Zeke Chaidez: Eye on the Ball

Zeke Chaidez (Class of ’93, B.A., communications, public relations) is the vice president of business for Club Deportivo Chivas USA, the Major League Soccer team that calls The Home Depot Center (HDC) home. Working a stone’s throw from his alma mater, Chaidez looks back on a career that began before he graduated from California State University, Dominguez Hills, when he worked as a sales executive for the Hispanic Broadcasting Corporation (now Univision Radio).

Riding the wave of the growth of Spanish-language broadcasting in Los Angeles, Chaidez spent a decade successfully overseeing the launch of two stations, “La Nueva” KSCA-FM and “Recuerdo” KRCD/KRCV-FM. Under his leadership, KSCA-FM became the number one revenue producer among Spanish-language stations, AM or FM, anywhere in the United States. Prior to his joining Chivas last summer, he served as executive vice president and general manager at Radiovisa, one of the nation’s premier Spanish-language talk radio networks.

Dateline had the opportunity to catch up with Chaidez, who was busily planning a sold-out tournament between the HDC’s two home teams, Chivas and the L.A. Galaxy. Between meetings and phone calls, he looked back on his CSUDH experience and shared his formula for success with the Class of 2007.

Dateline: What was it like working in Latino radio as it reached a period of major growth in Los Angeles?

Zeke Chaidez: Anytime you are in the beginning of the life cycle of any product or trend, it’s great to see it evolve. I was there from its infancy stage to where it is now, which is somewhat of a maturation point. It was inspiring to see it grow from something that wasn’t considered as being of value to actually being one of the most valuable components of the media world.

D: What do you think it’s done for Los Angeles?

ZC: It’s brought an attention and awareness of the multicultural diversity that is Los Angeles. It’s also opened up the doors for other ethnic groups as well, and they’re realizing that you can create niches within a market. It doesn’t mean that you isolate one group or the other, but the message has to match the cultural relevancy of the consumer. Certain things don’t just translate over into another language or culture. If you’re sensitive to that, it creates unique opportunities.

D: How did your education at Dominguez Hills prepare you to take this on?

ZC: Partially, with the ability to meet people from different walks of life and to understand there are a lot of commonalities, but a lot of differences as well. Being aware of diversity makes you more sensitive to opportunity, it magnifies it. You can take any group, and within that group, there are subgroups. At one time, Spanish was considered the format for a radio station. Spanish is a language, not a format. It’s not just ‘Spanish language media.’ Within Spanish, you have your love songs, regional music, pop and rock. The same things you find in English, you have in other languages.

D: How do you market Chivas to the non-Latino audience?

ZC: Our team is representative of the city. If you look at our roster, we’ve got a multitude of ethnicities, from Romania to Brazil, to Mexico to the U.S. The dynamics and make-up of our team afford us the opportunities to market to those individuals within those niche communities.

Chivas represents our city very well. In fact, it represents our country very well because of its diversity. Those things give us lots of opportunities. It’s very international, very Latin and very American at the same time.

D: What were your greatest influences as a student at Dominguez Hills?

ZC: Donn Silvis (professor of communications) exemplified the real world experience for me. He was in the profession he was teaching, so he had a high degree of credibility with me with his real world examples.

All my teachers had their part in shaping me. I had good relationships with my teachers that went beyond the typical student-teacher relationships. You developed friendships and respect for each other. That molded my development and encouraged me to embrace the responsibilities of school and studying. I always felt like I would let them down, not just let myself down, if I didn’t do well.

Another pivotal influence was in classes where we had guest speakers that came from the professional world, who didn’t just give you the academic standpoint of a topic. It was like getting a glimpse into what has actually happening, not what already happened in the past. I experienced that in the advertising courses, where I would be so impressed with them, and would think, ‘I want to be like these guys.’ It started me heading in that direction. To me, the more real world input you give the students, the more influence you have on their success.

D: What do you look forward to next?

ZC: I believe that Major League Soccer is where Spanish language radio was when I started back then. It’s proven its viability, and is on a wave that is about to take off in the same way that Spanish language media did. There are soccer-specific stadiums built across the country now. Three years ago, The Home Depot Center was the only stadium of this caliber. Now you see stadiums in Chicago, Dallas, Colorado and Toronto.

You have to follow the numbers. How many kids are playing in AYSO and soccer leagues in comparison to playing in Little League baseball or football? Look at the diversity of the market and the influences they have. Ten years ago, if you were a kid playing soccer, there were no popular athletes that you could aspire to be like. Now, there are. The kids going through the league system are now seeing athletes that they can aspire to be like that didn’t exist before. It takes those kids that much closer to fulfilling their dream of being a Major League Soccer player.

D: How would you encourage today’s graduates to follow their dream?

ZC: To quote Winston Churchill, ‘Never, never give up.’ If there is something that you truly have a conviction for, you don’t quit, you just keep going. Every day, you’re faced with decisions that could take you closer or further away from your goal, so you have to make every decision count.

Come up with a game plan. Things don’t happen by luck, or fall out of the sky. Initially, I had known I wanted to get into advertising. When I got into radio, in a short period of time, I realized that there was a lot of opportunity and if I focused on certain things, I could do very well. So I devised one-year, two-year and five-year plans. Once you know where you want to be, every decision that you make, every ball you throw, every opportunity you create, all have to be in that direction. You may fail sometimes and other times you may open up tremendous opportunities that you weren’t even expecting. But as long as you keep aiming at the direction you want to end up in, it’s just a matter of time before you can make it happen.

- Reported by Joanie Harmon-Whetmore