Tao of Sports Podcast

The University of Northern Colorado's Sports Administration program has turned over its legacy professors which brought the UNC program to the forefront of producing several of the top level sports management instructors in the country. Dr. Alan Morse has now taken the torch, carrying it upon the retirements of three of its major professors, and serves as director of the program. Morse discusses t...

As the role of the secondary market changes in the public perception, so do the legal issues surrounding brokers involvement. Gary Adler has served as general counsel for the National Association of Ticket Brokers (NATB) since its inception 22 years, and discusses the various topics within the industry. Adler talks about rules, regulations and processes, which may be pushed as a consumer protectio...

The third party model has held ground and expanded in the college athletic landscape, with a further understanding between both in-house leaders and those representing the outside organization. Aspire's Tony Garrett discusses how empathy has allowed the company to thrive when dealing with long-term college athletics workers, as well as the ability to pitch in to get the job done. Garrett talks abo...

The Chicago Cubs were one of the luckiest teams at the start of the 1900s, according to former Associated Press writer Hal Bock, author of the book, The Last Chicago Cubs Dynasty. Bock covers the entire Cubs reign to the World Series from 1906 to 1910, complete with the biographies of some of the more illustrious characters in Major League Baseball History. Bock talks about the legendary double-pl...

While having a ton of academic credits helps bolster some program ratings, Dave Torromeo is focused on the real-world application of his Manhattanville College instructors, as well as their backgrounds. Torromeo discusses the influx of masters degree programs for sports management, as well as some of the dangers of flooding the marketplace without instructors who have actually worked full-time in...

The Wheeling Nailers ECHL franchise has begun to shy away from the premium giveaway, in order to cater to the mega experience of celebrity appearances. Vice President of Tickets, Chris Thoburn, talks about how the celebrity appearance at a game helps enhance both the VIPs of team business partners and group leaders, as well as draws out a ton of single game tickets. Thoburn maps out the new hockey...

The transition from first career to second career is one of the more difficult retirement discussions any professional athlete has to make. Devon Teeple is one of the better success stories, moving from a promising minor league baseball career to the world of finance and blogging. Teeple discusses how his life has changed since he made that decision, along with being mentored by several sports wri...

Troy Ruediger has helped launch one of the more "sticky" forums for sports and technology discussion, called Starters. Based out of a Slack platform, Starters has engendered a larger amount of early adopters, communicating in various connectivity discussions and sharing timely articles. Ruediger discusses the vision of Starters, its original intentions, as well as its current state of growth, whic...

Singapore's Hass Aminian did an in-person podcast in Davis, California way back on episode 184, and now returns 499 episodes later for a follow-up report. Now on his own, Aminian discusses the Asian market indepth, as well as how the NBA is capturing an entire continent, but also fighting against consumer demand for homegrown sporting leagues and events. Aminian discusses the issues around Rule 40...

The majority of c-suite college administrators utilize Matt Roberts' aggregation e-mail news service daily in both the world of athletics, known as the D1 ticker. Reaching over 13,000+ recipients, Roberts' breaks down what makes the e-mail such a necessary part of the daily lives of high-level conversations on the industry's overall happenings. Roberts' discusses how he avoids editorializing, but...

Digital streaming is becoming the simplified way of live sports content distribution, and as Sportle CEO Adam Shaw explains, that brings out the complexity of the traditional media marketplace amid contractual and corporate sponsorship agreements. Shaw discusses the issues at hand, especially couch rights vs. hotel rights, and whether consumers will finally gain access to Regional Streaming Networ...

Mike Waddell has managed to navigate the trickiest of waters in sports; not only as a broadcaster, but administrator in collegiate athletics, and now in the professional sports world with the Richmond International Raceway. Waddell talks about selling into a culture and environment, as well as building a group of personnel that lasts, specifically citing one experience in Virginia in 1994, where h...

Even on the secondary market, customization of tickets has started to enhance whether the game result was terrible for the home team or not for the consumer. Gamehedge is an idea hatched by long-time attorney Warren Friss, who has seen his share of bad games. Consumers who buy into the Gamehedge guarantee can get 50% back off of their ticket price if the home team loses by 5 runs or more. Friss ta...

