There’s no telling what Spokane’s minor-league sports scene would look like today if not for Bobby Brett.

When Brett, now 74, and his three brothers—J.B., Ken, and George—bought the Spokane Indians Baseball Club in 1985, it had been struggling financially and had a poor relationship with the county.

“I didn’t know if we could ever make a business out of it,” Brett admits.

A dilapidated ballpark, now known as Avista Stadium, also presented a challenge.

But with a background in real estate, Brett had a knack for finding assets with potential and improving them. With some upgrades at the stadium and the hiring of a new general manager in Tom Leip, the club quickly turned around.

“You have to have good leadership,” Brett says.

Years later, Leip’s influence reached further than the baseball diamond. Leip told Brett, “Hey, Bobby, the hockey team is for sale. We should look to buy the hockey team, because you could have some synergies.”

Brett, a California native who was still living in Manhattan Beach, a city in southwestern Los Angeles County, says the idea of owning two different sports teams in the same city made sense to him, because he had witnessed the success of the late Jerry Buss, who owned both the Los Angeles Lakers NBA team and Los Angeles Kings NHL team.

Taking Leip’s advice, Brett and his brothers bought the Spokane Chiefs hockey team in 1990.

Like the Indians, the Chiefs were in rough shape when Brett took over.

The team had a bad reputation and was “hemorrhaging money,” Brett says.

Brett told his wife, Cathy, “Let’s move up (to Spokane) for six months. We’ll just rent a place, because we’ve got to get the hockey team off to a good start.”

Those six months turned into 35 years and counting.

The Chiefs, like the Indians, also turned around under Brett’s ownership.

“Looking back, I think we broke even the first year,” he says.

The long-term success of the two organizations didn’t occur until Brett took over and created stability, according to former Washington state Senator Andy Billig, who is the CEO of Brett Sports & Entertainment Inc., the umbrella company that operates the Chiefs and Indians.

“Sports teams come and go all the time in cities, even in Spokane. AAA baseball left. Prior hockey teams left. The arena football team has come and gone,” Billig says. “The Spokane Chiefs and the Spokane Indians not only survive but thrive under his leadership.”

Two other minor-league baseball teams also fell under the Brett Sports umbrella—one in the Tri-Cities and the other in Rancho Cucamonga, California—but the company sold those late last year.

Brett hired Billig as the general manager of the Indians in 1992, when Billig was 24 years old.

“He took an incredible chance on me,” Billig says. “I probably wasn’t qualified, but he trusted me and supported me and helped me to be successful.”

Billig refers to Brett as one of the most effective businesspeople he’s ever worked with.

“Bobby is one of the most creative business thinkers that I’ve ever encountered, and that creativity leads to more productive businesses,” Billig says. “It also leads to negotiations and deals that can create a lot of upside for all parties. … He looks at things from different angles than anybody else.”

That business acumen has also helped Brett find success in his real estate career, which dates back to the mid-1970s.

After playing baseball at California State Polytechnic University Pomona and spending a year playing minor league ball, Brett’s love for sports led to him becoming a high school teacher and varsity baseball coach at Inglewood High School in the 1974-1975 school year.

“I realized that I wanted to live at the beach,” Brett says. “On a teacher’s salary, it was really tough.”

His high school basketball coach and eventually his career mentor, Cliff Warren, had left coaching to get his real estate license and suggested Brett do the same to supplement his teaching salary.

Brett took that advice and did some real estate work in the summer after that school year.

“I had a decision to make at the end of the summer,” Brett says. “Do I go back to teaching or do I go real estate full-time? I decided to go real estate full-time.”

He spent about a year in residential real estate before going to work with Warren, investing in real estate, primarily in apartments.

Brett’s real estate investment ventures over the years helped him build up the funds to buy the Indians in ’85 and the Chiefs five years later.

Prior to moving to Spokane, Brett married his wife in 1989, the same year they had their only child, Beau.

Brett enjoyed the lifestyle that came with living in Manhattan Beach, but raising a kid in a beach community and the megalopolis that is Los Angeles would have been tough, he says.

“Being a California guy, it was amazing how nice people were,” Brett says of Spokane. “I met a lot of people, and I was just amazed how friendly and what a nice community it was.”

Brett’s real estate career continued in Spokane, and it’s something he’s still involved in today, although his son does a lot of the heavy lifting, he says.

He owns and has developed various apartments and buildings in California and the Inland Northwest, including some older buildings in downtown Spokane that he has rehabilitated.

“Even though I came here when I was 40, I’m a Spokane guy,” Brett says.

Billig says Brett’s work in real estate has benefited Spokane just as the stability and success of his minor league sports teams have.

Brett doesn’t consider himself retired from his role as managing partner of Brett Sports—and likely never will—but he’s no longer involved in the day-to-day operations for the two teams.

He does, however, still sit in on the monthly financial meetings. 

“Being the majority and managing partner of these entities, I feel it’s my responsibility to the other partners,” he says. “To me, it’s not work. It’s fun.”

He also enjoys spending time getting to know the players and going to the games.

Growing up in El Segundo, California, Brett and his three brothers have all left their own marks on the game of baseball.

His youngest brother, George, was inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame in 1999. His older brother Ken, who passed away in 2003, had a nearly 15-year MLB career.

Like Bobby, J.B., the oldest of the four brothers, had a brief minor league stint.

Additionally, Bobby’s son, Beau, played baseball at the University of Southern California and spent a couple years playing minor league baseball.

Despite his success in real estate and as an owner of minor league sports teams, Brett says his proudest accomplishment is “picking a good wife and having a good son.” 

“I’ve always felt I got very lucky with Cathy, and then I got lucky with our son,” he says.