Philip Schwalb (born September 10, 1962)[1] is the founder of for-profit Sports Museum of America in New York City.[2][3]
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Schwalb was raised in Orlando, Florida. He received an undergraduate degree, cum laude, from Duke University and a law degree from Emory University School of Law.[4][5] From 1986 - 2000, he held various entertainment, sports industry, and other senior management positions with Court TV, SSYH Software, The Arena Football League, and Centerprise Information Solutions.
In 2001 he was working for The Perfect Client Inc., a company owned by the family of Edwin Schlossberg and Caroline Kennedy. In that capacity he also worked closely with Schlossberg's ESI Design, a company that designs interactive exhibits for museums.
In the days prior to 9/11/2001, Schwalb visited the National Basketball Hall of Fame, in Springfield, MA, and was puzzled that so few people were visiting; Schwalb believed that the lack of patronage to the museum was due to its location. It then occurred to him that most sports halls of fame are located in remote locations, inaccessible to most sports fans and certainly those of lesser financial means.
After the events of 9/11 Schwalb sought to participate in the rebuilding of the World Trade Center/Lower Manhattan area by creating a museum celebrating the grandeur of all of sports. The Downtown Athletic Club, home of the Heisman Trophy, closed in the wake of the September 11th attacks, and Schwalb set out to create a new Manhattan home for it within a museum that would also span other sports and include rare memorabilia ranging from NASCAR to Soccer and everything in between.
The Sports Museum of America became the nation's first major museum celebrating all sports [6]: it featured more than 20 original sports films and housed more than 1,100 photographs and 800 artifacts.[6] In addition to becoming the official home of the Heisman Trophy and its annual presentation, the Museum also housed the first ever Women's Sports Hall of Fame.[7] Among its Board of Directors were Lance Armstrong, Mario Andretti, Martina Navratilova, Joe Frazier, Bob Cousy, Billie Jean King, Paul Hornung, Tim Duncan, Jason Kidd and two dozen other Hall of Fame athletes.
Schwalb raised $100 million over a three-year period, which included $57 million in Liberty Bonds issued to keep downtown businesses thriving after the attacks. Because the Liberty Bonds were solely designated to for-profit businesses, Schwalb decided to structure the museum as a for-profit organization.[8] To ensure the museum was collaborative, Schwalb struck agreements with 60 non-profit partners, including every major sports hall of fame in North America [9] and every notable national sports governing body (e.g. USTA, USGA, U.S. Soccer, USA Hockey).[10] Schwalb also secured over 200 private investors, primarily Wall Street executives, to finance the museum—getting them to agree to donate 2% of revenues to charity.[11]
Opening on May 7, 2008 to much fanfare at 26 Broadway in the former Standard Oil headquarters, the museum abounded in interactive exhibits. Nearly 100 hall of fame athletes attending the opening and speakers included Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Billie Jean King speaking on behalf of the Women's Sports Foundation, Tony Dorsett speaking on behalf of the Heisman Trophy and New York's Super Bowl winning quarterback, Eli Manning. The museum's location, at the end of the Canyon of Heroes ticker tape parades, was close to the heavily visited ferry to the Statue of Liberty.
Despite an award winning reception, including Nickelodeon's Parents' Pick award for best museum in New York City for children, and its high tech interactive exhibits, the museum was criticized for its relatively nondescript entrance in the Standard Oil Building due to landmark restrictions.[12] Attendance lagged far behind the predicted 800,000 a year. At the height of the scare on Wall Street, early 2009, the museum (which was just one block from the New York Stock Exchange ) closed until further notice.
Schwalb has lectured at both NYU and Columbia University and is involved in numerous sports-related charities. He currently lives with his wife and two twin children in Orlando, Florida.