I am going to utilize this blog for a variety of topics, but mostly I am going to be using the experiences over the last few months as an outline for this blog. In some (most) cases, it will be a “don’t let this happen to you” in sports marketing (if you can even call it that), and in others it will be filled with great ideas that I have heard from around the world of sports, and the wonderful people who work very hard in this great industry.

Over the last few days, I have had the opportunity to re-connect with my family after over a year of working way to much for people who didn’t appreciate or understand the efforts. I have decided to take some time off this month to enjoy the holidays with the greatest family on earth, then decide what my next move is going to be.
I have had three offers already since Tuesday – one of which I am interested in. I have three or four other opportunities that I am considering and or pursuing. It is an exciting time to make a change, and to have had the successes that I have had over the years to enjoy being recruited a bit. My home phone started ringing Tuesday afternoon, and I left my last job Tuesday morning, without telling anyone.

I have considered returning to the consulting agency that I started and retain ownership in, but in that role I was traveling four days a week – and that defeats the purpose of wanting to spend more time with family. Right now, that is all I care about, and am grateful for the opportunity that I have to do it.

I have become closer to my children over the last few days, and frankly nothing else matters. Whatever I do next, that team, company or my clients will get my full attention, but my family deserves my full attention to, and when I am at home – I am home. I wasted too much of my time on the phone, email , writing proposals, reports (wait for the blog on the total number useless reports) and neglected my family. I did so for nothing, and I wont make that mistake again.

With that, tonight I will pen my thoughts on why successful professional sports teams utilize premium giveaway items to attract individual game buyers, who are the futture of your season ticket and group base.

Thank you for reading. I look forward to re-connecting with you. At the height of this blog, we had over 3,000 guests reading it. While I do understand that it takes time to rebuild, I look forward to re-connecting with you and having open and honest discussions about sports marketing and any other topic that might interest you. As always, contact me with any ideas that you might have.

Go Sell Something!
Cory Howerton

This blog was created a few years ago as a way of keeping in touch with the fans on a team I worked for, and to provide them with an insiders perspective of the business of sport.

Over the past few months, all of the blogs that I write have gone dark. Mostly because I haven’t had time to write, afterall I have four children, a full time job and I try to spend a few quality minutes with my beautiful wife.

I have decided that I will begin the therapy of writing the blog again, even if the only time I can do it is at 2:17 in the morning on a random Thursday. I love to write, and I love to write about the operations of a professional sports team. Occasionally we will talk about something else, but my two favorite topics are my family and my job – in that order.

That, and for whatever reason this week, I have received about two dozen emails asking me to begin writing again. So here we are.

If there is anything that you would like me to write about, you can email me and this sparkling new email address: askcoryh@gmail.com. While I may not be able to get back to you personally via email (although I will try), if the question is thought provoking enough, I will put pen to paper (or fingers to keys), and talk about it here.

Thank you to those who emailed, it was flattering to hear that you are interested in the things that I have to say. For those of you who didn’t write, that’s ok too. The internet is a big place and you can keep on moving.

Update
Since we last were together, I have moved a bit. Okay, a lot.

I sold my consulting business to a long time friend, and took a position with a soccer team in Milwaukee. It was a lot of fun getting back to my sports marketing roots (the MISL is what inspired me to join the sports business). I didn’t stay long, because at the time I thought the health of the league was weak and didn’t have a chance to play the season – and I have a family to feed.

I joined the Arena Football League’s Cleveland Gladiators as their General Manager. If you haven’t been to an arena football game, you should go. This sport provides the best of entertainment with the talents of sport. We had a great team in Cleveland, but as it turns out, this wasn’t where I was meant to be, and after eight months, I relocated one more time to join the Georgia Force (still AFL), as the team President.

Before you ask – yes I am done moving.

Secondly, for the first time in about five years I am happy doing what I do for a living again.

Since my cancer diagnosis about eight years ago, I have been battling a combo of other illnesses, and while I received another diagnosis earlier this week, and will have to fight this off too – my work situation is stable, and I am having fun again.

