Jake Vernon’s Get Real Sports is one of the third party ticket solutions taking hold in top schools like Butler. Vernon talks about how the third party industry ballooned into almost every FBS property now considering something which would have been unthinkable less than ten years ago, that is contracting-out their ticket sales division and paying commissions. Vernon discusses professional development for his sales staff, ways to help them succeed and methodology toward driving more revenue for each property. Twitter: @GetRealPrez
Fan experience is one of the main reasons on why people renew or decline to attend live events. Brian Crow’s Gameday Consulting helps teams such as the NFL’s Buffalo Bills, reinvest itself in fan engagement. That means from top to bottom, every touch-point of a fan’s game experience is measured for quality and customer service. As a professor at Slippery Rock, Crowd also talks about the saturation point of sports management degrees throughout the nation’s universities and the fall-out of being book smart, but not game smart in terms of the industry’s future leaders. Twitter: @GameDayBrian
The game for ticket reselling and price points in general has changed, and Jesse Lawrence’s company, TiqIQ, provides fans with the best opportunity to seek out the lowest price for the best seats. Lawrence talks about the issues surrounding the resale market, as well as social media in terms of providing information on ticket deals. Questions arise from this conversation: Could a floor be instituted with Internet resale markets? Is it a race to the bottom? Twitter: @TiqIQ
Oklahoma State is at the forefront of the inhouse ticket sales revolution for college campuses. A lot of that vision comes from Adam Haukap, who talks about what college ticket sales was like prior to 2007 and where it is headed now. Haukap is considered one of the top sales minds in NCAA sports with OKSU stepping further ahead of their peers and hired a ticket analyst, gaining traction for the Big Data information wave that CRMs can reveal. Twitter: @AHaukap
Personal athlete brand is a huge market, especially with social media, and that’s where Gil Pagovich performs some of his best skills, using his passion for sports marketing and communications to design the right message for his clients. Pagovich, who spent seven years as an instructor at NYU teaching a class called “The Sports Agent” and discusses creating, nurturing and selling an athlete’s brand to the biggest US and Canadian companies.
It’s one thing to sell season tickets to an upcoming season, but Erik Hansen has been put in charge of selling out the house two years before the Phantoms minor league hockey team arrives in town. That means phone calls, training as well as motivating staff, and ensuring that specific sales goals are met, waiting for the arena in LeHigh Valley has been built. Twitter: @Kulax40
Player development within professional organizations has been a large component of Kathryn Jordan’s career since the early 1980s. This means finances, life skills, and community relations through player foundations to develop the individual player’s brand. Heading up her own company, KJordan Consulting, Jordan offers brand development, marketing, communications and non-profit management expertise to various organizations.
Bill Robertson has initiated strategic communications plans for several sports teams and brings vast knowledge from his days as the head of public relations for four major league teams (Anaheim Ducks, Anaheim Angels, Minnesota Wild, Minnesota Timberwolves). Robertson discusses how going through the Disney Institute helped guide his career further, some of the issues with traditional and social media reach that teams deal with, and how communications departments push a brand further into the public eye.
Greg Bennett separates his company, Surgence, with other sales trainers, because he wants some skin in the game with any staff he helps guide. This isn’t just a system, or presentation, but an intensive amount of indepth sales knowledge from Bennett, who implements dynamic new strategies in order to increase profit. Bennett talks about some of the issues he has with the sales training game, as well as some solutions to both staff development and retention. Twitter: @SurgenceTeam
It isn’t just about being good according to Devin Crosby, its about being in the top 20 percent of your department. Crosby, who has served twice as a Deputy Director of Athletics at Towson and Kent State, talks about his role in being second in command of an athletic department. Crosby discusses the mentality of budgets, expectations both personal and professional, and how to build a great career in the world of intercollegiate athletics. Twitter: @DevinLCrosby