“It’s a good offer, Clarence.” Said the well dressed man opposite from him, tapping the sheaf of papers arrayed across the table. “You get a slice of the concessions and ticket sales at any game they play, plus merchandising and a vote on any future expansion teams.”

Clarence Saunders stood up and began to pace across the room, nodding his head as he listened to his accountant.

“Bottom line, the National Football League wants the Tigers. It would bring southern blood into their yankee league, and opens them up to new crowds in the South. But, the final call is yours”

“I bought the damn team on a lark.” Sighed Clarence as he paced. “It was a marketing stunt. Get the Sole Owner name out in front of the crowds. What do I know about professional sports?

“I don’t know. Loosing Piggly Wiggly to those Wall Street sharks did something to me. Made me more cautious. Scared, I guess.

“With the way the markets have been lately, and our sales numbers…maybe it’s God surreptitiously warning me to play it safe.”

He paused for a moment, silent in thought.

“No. Tell the NFL, no. They can’t have the Memphis Tigers.”

Memphis Note
Clarence Saunders is the man that revolutionized the grocery store with Piggly Wiggly. But, he didn’t quite know how to handle what came out of that. After losing his business to predatory investors, Saunders opened a second chain of stores named Sole Owner. As a method of promoting his new business, Saunders bought the local American Football League team, the Memphis Tigers. The team, bolstered by a few recruits from the NFL, performed surprisingly well. When offered a chance to join the National Football League in 1930, Saunders passed, seeing the team as secondary to the Sole Owner stores. The AFL and the Tigers and Saunders’ Sole Owner stores all folded within the next few years. The NFL is still around and Memphis has been pining for a team ever since.

The richest man I’d ever known sat on the unkempt lawn of his half-finished mansion for the last time. The sun was setting over the roof’s exposed bones, casting long shadows below.

Standing behind him, I coughed gently. “There are appointments to keep, Mister Saunders.”

He got up, brushed the grass off his trousers and made for the car.

“I turned lying in a profession, you know.”

“Sir?” He never spoke to me like this. Why now? “I’m pretty sure that was around long before you.”

“Well, I made it a proper thing then. Advertising, hmph. Marketing, hmph. More like Devil’s work.” He scoffed.

“Before I came along, clerks got your groceries for you. I changed all that. Let people do it themselves. But that meant packaging mattered, branding matter, lies about this being better than that mattered.”

He stopped abruptly and I nearly ran him over.

“I gave people choice. And then they went and took it back from them, like they took this from me.” He growled, jabbing a finger toward the aborted construction.

“I know what I made. But I didn’t understand the thing it made.” Then he turned away, forever. “And that’s what ruined me.”

Memphis Note
Clarence Saunders was the found of Piggly Wiggly grocery store chain, the first grocery store that let the consumer pick the items they wanted off a shelf without a clerk’s help. But, this new consumer empowerment created the need for what we think of as modern advertising. Packaging, branding, marketing, all of these things mattered like never before. When his business was challenged with a hostile investor takeover, Saunders used advertising to flaunt his determination to protect his company. It was this bravado and openness that would lead him to lose nearly everything when the market turned against him.