Tao of Sports Podcast

  B2B sales by using a sports organization’s game is one of the hallmarks of developing long-term success between a franchise and business brands. CEO Jason Kohll talks about his company, Professional Sports Partners, which helps push business affiliations toward the right sports brands, using his experience with the Houston Rockets and St. Louis Cardinals. Kohll discusses how a suite can develop...

  Going from a sales staff position to minor league owner in twenty years isn’t easy, but Jeff Eiseman has done that by forming Agon Sports, which oversees operations for the Augusta GreenJackets minor league baseball club. Eiseman talks about his experiences with Mandalay and Ripken Baseball, of why the sports industry is really a sales industry above all else, and what those who want to break in...

  Luke Burket provides a fascinating case study of what the customer wants compared to what sales staffs focus on, in terms of selling sports. Burket discusses his role within the Evansville Iceman, how his title hasn’t changed his motivations or drive, and how keeping an office close to his staff is one of the key’s to his success. Twitter: @LukeBurket

  Every team gives lip service to brand, but really what does that entail? Minnesota Swarm Director of Brand Marketing Matt McCormack discusses ways to reinforce feeling and affinity for a team, as well as how to ensure that the environment around each home game feels branded right. McCormack gets into his own history of working in sports, the ability of mobility, why conferences matter, and why t...

  Group sales is growing with importance in sports as season ticket sales diminish. Chris Asa sits on the front lines of selling groups on the Montgomery Biscuits minor league team, and gets into the details of how to specifically sell more group tickets, what to target and how to build a true relationship which will garner larger crowds as well as revenue for years to come. Twitter: @ChrisAsa1

  Jake Vernon’s Get Real Sports is one of the third party ticket solutions taking hold in top schools like Butler. Vernon talks about how the third party industry ballooned into almost every FBS property now considering something which would have been unthinkable less than ten years ago, that is contracting-out their ticket sales division and paying commissions. Vernon discusses professional devel...

  Fan experience is one of the main reasons on why people renew or decline to attend live events. Brian Crow’s Gameday Consulting helps teams such as the NFL’s Buffalo Bills, reinvest itself in fan engagement. That means from top to bottom, every touch-point of a fan’s game experience is measured for quality and customer service. As a professor at Slippery Rock, Crowd also talks about the saturati...

  The game for ticket reselling and price points in general has changed, and Jesse Lawrence’s company, TiqIQ, provides fans with the best opportunity to seek out the lowest price for the best seats. Lawrence talks about the issues surrounding the resale market, as well as social media in terms of providing information on ticket deals. Questions arise from this conversation: Could a floor be instit...

  Oklahoma State is at the forefront of the inhouse ticket sales revolution for college campuses. A lot of that vision comes from Adam Haukap, who talks about what college ticket sales was like prior to 2007 and where it is headed now. Haukap is considered one of the top sales minds in NCAA sports with OKSU stepping further ahead of their peers and hired a ticket analyst, gaining traction for the...

  Personal athlete brand is a huge market, especially with social media, and that’s where Gil Pagovich performs some of his best skills, using his passion for sports marketing and communications to design the right message for his clients. Pagovich, who spent seven years as an instructor at NYU teaching a class called “The Sports Agent” and discusses creating, nurturing and selling an athlete’s br...

  It’s one thing to sell season tickets to an upcoming season, but Erik Hansen has been put in charge of selling out the house two years before the Phantoms minor league hockey team arrives in town. That means phone calls, training as well as motivating staff, and ensuring that specific sales goals are met, waiting for the arena in LeHigh Valley has been built. Twitter: @Kulax40

  Player development within professional organizations has been a large component of Kathryn Jordan’s career since the early 1980s. This means finances, life skills, and community relations through player foundations to develop the individual player’s brand. Heading up her own company, KJordan Consulting, Jordan offers brand development, marketing, communications and non-profit management expertis...

  Bill Robertson has initiated strategic communications plans for several sports teams and brings vast knowledge from his days as the head of public relations for four major league teams (Anaheim Ducks, Anaheim Angels, Minnesota Wild, Minnesota Timberwolves). Robertson discusses how going through the Disney Institute helped guide his career further, some of the issues with traditional and social m...

