“Papa John” Schnatter founded his namesake company in 1984, and built it into the nation’s third-largest pizza chain. But after he criticized the NFL’s inability to resolve the national anthem protests, he was pushed out as CEO on Jan. 1, 2018. In a column submission to The Post, Schnatter argues that in the time since, his business — of which he still owns 16.7% — has been poorly run, and that it was a mistake to let him go.
As the founder and single largest shareholder of Papa John’s Pizza, I know a thing or two about management accountability. It was two years ago that I led my last quarterly earnings call for Wall Street analysts as the chairman and CEO.
Our sales at the time were slowing considerably, largely owing to the NFL’s mishandling of the protest controversy. A quarter of our marketing budget was invested in the NFL each year; as NFL viewership declined, so did customers’ exposure to our marketing.
More controversy ensued months later, when an internal diversity training meeting was secretly taped and leaked to Forbes with a false narrative about a comment I made. In the meeting, I expressed frustration over the NFL controversy and paraphrased someone who had purportedly used the n-word on a frequent basis.
In fact, I was expressing my disdain for racism throughout the meeting, which was quite productive and demonstrated Papa John’s commitment to a diverse, positive and enriching environment. For decades, we’ve brought people of all backgrounds together for their mutual benefit, spreading tremendous success to employees, franchisees, partners and shareholders alike.