Tao of Sports Podcast

  One of the most exciting pieces of sports branding properties was announced in September 2013, as an Arena Football League team in Anaheim, California cemented plans to become LAKISS. This married the brand of Arena Football with the rock band KISS, showcased by co-owners Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley. LAKISS President Schuyler Hoversten breaks down the ways that the AFL team will reflect the tr...

  For a state worker, Keith Kizer has one of the more interesting jobs in the world. In one of the state’s largest assets, Kizer operates with a small staff of five in a nook of a large building and works out of a small office unrecognizable to the popular media image of what many think the NSAC is. Kizer, along with five NSAC commissioners, is in charge of overseeing the licensing, sanctioning an...

  Legacy brands, especially in the Southeastern Conference, can be a tough marketing venture for anyone seeking to relate new ideas into an older demographic. Daniel Nunes talks about the challenges and success of running one of the marketing departments a top level athletic program nationally, as well as trying to maintain both an environment for television and the in-game fan experience for 93,0...

  Embry-Riddle, an NAIA aeronautics university athletic department in Florida has helped launch several careers of young professionals in the field of sports management. John Phillips serves as Associate Athletic Director of ER, talking about the role of the school in developing a great atmosphere for fans, student-athletes and becoming a working lab for those looking to grow while working in spor...

  Australian Blair Hughes has performed several aspects of the fan experience model, both in sports and in music. Hughes talks about some of the crossover aspects of trying to achieve fan loyalty to the brand, discussing in detail his time as director fo the Brisbane Sounds, which produced over 50 events, five compilation albums with and featured over 100 artists. Hughes chats about his seven year...

  Activation is the name of the game in corporate sponsorship. LaTrisha Reid has worked extensively in the field for the last 10 years, helping companies from musicians to motorcross exhibitions in the constant expansion of corporate sponsorship opportunities. Reid discusses her passion for developing great B2B, as well as some of the pitfalls that have caused companies to pull back from doing spo...

  Cincinnati has become of an exciting epicenter of a digital ticketing start-up with international potential, that being Tixers.com. Founder Alex Burkhart details how the company started with the simple request of finding a reasonable way to trade unused season tickets into a full-fledged service that has now expanded to a small sample size of users. Burkhart discusses some of the ways in which T...

  Marketing and fan experience are discussed with Tim George, who has spent several years in the Big 12 with Texas Christian University and Oklahoma. Now at University of North Carolina Greensboro, George talks about the stark difference between a brand that has been created over several years and in UNCG’s case, a brand which has been initiated only twenty years prior. George details some of the...

  The world of ticketing has changed over the last fifteen years. Fred Maglione has witnessed that change as head of New Era Tickets, along with his extensive experience with other ticket vendors. Maglione talks about how the customer service aspects haven’t changed even though the platforms have, taking it from store outlet models to online. Maglione discusses the aspect of service fees, whether...

  The Asian markets, especially a massive country such as China, get categorized in a macro sense in the matter of sports business. Rob Mills helps break down each corner of Asia; Shanghai, Bejing, Hong Kong, India, Japan, and Korea are all discussed with intimate detail. As are the countries of Qatar, Australia, and Russia. Mills talks about some of the issues going on with global sports, how the...

  A name change can do a lot of things for a minor league baseball club, but the Akron double-A affiliate of the Cleveland Indians caused a social media explosion when they changed their team nickname Oct. 29 from the Aeros to the RubberDucks. Director of Ticket Sales Brian Flenner talks about the name change, the impact on the community, the internal staff secrecy about the nickname, and the medi...

  Dennis Kalina fully admits that it was easier to garner large donation asks while at men’s basketball powerhouse Gonzaga University as associate athletic director of external relations than Kalina’s new challenge as senior associate athletic director at Binghamton. But Kalina says that he is embracing his new experience, not only as a component of the Bearcats’ senior management team, but also f...