Work has become a welcome distraction, and not a place that I detest going to. That’s not to say that I disliked my previous employers -just the opposite. I am just having fun again.

Today I had the chance to speak with the father of a season ticket holder. This man, like so many others, loves his daughter and son in law very much. He asked me if he could buy a football and have the team sign it and deliver it to his daughter during a game.

I asked him what the occasion was, and then he shared with me the most personal story possible. You see, this man lost his wife to cancer just a few short months ago. They would have been married 30 years this week.

He shared with me that his beautiful bride was not feeling well, with an upset stomach. After a few days, she went to the doctor, who sent her to the hospital for emergency tests and then they finally got the news.

Her stomach issue was stage four cancer, it had spread to three places and six months later, this man held her hand and told her it was OK to let go. She did, and now she is with our Heavenly Father.

As he continued, I thought of my own family, my own battles, my children and my wife. We both began to cry. I had an instant bond with the father of a season ticket holder that I had only known over the phone for ten minutes, but I feel like I have known him – and his wife – my whole life.

His loss was personal for me. We are of course getting him an autographed football, and will be presenting it to his family during our final home game of the season.

I invited him to attend on me, but he is not ready. He is not ready to do something that he and his wife would do together had she survived. I don’t know what I would do in his shoes, but I imagine it would be much of the same.

His first game, no matter how long is on me. We gained more than a fan today, I made a friend, and he blessed me with our discussion, and he probably doesn’t even know it. He took comfort knowing that he would be with his wife again one day, but until then he was going to do what he could to impact the lives of those left behind. He is a great man, and I will never forget our time on the phone this day.

As sports marketers, we have the opportunity to impact lives, allow people to live dreams, and create lasting memories for parents and children. If we do this the right way, and dedicate ourselves to the fan experience, those things naturally occur. We do not save lives like doctors, we don’t rescue people like firefighters, but we do play an important role in the fabric of our communities.

Today however, the role was reversed, and the memory of that phone call will help drive me to do better, be a better manager, be a better person but most importantly be a better husband and father.

Tomorrow is never promised. My new friend knows that all to well. With everything I have been (and am going) through with my health I understand this point very well. As a sports executive I hope we can create those memories that we do promise to our guests.

Leroy you are my inspiration. I can’t wait to meet you in person.

Thank – you.

Cory Howerton
President
Georgia Force Arena Football

It started with just one. One single sale on a day fifty one days ago.

Since that day my sales team has sold a half season plan or better to a person who had not previously held a ticket package with our team.

More important than moving seats and generating revenue was the transformation that happened within the walls of our office. Perhaps the most satisfying moments of my professional career occurred over the last 51 days, and we really haven’t accomplished anything yet.

It was a team of people coming together – at times during the last hour of the day – vowing that the streak would continue. That same group of people who have been brought together over the last 90 days, with a few holdovers from last years staff, made up of individuals from diverse backgrounds coming together to make a team.

It’s funny the things that unite us. For the Gladiators, it was a common goal of rebuilding the team brand in the market, exposing our product (the most exciting in sports) to as many people as we can, and a belief in a plan from a new general manager with some ideas that people may think are a little crazy.

As a new manager, I brought a new game plan to the table, in a scenario where change was needed. We made necessary personnel changes, and brought in a group of young, coachable and aggressive people, led by a sales director who has by his own accord grown into his role almost perfectly. We have a long way to go, and a short time to get there, but if these last 51 days are any indication, the arena football league spotlight will be shined directly on Cleveland all season.

I have been in this business for a long time, and I have worked for some amazing owners and a few who have no business operating the public trust that are sports teams. In Cleveland, our owner is committed to not only the sport of arena football, but the Cleveland market. When he and I first met, I shared my game plan, our goals and overall objectives. These ideas, met by other owners with skepticism and doubt, were embraced by our owner and as it turns out, they work. We are selling tickets at a record clip, while other teams are worried about their long-term survival.

I have had another streak like this in my career – just a few years ago, with a baseball team, we had a streak of 64 days of selling a ten game plan or better to a new customer. That year, we had a 59% increase in attendance – the largest in all of minor league baseball, en route to record setting attendance.

