Gameops.com: Tell
us about your current position.
Jon
Spoelstra: I am President of Mandalay
Baseball Properties. It includes five properties, three
playing right now: The Las Vegas 51's, Dayton Dragons,
Frisco Roughriders.
Gameops.com: And
you are the author of several books, including Ice to the
Eskimos, Marketing Outrageously, and Success is Just One
Wish Away.
Spoelstra: I
also wrote an industry workbook on ticket sales, How to
Sell the Last Seat in the House. That one is still selling.
We get about 4 or 5 orders a month, and the book sells
for $800 a piece....and I haven't got any complaints, so
maybe it's under priced.
The
lifeblood of our industry is selling tickets.
The best way to sell tickets is to really be
entertaining
-Jon Spoelstra |
Gameops.com: Couple
facts I found interesting from your past. In the three
years you were with the New Jersey Nets you increased revenue
500% and at one point you were involved in an NBA trade....tell
us about that.
Spoelstra: When
I was with the Trailblazers there was a trade. We received
a player named Don Buse, who was a starting point guard
for the Pacers. We had a point guard named Darnel Valentine
and he broke a bone in his hand, so we needed a point guard.
So the trade was one week of my time in exchange for Don
Buse. I think Indiana may have gotten the better part of
that trade [laughs].
Gameops.com: From
Ice to the Eskimos you talk about an idea where you were
going to give away jockstraps to your fans in New Jersey.
Can you share the background on that idea.
Spoelstra: I
was having lunch with a guy named George Lois [author of Sellebrity]
in New York city who was a famous ad guy. He was around
the ad agency who created the famous Volkswagen ads of
the 60's and 70's, "Think Small". He told me
its difficult to think about a company unless you do something
really rotten. Take a look at Enron. Who ever thought about
Enron before they had all those problems. Or Tyco? I did
even know what Tyco was until all that came out with Koslowski
stealing them blind. George mentioned Exxon-Valdez, and
how they spilled all that oil in Alaska. He said you have
to get people to talk about the Nets, without killing people.
He said what are you going to do about that?
I told
him we were thinking about it.
He then
said "Jockstraps". I asked what him meant and
he said, "give a jockstrap out to every man woman
and child that comes to a Nets game all season long."
It was
a crazy idea, but I could visualize it. We weren't killing
anyone or spilling oil like the Exxon-Valdez. So I thought
it would be fun. In the end we couldn't make it work fiscally
[as described in the book].
Gameops.com: What
I really took from that was the point of the chapter, in
that there is no risk in pushing the outrageous envelope.
Spoelstra: I
have used that technique, literally pushing the envelope.
I find that exercise really useful. I encourage people
to think of a outrageous idea, write it down, put it in
an envelope and literally push it across the desk. It helps
think through how to make it reality.
One of
the worst things you can do when you get that outrageous
idea is to go talk to someone right away. It's almost human
nature to say "no, that's a dumb idea." The great
ideas and really wild ideas need a little personal nurturing.
So when I do that, the literal pushing of the envelope
to help work through them in my own head first.
Gameops.com: Let's
talk about some of the great ideas that actually ended
up not happening or almost not happening, like the jockstraps.
A good example is the team in Las Vegas, the 51's.
Spoelstra: That's
a great example. That one was controversial inside the
team, and with the Dodgers. It was controversial, then
it when it became public it became ever more so.
Las Vegas
is a town were everything goes. You have strip clubs, gambling
and nude women everyplace. The local media reacted very
negatively. But in the end we went from 144th in minor
league baseball team licensing in caps to number 1 in one
year. But it was really a lot of negativism during the
gestation period before it became a reality.
Gameops.com: I
think this is in the book, but a great mantra is that somebody
has to hate an idea for it to be good.
Spoelstra: I
believe that if everyone sort of likes the idea, it's probably
not going to be a very good idea. Really, that's
just from experience. If everyone just signs off with a
'that's a neat idea, lets do that"....it doesn't have
any edge to it and it will not turn out to be a great idea.
Gameops.com: So
if you are confronted with this situation, with a couple
people at the table who say, "I'd don't like this
idea or that idea...or the jockstrap idea...", what's
the best way as a creative person to overcome that?
Spoelstra: That's
why I think the period where you grow the idea with yourself
first is so important. If you have to present to a boss,
it can be like the situation I wrote about in Ice to
the Eskimos called "How to get approved by a
naysayer?" Like this example of when I was with the
New Jersey Nets. We wanted to change the name from the
Nets to the Swamp Dragons. It first had to be approved
by the seven owners and they had not agreed on anything.
They couldn't agree whether the lights were on.Then it
had to go to David Stern, then to the Board of Governors....so
this is a huge hurdle.
So our
preparation was very through. We presented as if we were
presenting to the Supreme Court to save our lives. If you
are in position like there were you have to prepare to
save your life...how much time would you spend preparing.
You need
to have every answer to every goofy objection so we could
have a honest and rational comeback to every objection.