Few sales trainers try to dissect the tone of an office suffering from a multigenerational leadership gap like Judy Ferraro, who talks about the fissures found in the differences between the Baby Boomers, Generation X and Millennials. Ferraro shares her vision of how the office space has changed on the sales floor, especially with Gen-X being the smallest of the three generations, and ways to rest...

Luke Jarman is entering the United States sports market with a wealth of branding experience on the world stage. Jarman shares his experiences ranging from the United Kingdom, Brazil and Qatar, and how his company, ICON, has helped share some of the marketing efforts to a global sports marketplace. Jarman talks about how images, colors and shapes can transform attitude and affinity toward stadia a...

The sharing economy has created a version for massive group sales transportation in Rally Bus, a vision of Numaan Akram who explains the company's simple concept of moving large groups of fans toward a single destination. Akram talks about how safety in numbers, as well as passion of a fan base, caused Rally to start to transport large amounts of sports fans from point-to-point destinations, inclu...

The role and legacy of Canadian sports business is a very proud one, but according to Cary Kaplan, the low-key demeanor of those executives in the Great White North often keeps them from being fully recognized down in the United States as leaders. Kaplan discusses marketing and revenue generation theories when it comes to sports teams, as he not only leads a consulting group, but also as president...

Understanding the methodology in order to engage and embrace the peak performance of employees is one of Jesse Henry's specific tasks. A motivational speaker who has worked in the past with Tony Robbins, Henry's resume includes work with the Miami Marlins and a TED Talk about the subject. Henry discusses his view point on generational efforts in the workplace, as well as the reward systems that ar...

The last two NACDA conferences, Michael Murtagh, Jr. has shown tremendous hustle in looking for a sports marketing job. Pre-scheduling and meeting with over thirty sports business executives, Murtagh, Jr. has been actively showing his networking skills on the new social media messaging platform, Snapchat. Murtagh, Jr. has various tips and tricks on how to effectively utilize Snapchat further, incl...

Blood, sweat and association equity are part of Jimmy Smith's gameplan to push the social media digital side of college athletic administrators into the forefront of professional development. Smith talks about his lobbying efforts with his fellow digital collegiate professionals into building an affiliate association under NACDA of their own, as well as some of intangibles of why its necessary. Sm...

The art and role of customer service as well as ticket operations in off-site venues is one of Jason Sabatino's specialties. Not only with the College Football Playoffs, as the Director of Business and Ticket Operations, but also with the NCAA men's basketball tournament. Sabatino discusses some of the various issues surrounding customer service, including the mantra 'the customer is always right'...

Matt Hyder has just put out to market one of the more revolutionary ways to heal muscles, called "The Stinger." No, it doesn't inject into the body, but it is leading the way toward sport injury recovery. This conversation gets deep into the weeds of cryotherapy and myofascial release, as well as how muscle tissue tends to be overworked by bad exercising techniques in general. Hyder is a young ent...

Eric LaPointe hugs the small difference between the primary and secondary, working in both arenas. First with the Miami Heat, Miami Dolphins, Florida Panthers in the primary side, and then transitioning over to ScoreBig and Ticket Galaxy, where he cultivates business partnerships on the secondary. A lot of it comes down to a small delineation in LaPointe's mind, as he explains that many of the app...

Some of the best experience in sports can happen in a virtual cuisinart, as Tim Rice can attest from his time at San Jose State, where he had to fundraise in a time that saw a drastic amount of change for the university. Now at Northern Illinois University, Rice talks about the lessons learned at campuses where the money is tight, and you have to be continually creative in order to build new reven...

Jess Root represents the new form of digital sports journalism, even if he himself doesn't consider the term "journalist" to fit what he's doing. Root has overseen a passion project call CardsWire over the last 6 years, and is now affiliated with USA Today in the hopes of covering the Arizona Cardinals with the intensity of a fan, but the writing coverage of the press. Root discusses how he has ma...