The Tschour name has been around Muncie, Indiana longer than most people can remember. Adam’s legacy at Ball State is generations deep and it’s the school where Adam got his start in the ticket office. Adam worked his way up from a graduate assistant in the box office to Director of Ticket Sales & Premium Seating, cutting his teeth on the allure of FBS football with head coach Brady Hoke’s 2008 12-1 run with a GMAC bowl appearance the CAA’s Buffalo Bulls. Tschuor talks about finally leaving Ball State in order to push forward with his career, landing at a unique situation at Dayton where the football is non-scholarship FCS at an off-campus site and the men’s basketball team averages almost 13,000 each home game. Tschuor also speaks of the importance of those new in the sports industry to join NACMA and attended the conference each June. Twitter: @aktschuor
Harmon is organizing the premier senior competition of the Asian Football Confederation for host city Sydney, Australia in 2015, featuring the top 16 national teams of the AFC. Harmon previously served for 4 years in Wellington, New Zealand as GM of Marketing and Communications for the New Zealand Rugby All Blacks, a legendary team in which Harmon hit a ticket sales target of $268.5m NZD ($220m USD) for the Rugby World Cup in 2011, ten times higher than any event ever held in New Zealand. Harmon’s World Cup social media reach drove enough revenue that it is considered by Facebook, Inc., to be a definitive case study on how to successfully use Facebook to sell tickets online. Prior to that, Harmon was GM of Marketing for the Australian Rugby Union for 5 years in Sydney, overseeing the World Cup in 2003, the biggest global sporting event of the year, delivering $200 million in ticket sales for his tenure. Reach him on Twitter: @ShaneHarmon
Eiges spent 29 years with the NFL Raiders’ franchise, starting as the team’s ball boy out of college before being hired on as then-Head Coach Tom Flores’ executive assistant in 1980, the year the Raiders stunned the Philadelphia Eagles to win Superbowl XV. During the 1982 NFL strike, Eiges was named Director of Ticket Operations, a position he held for 27 years, moving the team to Los Angeles before transplanting the team 14 years later back to Oakland. Eiges describes the L.A. years as well as the situation with return to Oakland in 1995 where the P.S.L. ruled & “Mount Davis” became an eyesore to a baseball-focused community. Eiges left the Raiders in 2008 to join the UFL, describing the league in its second year of existence with the Omaha franchise’s success and Las Vegas’ dismal failures.
Twitter: @PeterEiges
Ken Troupe has 18 years of professional sports experience and was willing to come on the podcast with Troy, talking about some of the newer technologies that have enhanced the sales portion of the sports industry. Troupe is a consultant for several sports franchises, currently the NHL's Phoenix Coyotes, and co-hosts a twitter conversation #social4tixsales about new ticket sales ideas with some of the industry's top performers. From 1996-2008, Troupe work for the Texas Rangers' franchise, moving up from account executive to Sr. Director of Ticket Sales by the end of his tenure. The conversation goes into various areas of how exactly a franchise can generate revenue, have a staff that builds a customer base in the right ways and what operations can do to survive as well as grow in the new economy.
The Valero Alamo Bowl's Rick Hill (VP of Marketing) and Bryan Moynihan (Director of Ticket Sales & Service) were invited to be guests on the podcast and talked with Troy about how to actually pull off a major college football event. The Alamo Bowl is played Dec. 29 in a 65,000 seat stadium between a Pac-12 and Big-12 Opponent. Hill and Moynihan show off their strategic sales plan in ensuring the bowl's success, which was sold out last year with less than 10,000 tickets available before either Baylor or Washington was selected to play. Hill and Moynihan take turns talking price points, how they ensure proper optics for corporate sponsors as well as engage customers year-round for a one-off event. Exclusive FREE iOS App content: A 3 minute minicast, where Hill & Moynihan discuss specific technologies to enable them to sell more tickets through online content and make customers buy early.
Group Ticket Sales Giant Rob Sine talks with Host Troy Kirby about the current state of ticket sales on both the college and professional landscape. Sine is a Pac-12 Vice President, the only major conference which has a position specifically dedicated to ticket sales. Sine's extensive background includes working for three NBA teams (Milwaukee Bucks, Portland Trailblazers, and Seattle Supersonics), stints in marketing & promotions with minor league hockey teams. Prior to joining the Pac-12, Sine founded Hands on Sports which had clients from the NCAA, NFL, NBA, NHL, Auto Racing, MLS, CFL and was president of Collegiate Consulting, a larger third party proactive ticket selling group for several NCAA athletic departments.
The episode focuses on Sine's passion for group sales, an underserved market in the sports industry, how to diagnose specific areas of need and some of the pending challenges for the sports industry as a whole. A companion to this episode is a 4 minute minicast (available exclusively to FREE podcast app subscribers), where Sine discusses the dynamics of hosting conference tournaments and meeting the customer's needs.
Matt Harper serves as the general manager of The University of Oregon's Duck Tix, an in-house out-bound ticket sales division within the UO athletic department. Harper's extensive experience in ticket sales includes work at IMG-Learfield, Disney Wide World of Sports, & Seattle University Athletics. Harper sits down with Troy Kirby to talk selling philosophies, customer care, season ticket holder retention, and some of the misconceptions of the ticket sales arena. A companion to this podcast is a 11 minute minicast (available exclusively to FREE iOS podcast app subscribers), where Harper discusses leveraging ticket sales and other topics.