So
we finally had all seven owners on board. David Stern liked
it. The NBA Executive Committee liked it (after we sold
it to them for an hour), and it finally went on to a rubber
stamp vote of the teams. Which almost always passes ideas
if the executive committee votes for it. The final vote
was 26-1 in favor of doing it.
And the
only reason the New Jersey basketball team isn't called
the Swamp Dragons today is because the one vote against
it was from the New Jersey Nets. We had a rotating member
of the seven ownership group voting, and he got cold feet.
We only needed a majority, but Stern decided if the Nets
didn't vote for it then the rest of the league can't do
it.
I'd
say stay late and
run your resume on
the Xerox machine.
-Jon
Spoelstra
|
|
Gameops.com: Also
from Marketing Outrageously, you set out a Ground Rule
that says, if you can correctly identify yourself you can
hit the jackpot. I think that's an interesting shift for
a lot of teams who if they haven't figured out they are
not a hockey team but an entertainment option. What would
you suggest to a Game Operations Director who believes
their job is entertaining the fans, but whose ideas get
knocked down or bogged down by upper management who see
themselves as "just" a hockey team.
Spoelstra: I'd
say stay late and run your resume on the Xerox machine.
[Laughs]. There are enough teams out there who see it as
entertainment now. But let's say you were working for Lou
Lamoriello of the New Jersey Devils. Lou is purely a hockey
guy, the degree that when they win a Stanley Cup he doesn't
want any of the players featured in ads, since that would
single out players. Some teams just want you to play music.
If
I was a game operations director who was really talented
you could spend the rest of your life trying to convince
a team that this stuff is important. But life it too short
for that. There are enough teams out there who would want
someone like that. I was being a little fesiscious about
the Xeroxing, but it really depends on the degree to which
that is the case.
Gameops.com: How
about the contrary of that, when do you think (and this
is pretty subjective) when you start to worry about irritating
purists or when you just become a circus with a hockey
game being played in the middle? Is there some kind of
litmus test you can use?
Spoelstra: I
think you can do almost anything with a purist except play
the music too loud. That has to be the number one complaint
with game ops. It's also the biggest mistake you can make
in game operations. The idea that playing the music louder
creates more atmosphere or energy.
I just
don't think that's possible. Loudness doesn't infuse energy.
So if the music is the number one complaint in any venue,
and it's usually just the volume. My feeling is that during
a timeout, if you can't talk to the person you came to
the game with, then the music is too loud.
In part
two of the Gameops.com Interview with Jon Spoelstra, Jon
tells us the only people who matter in entertainment and
describes how he loaded a failing on-court promotion with
pyro and blew it up in front of his fans. Click
to read Part Two.
In Part
Three of the Gameops.com Interview with Jon Spoelstra,
Spoelstra shares why it's okay to fail, names the team
he would want to watch for an entire year, and answers
a challenging multiple choice question from Gameops.com. Click
to read Part Three.
Thanks
to Jon Spoelstra for sharing his time for this month's
interview. It was an enjoyable 45 minutes talking to a
legend in sports marketing, and he did not disappoint.
Thanks also to David Raymond for helping to arrange the
interview.
- Books
by Jon Spoelstra
- Marketing
Outrageously
by Jon Spoelstra, Mark Cuban
Ice
To The Eskimos by Jon Spoelstra
Jon Spoelstra, who pushed sponsorship and fan revenue to unprecedented
heights for the lowly New Jersey Nets basketball franchise, shows
how to put big-league marketing expertise to use off the court
in Ice to the Eskimos: How To Market a Product Nobody Wants.
- Books
by George Lois
- Portland
Trailblazers website
- Dayton
Dragons - The Dragons began play in the 2000 baseball
season as the Class "A" affiliate of the
Cincinnati Reds organization. This team plays in a
state-of-the-art stadium that is a part of a $30 million
complex located in the heart of downtown Dayton. The
stadium has been designed unlike a minor league stadium
and will include amenities such as premium and club
level seating, 30 luxury suites and the first upper-deck
in Class A baseball.
- Las
Vegas 51s - The 51s are the Triple A affiliate
of the Los Angeles Dodgers. The Las Vegas 51s, formerly
the Las Vegas Stars, are the longest standing professional
sports franchise in the city as they are entering their
18th season of baseball in Las Vegas. These unique
properties lend credibility, standing in the industry
and the ability to leverage these properties to avail
new opportunities and businesses.
- Frisco
Rough Riders - Professional baseball in Frisco,
Texas.
- The
Famous Chicken - Official website
- Read
The two-part Gameops.com Interview with the Famous
Chicken
- The
Zooperstars! -
Official website
- Reggy -
Official website
Other
Notes
- Update: We have been emailed by Gameops.com friend former head coach of the OSU Women's basketball team Judy Spoelstra. According to geneology insight provided by Judy's mom, the two Spoelstras are indeed related (which we had earlier claimed they were not).
- Raymond
Entertainment Group: Thanks David for connecting
us with Jon Spoelstra