What I learned from that streak was taught in this one. Being a member of a team accomplishing so much was more important than any one person. Our group is unified, hard working, coachable and ready, and they are making a difference in sports and entertainment in our market. These young kids who are selling our tickets now are the future directors and vice presidents at the major league level, and I know the things they are learning with us today will be lessons they will carry with them for the rest of their careers.

I am proud to be their leader, but more importantly I am more proud of who they are and how they are developing. After all, we are in the career development business too.

The other thing I learned from the streak with the baseball team – another streak starts tomorrow.

Go Sell Something.

Cory Howerton
Chief Operating Officer / General Manager
Cleveland Gladiators

After only a few short months, I had acquired almost 20 clients, was traveling the country and creating my own schedule. I thought for sure this was going to be phase 2 – and possibly the final phase of my professional career.

As I began looking for office space on the west coast, an opportunity was presented to me to return to team sports management full time. While this had happened before during my short ownership of my firm, this was a unique opportunity to return to my roots – professional indoor soccer.

I sold the majority of my company to two business partners, and embarked on a strange nine month journey.

As it turned out, joining the soccer team, while it seemed like a good idea at the time, did not offer me the flexibility to operate my department as I felt it should be run. When you bring a specific game plan to the table, and then you are not allowed to execute it (even with simple things like choosing who will and will not be on your team), going to work each day becomes difficult. While I have a lot of respect for members of the team, it clearly was not a good fit and shortly after my arrival, I began entertaining offers from other teams and some former clients. While I love the sport of indoor soccer, and the city in which I worked, the inability to execute plans that work, hire and fire and develop the brand in the market simply were not afforded to me, and I was done losing sleep over it.

It was important to me that I not only move on to a more stable environment, but remain true to the one rule that my wife and I established when I was originally contemplating a return to full time team sports management – very few games. The only other rule was the sport needed to be played in the Winter so I could be home for the children during the Summer.

On the morning of September 18th, I lost my long time mentor and close friend to a heart attack, Mark Miller. As the assistant general manager of the Portland Winter Hawks, Mark taught me how to be a “people’s” manager, how to sell sponsorships, drive ticket sales and become the person that I am today professionally.

Personally, he taught me how I should treat people, how to love those around me and how to be a better husband. He introduced me to my wife, and while we had not spoken as much as I would have liked over the past two years, he was always there when I needed him. This was a devastating loss for me, his family and for all who knew him.

A week later I was contacted by the management of the Cleveland Gladiators of the Arena Football League about their open COO / GM position. re-locating my family again was not something that was in the cards, but the job did fit one of two of my requirements – there are not a lot of games.

The Gladiators have a great owner, a great (and coachable) staff, play in a state of the art arena in a football town. I would have total control of the club, and it was simply an opportunity that I could not pass up.

I joined the team in October, and we have implemented the same game plan that was rejected by ownership with the soccer team – turns out it works. I was beginning to doubt the strategy while I was in soccer because it was so widely rejected by staff and ownership. I am not sure why I doubted it since it had worked everywhere else I have been – but I couldn’t be happier to see it working in Cleveland.

We have already surpassed last seasons full season ticket total, and today we are going to announce the most unique premium seating experience and benefit in all of sports. 90 days until we open, and this is truly going to be a historic season for us.

As I look forward to 2011, I do so with extreme excitement. I have the best, most professional and engaged staff that I have ever had the privilege of managing, a committed owner and live in a great city. The next 12 months will be different that the previous 12, but I could not be more excited to see how it un-folds, hopefully bringing an Arenabowl championship to Cleveland – a city that deserves a winner more than any that I know.

It’s already started out great – the NY Football Giants did not qualify for the playoffs, and the 7-9 Seahawks did. What a strange world.

Have a great 2011! Go Sell Something!

I arrived in Cleveland just a few weeks ago, and what I found was extremely refreshing.

I found a group of people who completely understood the need to sell tickets first, who are willing to put in the extra work to make sure it happens, that are coachable, and have a level of professionalism needed for this type of work.

