enough to be driving a Formula One car, I put my foot on the gas, and I go as fast as I can, from the word go. And, and, you know, hopefully, at the end of the race, I'll finish in first place. In Formula E, this sport is all about efficiency. So, you know, we want to design the most efficient technology that goes into cars on the planet. So, the championship does not provide us with enough energy to complete the race. So, we're only given you know, 40-50 % of the energy in the car that is required to actually finish the race. So the rest of that energy is, is regen energy. So, if you think of an electric car, if you've driven an electric car, you take your foot off the gas of it, let's not call it gas, because that's a four-letter word for us, but you take your foot off the accelerator, and instantly you can feel the car coming to a halt. And you know, you can, and the car is, is regenerating energy as it's doing that it's. So effectively, our drivers don't use the brakes at any point in time, really, throughout the race. Because when they're coming up to a corner, they take their foot off that accelerator, they reject the energy, and they try to gain as much energy as they can to complete the race whilst driving as fast as they possibly can. Now thrown into that, because we are the most competitive motorsport I think in the world, you know, you're talking about first and last being fractions of a second, you know, thrown into that we have initiated all sorts of crazy ideas like something called an attack mode now and attack mode. All I can say is, if you've ever played Mario Kart, it's the same thing. So, an attack node is a series of Chevron's that are that are lit up. And when we, when we deviate from our racing line, and we drive over these Chevron's, we are given a big burst of energy, which gives us an advantage. So yes, we might have lost a couple of spaces on the grid, because we've deviated from the best racing line. But we've also inherited, you know, for the next four minutes more power than the other teams now we are obliged to take those attack modes throughout the course of the race. So, all of that if you think you're starting the race, you don't have enough energy to finish the race. You've got attack modes thrown in, and you've got cars, right on your bumper, and right ahead of you the whole time. Huge amounts of data are coming out of those cars to our engineers, and those engineers every second are deciding how the strategy is going to change. So, over the course of say, each race being average, say 100 kilometers. You've got enormous amounts of energy coming out and enormous deviations of strategy. Throughout the course of that race, so it is a fascinating sport to be involved in, you know, it's just so different to anything else than anyone ever would experience. And about 40% of those 354 million fans that we have right now. 40% are not motorsport fans. So, these are people that have that are they've never consumed Formula One that have never consumed other forms of motorsport, there's decided, well, look, this is a more sustainable sport. It's a purpose-driven sport. And it's fun, you know, we don't know who's going to win, is it? Now we were lucky to win the championship last year. But my God, there were some ups and downs and some incredible sort of races through the process of winning that World Championship title. So, it's just a, it's just an amazing sort of sport to be involved in, I would encourage anyone that sort of listening on the podcast to tune into CBS or on their Roku platform and take a look and have a watch and experience, how crazy it actually becomes.
John Twork 16:06
Or for those of our listeners who may be in the Portland area, you'll be there later this summer, right? I saw you traveled all over the world. But there are two races in the US later this year. Right?
James Mercer 16:18
Yeah, we have. We have a race in Mexico City. So North American continent and we have you’re right we race Portland. And, you know, hopefully, you're gonna see another major city destination next year in the United States as well added to Portland. So, the United States, as with a lot of sports is a very important continent to North America, a very important continent for us. So, the more we can bring over formulary to the US, the better we will be racing in, in New York, in Red Hook in Brooklyn, up until the last what, a year or so ago. And that was great to bring it to the New Yorkers, you know, it was a really, really popular race out there. So, you know, hopefully, hopefully, we're gonna get more fans over from the US.
John Twork 17:06
I want to know more about your role as commercial director. And that's a role that you've had with other organizations too, what does that role entail? And what are you doing specifically in that role with Envision Racing?
