6 Inside Ticket Sales Managers walk into an Arena… Ok, it sounds like the great start to a joke, but in essence this piece is more about how those managers got into their coveted sports jobs. I often get asked how I got my foot in the door in professional sports and the answer is…
Tyler Johnson
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Taking Rapport to the Next Level
Plato once said, “You can discover more about a person in an hour of play than in a year of conversation.” Plato lived almost 2400 years ago. Before social media, before the phone, before the fax, before e-mail and before the pony express. In today’s value driven business climate I feel this getting to know…
The Rise of Marucci Sports
In 2002, two former LSU athletes were rehabbing their recent injuries with Jack Marucci back in Baton Rouge the topic of conversation turned towards Marucci’s recent hobby. This hobby eventually led Eduardo Perez of the St. Louis Cardinals to do something no one else had done yet in Major League Baseball history. By taking a different approach to the business and providing a higher quality product to the market, Marucci helped create a whole new ballgame.
Jack Marucci, the Head Athletic Trainer at Louisiana State University first started perfecting the craft of hand-made wooden baseball bats as a hobby, originally making them for his son. As the two former LSU athletes, Kurt Ainsworth and Joe Lawrence, rehabbed, they spoke of what to do after their professional MLB careers. Marucci’s hand crafted bats became that future. By 2003, the focus on detail and quality craftsmanship to ensure every hand crafted bat was a ‘gamer’ brought them into ‘on deck’ circles and into the batter’s box.
Kurt Ainsworth was a former LSU All-American and 1st Round draft pick by the San Francisco Giants. He also played on the Gold Medal winning Olympic team in 2000. Joe Lawrence was a former USA Today high school All-American and played professionally for the Toronto Blue Jays. After 8 years in professional baseball Joe returned to LSU to play football.
Make the New Geek on the Web for You
SeatGeek.com launched in September of 2009 and functions a bit like some of the websites developed for the travel industry, but for your favorite sports teams. Out of the frustration of being a Red Sox fan and always having to pay a premium for tickets, Russ & Jack Groetzinger came up with SeatGeek.com to rid them and other fans of that “I’ve been ripped off feeling.”
Legends, Sunburst & Silver Chalice Big Players in Partnerships
Legends Hospitality Management The name definitely encapsulates the partners’ reputations in their given leagues and by no stretch the status of their owners as well. By the fall of 2008 the New York Yankees, Dallas Cowboys and Goldman Sachs had formed a food and retail company in Legends Hospitality Management LLC. George Steinbrenner’s Yankees and…
Economy a Factor In Revenue From Partnerships
Economical shifts in baseball have been in motion since 1997 when MLB officially granted the commissioner the power to unequally distribute the revenues from the Central Fund. Previously they were distributed equally. It was the fall of 2006 when the players association and MLB reached the current five-year agreement in which each team contributes 34%…
Using the PR Power of March Madness
In reading Gail Sideman’s recent article about March Madness being the NCAA‘s best PR campagin, I began to think of the other PR benefits provided by this tournament. I grew accustomed to watching the Iowa Hawkeyes. Guys like Ricky Davis, Acie Earl, Reggie Evans, Russ Millard and BJ Armstrong (who I met again as he…
$ign of the Time$, Part 1
Some call it a sign of the times or the new “Revenue Era” in baseball. All major sports teams are in search of revenue streams or new ways to maximize current ones. Without a salary cap, Major League Baseball teams have been thriving with activity. One piece to the new revenue is puzzle has been…
#ClicheWednesday: Reaching New Goals
It may sound cliché, but I think everyone in the New Year should set out to try a few new things. Hopefully people haven’t already derailed their 2010 plans! One of my former colleagues sent me a tweet last week wanting to promote #ClicheWednesday on twitter that day. It was random, but knowing his use…
Create a Presence: The Influence of LinkedIn Groups
Last May I was kicking back with Lewis Howes at a Chicago Cubs game, not knowing in two weeks time I would be doing the same thing with another colleague, Jude LaRose. Still digesting the LinkedIn knowledge Lewis dropped on me, Jude and I ended up not paying much attention to the play on the…
Reach out in New and Creative Ways for Ticket Sales
I always take the opportunity to reach out to a customer and show off a brand I represent. I won’t lie, I had a college professor that pounded this into my head for a semester. Working in ticket sales a few years later, I searched for ways to capitalize on this point. In today’s ticket…
Redefine Your Passions
We hear it in sports business all the time. Passion. It seems to go hand in hand with sports and it’s paralleled in business. You see it on resumes and ad campaigns. Dictionary.com defines passion as a strong or extravagant fondness, enthusiasm, or desire; and though it’s a noun to be effective in your career…