Tao of Sports Podcast

Athletic fundraising North of the American border is starting to catch on with its American counterparts. Bruce Logan serves as a foothold reminder of this, at one of the largest collegiate campuses in the entire Canadian system. With Canadian universities turning their attention toward the NCAA model, and joining their academic brothers in the United States, this translates into a huge opportunit...

Ticket aggregators are unleashing data for the secondary market in record time, with one of the companies at the forefront being SeatGeek. The company's Director of Growth, Will Flaherty, discusses the state of the secondary market, as well as how sales data on the secondary is starting to inform both resellers as well as sports teams on how their tickets are doing. Flathery discusses how the info...

As the traditions of college athletics have been usurped by conference affiliation changes, it has placed some challenges for marketing a football or basketball program in the modern era. Matt Wells knows this at West Virginia, where the populations to come watch live college entertainment is limited, and the passion for undeveloped rivalries isn't surfaced yet. Wells shares his views of what make...

It is a rare, unique and surprisingly fresh approach when sports marketing turns toward the arts world for inspiration. That's what Christian Deleon's tenure at San Diego State Athletic Marketing has been all about, with the adoption of a Banksy-esk art-deco feel to an advertising campaign that cost the department little, yet got their branding throughout the city of San Diego. Deleon shares his p...

Jared Frank has edited SEAT Magazine for the Association of Luxury Suite Directors for the past nine years, witnessing changes in the premium market. The ALSD Conference will be its 25th year when it kicks off in San Francisco July 6-9, 2015 and Frank says that some of the best is yet to come. Frank talks about some of the things which have made up the premium space, as well as how the entire indu...

The world of premium sales at the venue level requires a certain type of perspective on prospective client relations, as Mike Guiffre explains. This doesn't just means hitting the phones hard for 100 calls per day, but a data-driven approach with CRM that helps illuminate exactly who the client is, and what their capacity is as well. Guiffre presents the argument for how data analytics is being pe...

Brent Jones has been working to meld the duties of marketing and communications into one department at the University of Southern Mississippi. Those tasks entail a plethora of duties, including  promotions, communications, licensing, sponsorship fulfillment, branding, advertising, ticket sales campaigns, in game production, fan engagement, video operations, public relations, social media, communit...

The Western Bulldogs of the Australia Football League are a perfect example of revenue generation. Despite some lackluster results on the field of play, the Bulldogs' Chief Commercial Officer Nick Truelson and his team were able to generate a men's health program in partnership with Liverpool FC, generating over $1 million in revenue, along with bringing in 25 new partners to the club. It is a gre...

Community relations is a new component for college athletics, although it has been in the professional sports ranks for a long time. Meaghan Brooks has overseen the program at the University of Oklahoma since its inception in 2012, describing what seems like a political campaign as the Sooners perform over 100 school visits annually. Brooks shares her secret for staying on top of things: Organizat...

Dr. Darin White is part of the new contingent of academia attempting to improve the sports business acumen available in sports management programs, starting with his own program at Samford University's Brock School of Business. White doesn't just stop there, also chairing the Sports Marketing Academic Society, as part of the American Marketing Association. The goal is to develop a framework that b...

The Huntsville Havoc are a mainstay of the Southern Professional Hockey League, one of 10 outlaw minor league hockey teams affixed together in a region of the United States that isn't known for its winter ice sports. Havoc Director of Ticket Sales Cline Thompson explains why the SPHL and the team have been able to be successful, despite the unification of several other minor league hockey teams in...

The New York Cosmos' legacy from the 1970s has re-emerged as an NASL team fighting itself way toward revenue generation amid a rising trend of soccer awareness and excitement. Richard Searls describes some of the ways that the Cosmos have grown their own base on the Hofstra college campus, despite not having alcohol sales to bouy their bottom line. For Searls, it comes down to a unifying sense of...

Understanding how priority points and loyalty marketing work for a sports franchise is something that John Lemke has been dealing with for a long, long time. His career has spanned from loyalty marketing programs for the airlines, hospitality to setting up various sports franchise models with EFan. Lemke sorts out some of the issues regarding a loyalty marketing plan and implementation, in order t...