James Mercer 17:22
Yeah, so I'm, I mean, you're gonna laugh at John, I'm a complete failure. So, I always say to people look, you know, if you ever want to be, you don't want to go on to become a commercial operator or work in, in a sport or in another part of your life that drives revenues, be prepared to fail. Because, boy, do I fail, I fail a lot. And, you know, when I first started failing all those years ago, I took it very personally. But now I take it as a learning curve. So, what do I do I raise money for this team. To do that I build the look and feel of the team, the profile of the team, the marketing strategy, the team, to put it in the best possible position to be attractive to commercial partners, etc., and licensing partners. It's but it's hard work. It's always hard work. So, you know, unless you're working for the biggest franchise in the world or working for the Yankees, but even you know, even the Yankees commercial director will have his or her challenges ahead of them. They might be different challenges to my challenges, but they are challenges. So, you know, anytime you're involved in, in driving revenues, new revenues, new revenue streams. It's never easy.
John Twork 18:44
I can imagine. And the competition is fierce. You mentioned that there are some huge names from the racing world who have Formula E teams, and DReady, Penske, Jaguar, Mazda, Marathi, McLaren, Nissan, Porsche, but then there's Envision and by my count, 16 wins in 119 races, that's the second most wins of, of all the teams. So how do you differentiate Envision from those other competitors, especially the ones who you know, maybe have names that folks are a little more familiar with an Envision?
James Mercer 19:23
Yeah, I mean, there's some great teams, they talk about. Andretti and Penske and McLaren and yeah, these are these are these are big, big, either big car manufacturers or their or their big racing teams. So, look, I mean, you're absolutely right. We're the most successful team in Formula E history, and we were the World Champions last season. No one expected it probably. You know, there's our team is just under 50 people. The only thing that our team does is racing in Formula E. And look, we what we did last season and have been doing consistently is making sure that we functioned incredibly well as a team. If you think about the difference, the different functions of the different team members within, within our group, you have mechanics, you have software engineers, you have commercial and PR people, and you've got the drivers, these are all very different types of people with very different skill sets. So, what we've been working incredibly hard on, is to make sure that all these people function well together, that knows their own roles and responsibilities, and are committed to winning this championship and making the most out of this amazing team. You know, one thing that we haven't touched on, or I haven't touched on yet is that the sole purpose of our racing team is to drive awareness in climate change. So, I don't think there's another sports team in the world that's anything like that. So, I'll give you some examples of that we were the only sport to be an official partner of COP26, the big climate change summit. We were the only sports team to be in the world leaders’ zone at COP28 in the UAE that's just gone past in December. We run climate change summits all around the world. We've run a campaign, over the last 18 months, there's attracted 250,000 new fans, this team pledging to make a difference in their lives for a more sustainable planet. So, all of this is under the guise of something we call a race against climate change, which is a trademark logo around the world. And we have some amazing people that that help us support us speak at our events. People like Alok Sharma who was the president of COP26. Dame Jane Goodall, Michael Mann, the famous climate change scientists, Johan Rockström, again, the famous climate change scientist, you know, members of the corporate community support us, you know, we've had all sorts of amazing people that have committed to us. You know, one of our biggest fans is a fella called Aidan Gallagher, who's the star of the Umbrella Academy on Netflix. So, Aiden has been incredibly supportive of this team over the last two years, and has really gone out of his way to, to help drive more awareness in climate change, and drive more people to this incredible team. So, you know, winning races ensures that we are front of mind for many of those 354 million people that are following the sport. So, if we can get a fraction of those 354 million people to change their lives, for a more sustainable planet, then we're, then we're doing our job. So, you know, so you go back to that team and how we function and why we're winning. Because genuinely, we've got a, we've got a different purpose to everyone else, you know, we've got a purpose to help because we can't do it on our own, to help save this planet. So, you know, it's a really, it's a purpose that binds the team together and really gives us a sort of energy to succeed.
John Twork 23:33
And I imagine part of the way that, that Envision, and also Formula E racing can contribute to combating climate change, and electrifying, you know, vehicles for the average person, but it's sort of hard to imagine, you know, how does the technology in a Formula E car that goes 200 miles an hour? How does that translate to, you know, the car that, you know, I drive to work every day? And how does that ultimately help in this collective effort to fight against climate change?
