From hockey to medicine to marketing for a president

He is considered one of the most original among marketers. Vilém Franěk is a sought-after commodity on the domestic market. He was behind the birth of Mikýř's successful amazing journey through the Internet and even appeared on the team of presidential candidate Danuša Nerudová. However, the former hockey player owes his success to this sport. The university league project put him in better company, here is his story.

How did you hockey career start?

I don't know if it can be called a career (laughs). I started playing hockey in Příbram, I think around the age of four or five. That's when they put skates on me.

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How did it go, how long did you play, where did you play?

I played for quite a long time in Příbram. From a certain point on, it became clear that I had slightly higher ambitions and actually higher qualities, so I made an agreement with two teammates and went to play in the youth extra league in Písek. At that time, we had a common dream that we would make a living playing hockey and we didn't even see anything else as an option. And for a while, it seemed that way. I played the first line and I enjoyed it. But the other one stopped wanting to commute from Příbram, where we were from, to Písek every day. He didn't want to sleep in a hotel and live this type of life. It was quite a sobering experience for me, because I realized that I didn't really enjoy any of it either.

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How did you solve that?

I played hockey again in Příbram, but I already knew at that time that I would not become a professional player. I decided to study. At eighteen, I gave up my hockey career, studied for a whole year and got into medicine. But thanks to school, I returned to hockey in a roundabout way.

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In what sense?

My friend and I came up with the concept of hockey battles between university teams. He was from Zlín and something similar was happening there, so we did the Battle of Pilsen. Two universities put together hockey teams and played each other in a regular match. And the interest of the people surprised us! About two and a half thousand spectators came, it looked really nice and the guys on the ice really enjoyed it. Most of them were guys who had a similar story to me. They played somewhere in their youth, but then they took a different path, because maybe they didn't have the opportunity to play in the extra leagues or they didn't want to be among the pros. They decided to study, hang up their skates, and suddenly we gave them the opportunity to experience the peak of their hockey career, when almost three thousand people applauded them. I was very happy about it. And based on this experience, we decided to try the entire university league.

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How big were your ambitions for the project from the beginning?

Originally, the plan was to have a pan-European project. Over time, this turned out to be a rather utopian idea. It no longer made sense to us, so we withdrew from the project and focused solely on the Czech Republic, starting in 2019.

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What's the progress since?

When we separated from the European University League, it actually sounded terribly grandiose. But when I look back on those four years, we had absolutely no support from the union or the state. Ondra Šebek, who is now the head of the NSA, helped us a lot back then. He told us that he would help us with the entire project so that it would grow where we wanted it to. I believe that it is with him and thanks to him that Czech university sports are looking forward to better times.

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What does this help of yours and yours give to Czech sport for you personally? What does it mean to you?

A lot! This can be well illustrated by my example. I studied medicine and was determined to join a hospital after graduation and treat people there. In the conditions that the Czech healthcare system offers. In the meantime, hockey opened so many other doors for me! Thanks to it, I was able to try many things, whether managerial matters, communication, marketing and more. I tried it for the first time as part of university hockey and the feedback was great. You may remember the singing referee who brilliantly performed the national anthem on the ice. People from outside gradually started to notice this and approached us saying that they enjoyed it and that if we could do it so well for free, how could we possibly do it for money. So hockey basically opened the door to a completely different path. My medical classmates were mostly locked in textbooks and those study problems. Of course, I also studied, but I built this separately. Until it eventually became my primary career.

So I understand that college hockey got you to where you are today?

Well, only because of that! In my opinion, if I hadn't started it back then, I would have been stuck in the system and would be a doctor today. Because I cared about university hockey, I then improved my skills at home in marketing, PR and other essentials and I could immediately try to put this knowledge into practice through hockey. And suddenly people appeared who were willing to pay me for it. Gradually, I began to believe that it wasn't a completely unrealistic path. So I built both and at the right moment I chose one path and I'm still following it to this day.

What's the vision now, after 4 years?