All they needed was some training.

In our business, nothing happens until someone sells a ticket. During training, we explain it as follows:

In Egypt, the pyramids have stood the test of time because of one thing. They have a strong foundation or base.

Think about your own business. What is the one thing that is your base or foundation? For me, it’s tickets.

Tickets are the foundation for which all other success comes. Without ticket sales, sponsorships are worthless. If there are no tickets sold, nobody is paying to park, buying merchandise, food and beverages are not consumed and likely, there will be no television revenue – after all, if they are not coming to your arena, they are probably not watching on television.

I had an owner once that could not get past the fact that tickets were the most important -the most critical – inventory that we needed to sell. He saw the large dollar values associated with corporate partnerships, and thought that was the fastest way to bring down the significant deficit the team had enjoyed for years.

The problem with that logic is simple; you can sell a million dollars in sponsorship for one year, and if there is nobody in the arena to watch the games, you will never get that million dollars back. It’s not rocket science, but for some reason people just don’t get it.

When I finally sit down and finish my book one day, that chapter will be titled “don’t let this happen to you.”

As a business owner or manager, you must decide what your foundation is. Only you know what you can build your pyramid on, and then you must become the best at building that foundation. Better than your competition, better than anyone else. Only you know what that is.

As for me, our sales team and I have tickets to sell, a lot of tickets. We are building the best ticket sales team in the world, and nobody is going to stop us.

Cory Howerton
Chief Operating Officer / General Manager
Cleveland Gladiators

Tonight, as I was strolling through, I found the posting below. It is the perfect message for what we are trying to accomplish with the Gladiators – bring world class sports and entertainment to Cleveland in a fun and entertaining way. So, as Mark put’s it – “look up!”

The following is a post from blogmaverick.com:

There is a lot of discussion these days about the expectation that ticket sales at NFL games will decline for the 2nd year in a row. The most common reason given ? HDTV. Who would’ve thunk that High Def TV would have such a huge impact on the sports world . But I digress.

There is no question that all sports, but particularly football, are impacted. Given the choice between freezing your ass off at a December or January game or sitting with a cold one in front of your new Big Screen, there better be a damn good reason to get off that really comfy couch in order to pack up and go to the game. So what is compelling and unique enough about attending a game that makes it worth the effort ?

First, let me tell you what it is not. It is not the game.

Think back to the first professional sporting event you ever went to. It was probably a parent taking you to the game. What do you remember ? Do you remember the score ? A home run ? A jump shot ? A pass play ? Or do you remember who you were with ? I remember being with my dad at a Pirates game. My dad and my uncle at a Steelers game. Think about your fondest memories at a sporting event. Again, what do you remember ? Hanging with your buddies ? A first date ? A last date ? How you felt after the team won or loss ? A business partner or customer ? Or the score ? I’m guessing its not the score.

We in the sports business don’t sell the game, we sell unique, emotional experiences.We are not in the business of selling basketball. We are in the business of selling fun and unique experiences. I say it to our people at the Mavs at all time, I want a Mavs game to be more like a great wedding than anything else.

You know the wedding I’m talking about. The one where everyone is up dancing, smiling , cheering, laughing. The one where Grandma Ethel has her annual vodka gimlet and is trying to do the Dougie. The one where although you have no earthly idea what the Dougie is, you can’t say no to your 12 year old niece. The one where the whole place does the Macarena while laughing so hard they are crying. The one where everyone sings out loud to every song and you hug the cousin you haven’t seen in 10 years and hope you don’t see for another 10. It doesn’t matter if half the room doesn’t believe the couple will still be married at the end of the year. It matters if everyone in the place is having a great time. It matters if its the type of wedding that everyone in the room wished or wishes their wedding was or will be like this one. It matters that you leave the reception and your hands hurt from clapping , your mouth hurts from smiling so much and your throat is sore because you were laughing , singing and hollering so much. That’s a great wedding.

That’s how I want a Mavs game to be.