James Mercer 24:09
Yeah, look, a lot of a lot of technology is, it is feeding directly to the road cars. So you know, if you if you, you know, if you interview, Jaguar, or Porsche, for example, a lot of their, of the new technologies that are going into these cars have been tested on these Formula E cars, you know, hybrid that, that, you know, a lot of us use in our own cars is a is very much a dying technology, you know, hybrid will not be around forever, it's gonna be, you know, pure electric and, and, you know, this is the world's best testbed for those electric technologies. You know, and it's for us to get that messaging out there that people have a lot of concerns about electric cars, are they going to blow up? You know, are we gonna be able to put the fire out? You know, if I'm driving my car, is it just going to stop all of a sudden? Because I'm going to run out of energy? You know, is it going to take me four hours to recharge my, you know, my battery? All of those, there's a lot of myths behind those behind those questions and those feelings because you're, we're all being fed. And it's the same in all parts of walks of life. But we are, you know, sometimes we've got to challenge what we're reading and why we're reading some of those opinions on immobility and electric cars, because, you know, Envision, for example, they acquired the Nissen battery technology several years ago, they still have a 0% accident or instant rate when it comes to their electric car batteries, there's, you know, this concern about the danger of an electric car is, is very unfounded. And similarly, you know, it's our intention as a sport to make sure that people start a)realizing that actually electric cars are really cool to drive. And then if you've driven one, but wow, you know, zero to 60, they are rocket-like, so they're fun to drive. But this concern about range as well, you know, oh, it can only do 250 miles, and then it'll conk out Well, how often do you drive 250 miles in one session anyway? As you know, and also your what you're gonna see is that range, just increasing, increasing, increasing? So, you know, I can understand why there are still people out there that are, you know, smiling at immobility. And wondering if it is the future, but it is very much the future, you know, and, you know, it's great that this world championship is, is driving, you know, that that that new technology towards a better place.
John Twork 27:05
You mentioned that this is the 10th year of Formula E racing. It sounds like this is the future. Will Formula E. Take, what will Formula One merge with Formula E someday? What does the future hold? Do you think?
James Mercer 27:23
Is anyone listening? Yeah, again, I, you know, that is the whatever million-dollar question that, that everyone is on everyone's lips look. As far as, you know, as far as we're concerned, we're just building the sport as, as quickly and as, you know, the most exciting manner we possibly can. What will happen? Look, we know that the internal combustion engine is dying out, you know, it's not going to be around for very much longer. You know, you look in some countries around the world, it doesn't exist anymore. So, you look at some of the Scandinavian countries. You know, they're adopting Evie, Evie technology, it's almost 100%. So, you know, it's clearly that immobility is going to overtake the internal combustion engine. So, you look at some of the other sports that are still using that, that dying technology, which it is dying technology. And you think to yourself, well, what's going to happen to that sport? Well, look, I mean, that's above my paygrade, probably, to guess where, where it's gonna go. But all I know is that Formula E has got a very, very exciting future in the next five to 10-15 years, because, you know, we have those exclusive rights to race, single-seater electric car racing, so no one else can do it. So, you know, it's, it's going to be, you know, a fascinating next sort of decade or so.
John Twork 28:53
And here's a question that might be a little closer to your pay grade, I'll ask specifically about Envision Racing, you know, coming off the World Championship, what, what is the future of hold for Envision Racing? And how do you hope to grow this team and continue its success in the years to come?