  Part of the modern athlete’s image is that of the social interaction on various media platforms. That’s where Steve Dao and his company, Dynamic Sports Media, can help examine each athlete’s branding and work build it into a larger concept of community image. Dao talks about some of the nightmare scenarios of social media’s influence on branding, but also provides advice on avoiding a false athl...

  C. Ryan Shelton has been able to successfully operate in both the world of minor league hockey and that of minor league baseball. Shelton talks about his experiences in developing great fan experiences, understand the nuances of customer service, and how he continues to trust with season ticket holders. Shelton expands on the idea of sports sales, talking about his 1-on-1 prospect engagement str...

  The role of NCAA compliance is often misunderstood by the public and sometimes, even those overseen by rules education. Brian Blair talks about his guidance with coaches and administrators to ensure that compliance works for both the athletic department staff as a whole as well as student athletes. Blair discusses how the perception of student-athlete awareness of athletic department issues is p...

  Kevin McNamee has over thirty-five years of experience as a Division-I administrator as well as a coach of swimming and diving. McNamee talks about how his coaching days helped develop his administrative role with St. Bonaventure for 17 years, then moving to George Mason for the last 19 years, overseeing of some of the more detailed aspects of the department. McNamee discusses various points on...

  The Mountain West Conference holds one of the hottest tickets in Las Vegas during conference tournament time for men’s basketball. Dan Butterly oversees the Mountain West’s annual conference tournament, and talks about how he helps sell sponsorship inventory as well as achieves activation for corporate clients. Butterly discusses how the Mountain West engages and educates fans during a rabid, se...

  Recognized by The Sporting News as one of the Top 100 most powerful people in sports, Mike Goff has created some of the most dynamic and far-reaching brand development in the sports industry. Goff talks about Premier Sports Management’s role in recalibrating the current Bowl Championship Series of college football after being hired by the NCAA Division I conferences to help define the identity,...

  Drake Nelson spent 10 years in the world of independent professional wrestling entertainment and has now shifted into managing the largest comedy club in Reno, Nevada. Nelson talks about some of the reasons that professional wrestling is dying out on the circuit and presents a different view point on how promotions work in that industry niche. Nelson discusses his outlook on entertainment in gen...

  Derrick Docket examines the role of social media from the perspective of an college athletic conference, where the focus has to be expanded to the Missouri Valley Conference’s ten member schools. Docket talks about the challenges of ensuring fairness to each member school, as well as how social media at each athletic department changed over the last few years. Docket discusses how livestreaming...

  The world of sports communication and branding is where Jim Delaney focuses his attention on most. Delaney discusses some of the issues surrounding the roles of traditional and social media, as well as how new platforms can cause issues when messaging isn’t correct across the board. Delaney talks about a team or individual knowing their brand enough, especially when it comes to things which appe...

  The complex world of major gifts, fundraising and overall annual giving to university athletics is broken down by David Sabolcik, who has spent several years at different departments across the country building better revenue streams. Sabolcik has spent time at the University of Minnesota Moorhead, the University of New Mexico, San Jose State, Georgia State and University of Nevada-Reno, and tal...

  John Kosner oversees the digital landscape of ESPN and its many affiliates, including Grantland.com headed by Bill Simmons, ESPN The Magazine, and espnW, the network’s initiative targeted at female sports fans. Kosner talks about how the digital landscape has changed with ESPN constantly trying to keep ahead with its presence, expanding both the 30 for 30 features, Grantland and now 538, the new...

  Joe Vrankin helped preside over one of the largest sports league expansions in history during a nearly nine-year run as chief operating officer of the Arena Football League and its subsidiary, the Arena Football League 2. Vrankin talks about the details of league expansion, how the AFL changed during the 2000s to its eventual demise under a strike-riddled 2007 campaign as the collective bargaini...

  Shon Spevak has spent most of his adult life in Cedar City, Utah. A graduate of his hometown university, Spevak talks about his role with SUU as it has grown up in the last nine years over his tenure from a department with a sole conference home to finally being a member of the Big Sky Conference for all of its sports. Spevak discusses the challenges of being in a remote location, continuing to...