  Greg Bennett separates his company, Surgence, with other sales trainers, because he wants some skin in the game with any staff he helps guide. This isn’t just a system, or presentation, but an intensive amount of indepth sales knowledge from Bennett, who implements dynamic new strategies in order to increase profit. Bennett talks about some of the issues he has with the sales training game, as w...

  It isn’t just about being good according to Devin Crosby, its about being in the top 20 percent of your department. Crosby, who has served twice as a Deputy Director of Athletics at Towson and Kent State, talks about his role in being second in command of an athletic department. Crosby discusses the mentality of budgets, expectations both personal and professional, and how to build a great caree...

  Robert Weese starts off the discussion with an examination of what sports organizations can do to improve their B2B sales staff, and ends on a determination of the role of A players amid a sea of B & C players. Its an amazing conversation where the heart of the issue, A players being held back in some cases, has caused massive turnover in sales staffs by their best employees leaving due to C pla...

  Bringing her NBA experience with the Atlanta Hawks to Cleveland State, Carrie Neville talks about how the ticket sales office has transitioned into a full-selling suite. Neville presents several ideas of how CSU’s basketball events are more than just a game, whether that includes concessions, magicians or just fun. Neville discusses her passion for group sales, some of the techniques she uses in...

  Operating one minor league team would be a normal undertaking, but Mike Ostrowski is responsible for three teams which have overlapping seasons. Ostrowski talks about developing a good sales team, making sure that the brand is extended out, respected, and pushed futher into the community. Ostrowski talks about group tickets, the implementation of dynamic pricing on minor league teams, and the NB...

  Idol Sports Marketing is responsible for some of the largest one day non-conference college basketball games in the country. Jon Hines has developed a great strategy of bringing some of the top teams in the nation together to face each other, including Gonzaga’s basketball Comcast Battle In Seattle and the Washington State Cougar basketball Hardwood Classic, both at the Key Arena. Hines talks ab...

  Adam O’Connell has the duality of professional and collegiate experience in ticket sales, which means he can see past the rhetoric, discussing what works and what doesn’t when selling sports tickets. O’Connell talks about his tenure with the Fresno Grizzlies minor league baseball team and the Fresno Falcons junior hockey league team, then expands to what Akron is currently doing to ensure that e...

  Don’t go calling Mike Briercliffe an expert, because he doesn’t believe there is one in the world of social media. Briercliffe does have advanced knowledge on how to build a cohesive social media strategy, going from the fast lanes of the Twitter down to the medium slow lanes of Facebook & LinkedIn. Briercliffe shares his social media philosophies on what works, what doesn’t in terms of building...

  Part 2 of UK Sponsorship Discussions focuses on sports teams’ branding efforts in a changing world of revenues with Two Circles’ Matt Rogan. The discussion centers around some of the ways that a team can brand themselves differently from their competition, and then looks at the UK relegation system compared to the US sports team’s amateur draft and salary cap. An interesting conversation on how...

  Located in Indiana, Juan Garcia shares some of the misconceptions that not only the public, but even the players have about agents. This is an eye-opening account as to what players expect from their representatives, especially when it comes to the player’s personal matters. Garcia talks about the collective bargaining agreement, the NBADL and whether being located in Indiana instead of Chicago,...

    Part 1 of UK Sponsorship Discussions on sports sponsorship branding begins with Activate’s Jeremy Edwards, who shares some of the details on how effective branding works for the sports team’s sponsor. Edwards discusses ROI and a good brand message which creates conversation for the team and sponsor. Typically, the focus on branding is what the team can achieve to the fan, but rarely does it go...

  A former Arena League2 General Manager, Butch Bellah now spends his days developing and training sports sales staffs across the country. Bellah talks in terms of the sports sales person being a craftsman, ensuring that each understands that they should take pride in what they do. Bellah shares his philosophy on starting the work week off right while the competition is struggling, especially on M...