Brock Wissmiller is providing that NCAA Division II has just as many revenue opportunities as the big boys at Division I. Wissmiller has several years of development, fundraising, media and sales experience, all of which he brings to the table daily at the Upper Iowa Athletic Department. Wissmiller discusses some of the perceptions and misconceptions at working at a small university athletic depar...

The Charlotte Knights in a unique position within the MiLB landscape: A franchise with a continual sold-out situation that is drawing the interest of the local secondary ticket market, as well as some national attention for one of the best new ballparks in America. Knights' Director of Ticket Operations Matt Millward discusses some of the various ways in which the team has utilized every revenue s...

The podcast headed to Charlotte, North Carolina for Ticket Forum 15 and conducted a group interview with Kevin Wilson, Associate AD of Development - North Carolina Central University Athletics, Heather Lutz, Assistant AD of Marketing & Sales - University of Toledo and Eric Leach, Assistant General Manager, Bowling Green Hot Rods. Each brings something interesting to the table, especially on how to...

Realizing revenue is one of new facets of athletic departments, and David Paitson is bringing his professional experience to the FCS level to prove it. Paitson oversees the FCS powerhouse Sam Houston State's revenue streams as an associate athletic director, and covers a lot of the ground of what it takes to generate actual income at the lower Division I levels. Paitson discusses some of the ways...

Sitting down in Charlotte during Ticket Forum 2015, Garrett Nolan discusses his role at Bojangles Coliseum and Ovens Auditorium. While the conversation starts off with dealing in ticket sales, especially with Bojangles' announcement of the move of the AHL's Charlotte Checkers to the Coliseum in 2015-16, it transforms into a debate over the role of the secondary market, and ticket brokers as a whol...

Laura Madison is changing the car industry by provoking a discussion on what car sales representatives should be doing online. Madison works at the Toyota dealership in Bozeman, Montana, but has made national and international news through her branded website sales, creating blog posts, videos and other social media content, reviewing the cars that she sells on the lot. This has translated to hund...

Marty Mulford has worked in sports long enough to see why it is hard for young people to access the industry. A mainstay in the ticket office with the Nashville Predators, Mulford decided to create a 75-minute audio e-book called The Sports Industry Fast Pass, with the express goal of help young people understand what jobs are available, how to interview properly for the job in question, and how t...

Justin Doherty has witnessed the growth of the Big Ten, NCAA and The University of Wisconsin during his 25 years in sports communication. Doherty talks about the transition from print media as the mainstay of journalism to now social media, where digital print rules the day. Doherty discusses some of the aspects of trying to determine what and who makes a journalist, and who should receive credent...

The National Pro Grid League has taken the nation's summertime viewing up a notch. In 2014, it was launched as a cable mainstay for NBC Sports, filling out some of the 8600 programming hours that the channel has to allot for. NPGL's Claire and Jim Kean, discuss how they created the game from scratch, designed various teams, took on ownership groups and launched within a 9-month time frame. As NPGL...

Doug Holtzman is no stranger to sports business, working over 17 years in the field. Currently the VP of Media & Entertainment for Media Brokers Int., Holtzman has been a consultant for sports and media companies, and worked at IMG for four years, helping Air Force Academy and Northern Illinois University achieve activation through corporate partnerships. With NBA, NFL and NHL experience, Holtzman...

Amy Venuto has worked in sports sales for over 16 years, transitioning several minor league franchises and raceways into high volume revenue drivers for their executive staffs. Venuto shares some of her philosophies when coming into situations, especially how to develop a fast-track training that avoids simply presenting PowerPoint slides and going over the same topics each visit. Venuto discusses...

Jeramie McPeek has been with the Phoenix Suns since 1992. He's witnessed the transition from print to online, as well as how to digitally engage each fan along the way. McPeek discusses some of the platforms used in order to achieve that engagement, along with facing the fact that major brands are also at the mercy of the platform algorithms that alter communicating with the fans or followers that...