Roberts, a standout hockey player at the University of Michigan, was drafted by the Chicago Blackhawks after his 1990 graduation and went into the minor league system.
He spent three years playing for teams in Indianapolis, Toledo, Richmond, and elsewhere. But Roberts quickly determined he wasn’t the same caliber as players like goaltender Dominik Hasek, a teammate at the Indianapolis Ice who spent sixteen years in the National Hockey League and won two Stanley Cups with the Detroit Red Wings. “I just knew I was not going to make it to the NHL,” Roberts says. “A lot of guys play ten or fifteen years in the minors, but I went to college for a reason.”
Roberts (center) recently paired Monica and Jeff VanOvermeer with StretchLab, an assisted-stretch studio franchise. “He gave us really great choices,” Jeff says. | Photo: Mark Bialek
Plus, there was a girl. When Roberts quit playing and moved to Chicago, he wasn’t sure what work he might do, but he knew he would propose to his girlfriend Julie. The couple had met in a classical civilizations class on the topic of sports and daily life in ancient Rome when he was a senior and she was a junior at U-M; Roberts quips that it was the only class he never skipped on his way to a bachelor’s degree in general studies.
After a decade as a hockey coach and team executive in Chicago and Michigan, Roberts pivoted again. A coach’s travel schedule got to be too much with young children, so Roberts found his way to franchising, allowing him to stick around Ann Arbor. He worked for years on the sales side of franchise companies, rising in the ranks and eventually moving to Franworth, an Ann Arbor–based business that helps emerging franchise companies scale. But he found himself on the road again as he traveled to help businesses nationwide and knew he again needed to make a change.
He now runs Franchise Playmaker, an Ann Arbor consulting business that connects potential entrepreneurs with franchise businesses. The name is a play on his hockey years—while a player earns a hat trick after scoring three goals, the company namesake is bestowed on players with three assists.
“A playmaker makes really good plays with the puck, has good vision, can see what’s out there, makes good decisions,” says Red Berenson, the longtime coach of the Michigan hockey team who’s now a senior consultant for the athletic department. “Often, you’re making plays for other people.”
Roberts puts it more succinctly: “It helps the guy score the goal,” he says. It’s a metaphor for how he sees the business.
He thinks there are a lot of parallels between building a good team and setting a business up for success. Recruiting the right players is always key, and so is finding the right match for a business.
“He’d be the first person I would go to if I was looking for a franchise,” Berenson says. “Even though you think you’re getting into it alone, you’re going to have to have a team, be the leader of a team. It’s in Alex’s wheelhouse to explain that.”
Jeff and Monica VanOvermeer from Saline and Ann Arborite Jenn Tankanow recently purchased franchises with Roberts’s help—the assisted-stretch studio StretchLab for them and Kidokinetics for her, a business that takes athletic enrichment into day care centers.
VanOvermeer owned a Jet’s Pizza franchise but wanted a business that was a little more hands-off. He says Roberts gave him four options and has become a customer of StretchLab since it opened.
“He was reassuring; he was great,” Jeff VanOvermeer says of Roberts’s guidance. “He gave us really great choices … We were totally delighted with the process.”
“A couple times, I’ve called him for advice or thoughts, and he gave me real-life examples.” Tankanow says. “He was very genuine in the process and the journey. He really cared to make the decision right to me.”
Roberts estimates he’s placed about seventy-five franchises since he started Franchise Playmaker seven years ago. He describes his work as similar to a real estate agent, but for those who are in the hunt for a business—doing the research, scoping out options. He earns a finder’s fee from the franchise company when he makes a match; his services are free to his clients.
John Rotche, the founder and CEO of Franworth and a former Michigan football player, says Roberts continues to coach clients long after the transaction is finished.
“A good coach knows how to recruit for chemistry, ability, knows how to celebrate people, pick them up when they’re having a bad day,” Rotche says. “You want someone who’s going to speak the truth. Alex stays with them. He’s checking in with them.”
There is one major difference, though, between the arena and the boardroom:
“You can’t drop your gloves and beat the crap out of somebody in the business world,” Roberts says. “There were times it definitely crossed my mind.”