Andy Dolich's career has spanned over 40 years, with just about every type of sport imaginable. Dolich recalls his early days with the Philadelphia 76ers, Maryland Arrows, Washington Capitals and Washington Diplomats. But Dolich's 15-year stint with the Oakland Athletics helped set him apart, revitalizing the Bay Area Major League Baseball team that only 326 season tickets, increasing it to over 16,000. Dolich refined the Athletics into "Billy Ball" with a marketing campaign that is credited with rebranding the entire ball club into the image of then-manager Billy Martin. Dolich shares his insight into the growth of sports marketing, especially gaining shared knowledge through peer-to-peer industry conferences, as well as his short-time at the Golden State Warriors. Dolich talks about how the relocation plans of the Vancouver-to-Memphis Grizzlies came about, as well as his tenure with the San Francisco 49ers. Twitter: @Koufish
Architecture design for sports venues has drastically changed over the years, incorporating not only new aspects inside the venue, but also making the building fit within the overall cityscape. Bill Johnson discusses his latest passion project for HOK, designing and building the Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, housing both the NFL Falcons & Atlanta United FC. Johnson talks about the preparations, including ownership's desires to build stadia that reflects a European taste. Johnson also shares some of the aspects in dealing with shared facilities, including the NY Giants/NY Jets venue project, MetLife Stadium. Twitter: Johnson993_bill
Sean Owens has helped build sports revenue for organizations for over 21 years, chiefly with the Charlotte Knights during the mass sellout streak in a new stadium in the downtown district. Owens discusses some of the ways that he gets young sports executives to embrace better sales tactics, including developing phone skills that stick. Owens talks about some of the misconceptions when it comes to sellouts, and what type of packages that fans want to buy in contrast to what sales reps try to sell them. Twitter: @BTMConsulting
Isabelle Perreault gave a fantastic digital maturity findings report at during the 2015 S.E.A.T. conference in San Francisco, and this podcast focuses mostly on her report. Specifically, Perreault talks about some of the ways that the industry has yet to adapt to change, and some of the promising features in which executives are turning the corner with their social media and digital culture. Perreault discusses some of the ways that enterprise systems are being implemented, as well as a few shortfalls that are still lacking in innovation. Twitter: @isaperreault1
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Jeff Ferguson appeared on the Tao of Sports Podcast back in Ep. 189, and has returned to share his outlook on the last two years of sponsorship sales. This may be a drastic turning point in the industry, Ferguson suggests, as the budgets start to become more open toward sponsorship pitches. Ferguson shares his views on selling sponsorships, as well as understanding the other side of the table, along with their concerns. Ferguson talks about building up a sponsorship sales culture that works, long term, for an organization determined to succeed. Twitter: @FergySports
Blog Post "Creating A Successful Sponsorship Sales Culture"
The advances in livestreaming have allowed consumer accessibility to events that normally were ignored by traditional media outlets. EverSport CEO Wayne Sieve discusses the convergence of how new media and high definition have transformed availability of event broadcasts onto every device imaginable. Sieve talks about the early days of livestreaming, back at Yahoo! in the mid-2000s, prior to leaving and eventually founding his own company, which now helps catapult several college and professional teams into a livestreaming mecca. Sieve paints a picture of where the industry is headed, and how each event can built a following of consumers, based on the increasing availability of the live entertainment product. Twitter: @EverSportTV
Consumer demographics are one of the key ways that franchises are gaining insights into how their fans behave. Cole Harper founded DoorStat around the idea of engaging each piece of data to reveal more about consumer habits, trends and ways to build revenue around a cohesive manner of interaction with the venue. Harper discusses some of the ways that the buzzword trends of "big data" have been transformed into a world of analytical achievement for franchise executives. Harper talks about the infrastructure require in order to handle robust tasks in terms of breaking down and achieving marketing effectiveness. Twitter: @DoorStatCole
Paul Neuberger has perfected the art of the cold call into helping various organizations train their staff on doing it right. While Neuberger can talk statistics of closing all day long, it comes down to the delivery, and the ability to listen, which has helped distinguish his efforts at teaching young professionals what they should do when getting a prospect client over the phone. Neuberger speaks about his ways of developing inexperience at cold calling by young executives into a strength that can help them make that first call, and never stop dialing.
The Aspire Group has made great strides into developing U.S. sports sales techniques in the Australia sports market. Overseeing those efforts has been Ben Pincus, along with his wife, Nicole (who was interviewed on Ep. 78 of the podcast when she was at the Atlanta Motor Speedway). Ben Pincus illustrates some of the misconceptions about selling in the Australia sports market, as well as assets that Oz has to offer. Pincus shares his insights into telephone and group sales, two practices that are uncommon in Australia, but taking hold through the Aspire Group's efforts. Twitter: BenPincus
Robin Monsky has worked at four World Series, seven Super Bowls, one Davis Cup Final, several NCAA regional basketball tournaments and the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta (Press Chief, Centennial Olympic Park) and currently represents clients and events ranging from The Chicago Marathon and the Harlem Globetrotters to the Laureus World Sports Awards and ESPN. Monsky talks about her time with the Atlanta Braves, as the first woman in baseball to travel with a team full-time as their PR director, the relationships between reporters and PR directors in pitching stories. Monsky shares her insights into how social media has expanded the playing field in terms of who is determined a member of the press as well as the Centennial Olympic Park bombing, including the 24/7 news cycle that encapsulated Atlanta for two days during that time. Twitter: @SportyRobin