Mike Ilitch

Michael " Mike" Ilitch ( born July 20, 1929 in Detroit, Michigan) is an American businessman of Macedonian origin and owner of several sports teams.

Life

Due to the ruling of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia unrest, his family moved to the United States to Detroit, Michigan. Mike Ilitch was a versatile athlete and had a special talent for baseball. Since the baseball team Detroit Tigers refused to pay him double the sum for a contract they had offered him, he entered upon completion of high school the United States Marine Corps for four years at. He played for a military team of Marines. During this time he was heavily influenced by the experiences that came upon him in a military hospital. He was the only reason spared from the Korean War because he played baseball and as happened to the fate of the wounded, he saw in this hospital.

After the end of the service he played now but for the Detroit Tigers and worked part-time at a nightclub in which he baked pizzas. After he had broken his leg, he had to end his baseball career. His father arranged a blind date in 1954 with Marian, whom he married a year later.

Entrepreneur

The business idea to sell pizza as fast food product, he realized in 1959, when he along with his wife in Detroit opened a pizza restaurant under the name Little Caesar's. Both sold to their life insurance and borrowed more money added. Business was so good that over the years a fast-food chain developed from it, which spread via franchising with over a thousand stores. As early as 1962 the first franchise was opened. Little Caesar's spread throughout the United States and Canada and a few years later the first branches were established in Europe. 1993 Mike Ilitchs company was listed as the third- largest pizza chain in the world.

In 1999, Mike Ilitch and his wife, the Ilitch Holdings Inc., under whose umbrella they brought their diverse businesses. In addition to the Little Caesar's Ilitchs include the Motor City Casino and some other Unterhaltungsetablisements in Detroit. Your fortune is estimated at about 1.5 billion U.S. dollars.

Mike Ilitch has seven children together, which are also involved in the affairs of the family with his wife.

Sports team owner

Detroit Red Wings

Mike Ilitch in 1982 bought the ice hockey team of the Detroit Red Wings in the NHL for eight million dollars. The team stuck for more than ten years in a sporting crisis. Ilitch built the team with general manager Jim Devellano and built a franchise that could play at the top of the NHL again. Fifteen years after buying the team won the Stanley Cup in 1997 and left in 1998, 2002 and 2008, three more titles to follow.

For his contributions to the sport of ice hockey Mike Ilitch was taken in 2003 in the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1991 and awarded the Lester Patrick Trophy.

Detroit Tigers

The Detroit Tigers from the baseball league MLB Mike Ilitch bought in 1992, after he had been tried in 1982 to acquire it, and was inferior to a competing bidder a pizza chain. However, he often found himself exposed to criticism that he would invest much more money into the Red Wings and the Tigers got very little money. This criticism was not without reason, as recently as 2006, the team was able to qualify for the playoffs for the first time.

Detroit Drive

Ilitch, 1988 was one of the first team owner in the Arena Football League, which was founded a year earlier. It was also Little Caesar's one of the main sponsors of the league. Ilitch 's team, the Detroit Drive, were a very successful team, winning four championships until 1993. Then Ilitch but decided to sell the team because he wanted no other team besides the Red Wings, that the Tigers competition is doing in terms of audience figures.

Detroit Rockers

1993 Ilitch added his collection of sports clubs football club Detroit Rockers added.