Today we are in a situation where the project is working. We have good relations with the stadium owners, we are building a nice community around it, it has its fans, and so on. However, we realize that under the current conditions, in terms of university sports, there is not much room for improvement. We are building a brand around university teams, but it is still simply free, so we attract people with sentences like “come and try organizing an event for three thousand people or communicate with Czech Television”. And in such conditions, it is logical that it must hit a ceiling at some point. Therefore, universities need to start realizing the importance of sports. If they understand that sports can generate money for them and focus on investing in their own stadium and the entire ecosystem around it, it would be the right step. Then we are playing with the possibilities. Hockey, handball, basketball, floorball and many other sports can take place in the multifunctional hall. It helps to bond the team, students will be proud of their school if their team wins. But so far we are encountering a rigid, entrenched structure that needs to be changed first so that we can move forward. My partial dream is to sell out the O2 Arena with university hockey. The university hockey derby was attended by full halls in Brno and Ostrava, their largest stadiums, so I believe that we will succeed in Prague as well.

So the ideal system is the one they have in America? Sports teams within universities and the opportunity for students to develop both an academic and a sports career simultaneously...

Exactly. I believe that the moment universities start charging fees, university sports will give those institutions meaning and the whole system will kick-start. Sports will become an attraction for universities for new students, who will in turn be able to save on tuition if they play the sport well and get a scholarship. And so on.

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What has hockey given you in your life today? In what you do every day?

Everything. Of course, I got my education somewhere other than on the ice. But team sports give you a lot of qualities that I don't think you can learn anywhere else, and that can be used in a great way in your career. By playing when I was little, I met a team that had a common goal so early on and I had to learn to be a team player, work in that team and not just function for myself. A lot of people in companies today can't do that, even though it's necessary. Then there's the issue of failure. We encountered defeat as children and just like in hockey, you know that in a week there's another match that starts from scratch again, it's the same in life and we can't collapse from the first failure. When you need to learn something, you need to train and that training is sometimes long and painful, hockey taught me that too. When you then project that into the work environment, I have to say that I can't see a better environment for refining a person than team sports. Everything I do today and what I believe in in life has been defined by team sports. And the qualities that I have acquired in those fifteen years in hockey and use every day are my advantage today. I approach the people in my work teams in the same way, I always ask what sports they did in their youth or if they still play sports.

You mentioned teamwork. You are on Martin Mikyska's team and you deserve a lot of credit for how his show and his personality have fared in such a short time. Haven't you ever had the urge to also appear on camera with him and lick some of the cream that undoubtedly belongs to you in this case, or in hockey terminology, do you understand your role in this team and don't need to be the one who "scores all the goals"?

Sometimes I wonder if I should stick my face out, but specifically with Mikýř, I don't. Most of the success of the whole show lies in Martin Mikyska's genius and how he can create jokes and compose a story. So I wouldn't like to take any extra credit there other than the fact that I found him, took him out for coffee and inspired him to start making videos.

How did it start?

Martin was filming something for Red Bull, but in the meantime he was working normally in the office. I saw potential in him, I thought his position was great, so I just forced him to create more. And it worked and people enjoy it. Regarding the previous question, in certain cases I see my role as one that requires me to stand out from the crowd and say, this is me. Other times the role is one that requires you to be hidden and let it flow.

You have two kids. They will both do sport?

If I had boys, I would definitely know what to do with them, but I have two daughters (laughs). So I would like to, but I don't know yet what kind. In any case, I will instill in them a sporting spirit in any way I can, but I won't be the father who would want to raise his children to be world champions at all costs. If it works out, it will be their credit and it will of course be great. But I'm more interested in the qualities we mentioned, discipline, working under pressure, team spirit and others.

What about work plans, anything new?

I'm more thinking about where I'm going to go next. We've had Danuša Nerudová's presidential campaign behind us, and I've received several offers after that, but you can only handle a certain amount of work and I'd have to split my time. Of course, I used to do it that way and I didn't mind, but now I have a wife and children, so you have to learn to say no.