Brian Dubiski: ‘Everything I do is about Madison’ as Arizona State and Kansas play at Wembley
Brian Dubiski, chairman, CEO and co-founder of Union Jack Classic, said “Everything I do is about Madison. It’s a big reason I did this game at Wembley,” as Arizona State and Kansas prepare to play the first US college football game in Britain at Wembley Stadium on Saturday. He will sit in the Royal Box for a fixture staged before a crowd he helped attract to the venue.
Dubiski, 57, has dedicated his work on crowd safety to his daughter Madison, who was killed aged 23 in a crowd crush at a Travis Scott concert in Houston in November 2021 when Madison and nine other people were trampled and suffocated. Nearly 5,000 people were injured during the incident, and since December Wembley has adopted the safety protocols his organisation introduced. He played college football for Texas Tech and now leads Union Jack Classic, the group that planned and organised Saturday’s game.
Recalling the moments after the festival turned deadly, Dubiski described arriving at the hospital and finding his family in a scene he calls catastrophic: “I could hear Madison’s mother, Michelle, screaming. Your stomach sinks and your heart breaks and it’s like a slow-motion black-and-white horror movie, walking through the hospital halls at 2am. I remember the doctor looking up at me and just shaking his head. My knees buckled and I fell.”
He said his son Ty, who survived the tragedy and is working with him on Saturday’s game, entered the room while Dubiski was reacting: “Ty walks in and all he could hear was me screaming ‘no’ in this horrible, deep cry. He knew what it meant before he even saw us in the room where Madison was covered in a white sheet.” Ty’s response at Madison’s body — upset and crying, apologising for not being able to help her — is an episode Dubiski says will haunt the family.
On the medical and investigative findings, Dubiski cited post-mortem and official reports: “The autopsy reports all say they died of compressive asphyxiation. But the coroner would not share the autopsy with me because he said I would never recover as a father if I looked at it that deeply.” He also cited a law-enforcement inquiry: “There is a 1,600‑page report from the Houston police department and their conclusion states that all 10 deaths were preventable and what happened was foreseeable.” He added that concert promoters paid undisclosed amounts to settle legal cases.
Rather than abandon the issue, Dubiski created the Showstop Procedure course aimed at improving decision-making at dangerous flashpoints; he said, “Our training covers much more than just crowd crush – it could be fire, terrorism, the weather, anything that puts people at risk.” He described the certification process: “When we began we were floored there was no formalised training and education specific to crowd safety. That’s why we developed our course and created the certification, which we got approved through the International Institute of Risk & Safety Management. It’s the only globally accredited course that deals with this specific issue.” Apart from Wembley adopting Showstop’s protocols, Dubiski and his team are working with Celtic, Manchester City and Southampton.
The family founded the Pink Bows Foundation in Madison’s name, combining crowd-safety work with support at events: “The first pillar is crowd safety, while the second is our creation of a safe space at an event when you’re overwhelmed or anxious in a crowd. We have a big bright-pink tent with really nice furniture inside. It’s serene and we have mental health behavioural advocates ready to help anyone.” Dubiski said the foundation’s name grew from public tributes: “Madison loved pink. After the tragedy someone put a pink bow up for Madison on the fence and it just grew.”
Discussing the appeal of the Wembley fixture, Dubiski called Arizona State “a great football team” and said “Kansas has played football as long as any university collegiate football team in the United States, for over a hundred years.” He argued that “college football correlates very closely to European football, with that tribalism where you are born into the club your grandfather rooted for. It’s the same in college football. You live and die by your team. If you win, it’s a celebration. If you lose, you lay in bed and feel sorry for yourself. The partisan crowds separate it from the NFL and some college football stadiums are bigger than NFL stadiums.” He expects a crowd of 60,000 at Wembley and said 15,000 fans are flying in from America.
Dubiski said the game and the foundation give his family a platform to pursue safety work and honour Madison, recalling a note found in her apartment: ‘Those who do well must also do good … always give back.’ Wembley and Dubiski’s company have struck a three‑year deal, with the option of a fourth year, if the Union Jack Classic games are the expected success, and he will watch the inaugural Arizona State v Kansas match from the Royal Box on Saturday.