James Mercer 29:12
Yeah, look, I mean, you know, there's, we want to keep winning World Championships, of course, we do we, because that helps drive our mission of, of, of driving awareness in climate change. So, what I've always personally, you know, I, when I joined the team, you know, we all sat around a big table and we said, Why, why are we racing? You know, what do we want to achieve out of racing? Yes, we want to win world titles, etc. But what is it we you know, what is it we really want to want to do here? So, you know, we we'd already been running climate summits, you know, in 2017, which, you know, is, at that point in time, we were the only sport really the only sports team to be doing anything like that. I mean, these days a lot more sports team adopting different campaigns around sustainability and diversity, etc. But at that point in time we were, we were quite revolutionary really. So, you know, we said, we looked at ourselves and said, look, you know, let's make a difference here and let's do something that that no one else is doing, let's do something for, you know, to make this planet better. So, you know, our goal is to, is to turn this, you know, it's a car, at the end of the day, we're racing a car. And what we want to do is give this car a personality. So, people don't just look at it and go, Yeah, that's a really quick car they look at and go, you know, that's, that's something that stands for something, you know, that's, you know, it's, it means something to me, personally, it means something to me. Now, we want to inject a personality into motorsport that doesn't always exist, you know, if, you know, if you're, you know, if you're a big car manufacturer, quite often, the personality of your racing car is related to the personality of your car brand. So how do we create a personality, we're not a car brand. So, we can create this personality, anything we want it to be and our personality, as you can see, our car is green, you know, because it reflects our, our green ambition. So, the more people we can get engaging, and loving the team and loving the team for some of the crazy things that we do, and we do some very silly things. The more we can, we can get people sort of engaging, the better. I mean, we did a great promotion with the with the New York Giants only a couple of years ago, that went out and CBS where we did, we did tricks and stunts with some of their some of their players. And it was fantastic. Because you know what, all of a sudden, it opens, it opened the eyes of a bunch of Giants fans a bunch of NFL fans to Oh, wow, that's Envision Racing, what do they stand for? So, the more you know, the more people we can get engaging, the more personality we can inject into this car, which is what I'm really focused on, the better. And then as a byproduct to that, want to keep getting some great brands involved in our team. So, you know, that they can help the sport and the team grow. And again, help us drive towards their mission.
John Twork 32:28
Hopefully, folks who listen to this podcast can become educated. And maybe you have some new Envision Racing fans.
James Mercer 32:37
I hope so.
John Twork 32:39
What would your advice be to a new fan? How should they get involved in and become fans of this great sport?
James Mercer 32:48
Well, look, you know, obviously, social, TV, you know, big, big drivers, look, if you don't want to sit down and you don't want to watch your race for an hour, you know, watch the highlights. Yeah, how about having, you know, start to consume habit, have a little bit of a, you know, a jump in and, and taste it and see, see what it's like, see, if you like it, I can guarantee you anyone that that starts watching, it will have fun watching it, because, you know, it is the competition is so close to one another, you know, the cars are so close together, there's a lot of bumping, there's a lot of scraping, there's a lot of rebuilding cars, there's a lot of repairing damages. You know, there's a lot of, there's a lot of emotions involved, you know, and there's a lot of strategy as well. So, as you can see, you know, if you can taste a little bit of it, you'll, you'll enjoy it as a, you know, as a fan. You know, people talk a lot now about how, you know, probably ISU students right now, maybe engaging less, you know, in terms of consuming smaller quantities of different sports, you know, you know, gone are the days perhaps when you sit in front of a game for three hours, four hours, and you know, so it's for us to ensure that, that we produce the content that's fun, and the people enjoy. So yeah, just get online. Have a look, you know, look at social look at some of the fun stuff that we're doing. Look at some stuff, fun stuff the sport is doing, because the promoter is doing a great job now, so get involved.
John Twork 34:31
It sounds to me like Formula One meets Mario Kart in a quest to fight climate change. It sounds like a winning formula to me.
James Mercer 34:39
I think you've just summarized the entire sport. Perfect.
John Twork 34:44
That's fantastic. Well, I'm looking forward to watching some races and this has been a really enlightening interview and best of luck to you and your team. We're early on in the season. So good luck to Envision Racing this year.
James Mercer 34:58
Look, thanks very much and The Best of luck to everyone at ISU I know that there's, I hear that there's actually a department at ISU that's creating sustainable racing cars. I was really, really excited and pleased to hear about that. So, you know, all those budding engineers and you know, mechanics and commercial people out there you know, it's fantastic. I'm really excited to hear you guys are getting involved in sustainable racing so the best of luck to everyone out there who's involved in that sort of stuff and I got hopefully I'll get back to Bloomington-Normal soon, so, so I can, so I can see the whole, the whole university again, at some point.
John Twork 35:48
If you can bring one of those green and blue racecars. That'd be even better.
James Mercer 35:53
It would be fun.
John Twork 35:56
James, thank you so much, and best of luck for the rest of the year here.
James Mercer 35:59
John much appreciated. Thanks very much.
John Twork 36:08
That was James Mercer, commercial director for Envision Racing's Formula E team. You can learn more about Envision Racing by visiting their website at Envision-racing.com. Thanks for listening to Redbird Buzz and be sure to tune in next time for more stories from beyond the Quad.