I want it to be very participatory. I want it to be very social. I want it to be very inclusive. I want it to be memorable. I want it to be so much fun people talk about it to their friends and can’t wait to go back. I want every parent to get tears in their eyes when they see their kids jumping up and down when the score is 2 to 0. When they are chanting Lets Go Mavs . When they are dancing and trying to get on the big screen. I want the guy on the date knowing that the longest he will have to talk is during halftime and that after the game, and until the next one, he can talk about the game itself and not have all the pressure of trying to think of something to say while his date can be relieved that she can enjoy the game without him talking. Or vice versa of course. I want everyone coming to a Mavs game to be able to find their own personal attachment to that night. I know I can’t control what happens on the court every game, but I can do my very best to make sure that no matter what the score, we have done all we can to make the fan experience like a great wedding.

IMHO, that means eliminating all the “look down” moments in the game. Once you sit in your seat, the only time I want you to look down is to pick up the soda or beer you set down under your seat.

I want you always looking up. Looking at the game and the entertainment in the arena. You can’t cheer if you aren’t watching. It’s my job to give you something other than the game to look up at.

It may be looking at the fun videos we put on the big screen to entertain you.

We are going to try everything and anything we can think of to make it fun and memorable. Just as a DJ responds to the energy and attitude at a Wedding in realtime and tries to choose the right song or activity to keep the fun and energy up, we try to do the same thing at a Mavs game. We recognize that what makes our games unique is that like a wedding, Grandma Ethel can be sitting next to a goth looking 16 year old she has never met before, and if both are watching when the Mavs hit a shot right as the 24 second buzzer sounds, they can high 5 each other like they are best friends. That if Grandma Ethel is chanting defense and being a key 6th man for her Mavs, the 16 year old will feel better about cupping his black nailed hands together to do the same. That if we put a fun video up on the big screen, they both might just sing along

Video and music are two simple components of what we do. We are developing games that our fans can participate in at the arena that hopefully engage them with what is happening on the court. We are coming up with ways to reward our fans for being our “6th man” and adding energy to the arena. (I will save those for another post). We are looking for ways to enhance the emotional attachments created at our game.

So what does this have to do with football or anyone else ? It’s another way of saying I hate the trend of handheld video at games. I can’t think of a bigger mistake. The last thing I want is someone looking down at their phone to see a replay. The last thing I want is someone thinking that its a good idea to disconnect from the unique elements of a game to look at replays. If a play deserves a replay, we will put it up on the big screen. There is a huge value to everyone collectively holding their breath during a replay, or responding to a great play or a missed call and then spontaneously reacting to what they see. You lose that if people are looking down at their handhelds. I think its horrible that a fan might feel its ok not to be watching the game because they have their own personal DVR in their hands. Even worse, if you are afraid of HDTV, why in the world would you try to replicate an experience that you can’t possibly improve on using a phone , IPad or hand held device ? I would be very concerned that someone is going to decide that its just easier to stay home to get all the video they want.

The fan experience is about looking up, not looking down. If you let them look down, they might as well stay at home, the screen is always going to be better there.

Since then, this blog has become a lot of things, and in some cases, a lot of nothing. I want to bring it back to its roots.

Last month, I was named the Chief Operating Officer and General Manager for the Cleveland Gladiators of the Arena Football League. I am excited to be back in an arena sport, in a city that loves and embraces football, in a league that now has a strong financial model that will ensure success well into the future.

This blog will now focus on the business side of sports. While our focus will be arena football, we might talk about basketball or baseball on occasion, indoor soccer every once in a while and of course hockey. It will be an insiders look at the front office operations in professional sports, the occasional opinion piece on the inner workings of other pro sports teams and of course I will go back to answering any questions that people might have.

As we build the Gladiators to become the model franchise in our league, I think some of you might find it interesting how we get there. I look forward to communicating that with you over the next few years.

Go Gladiators!

Cory Howerton
Chief Operating Officer / General Manager
Cleveland Gladiators

First, I have been waiting for the IPAD since it was announced a few months ago. This amazing technology is going to change the way we interact with our email, the internet and a number of other applications. A few months ago, I purchased a mini notebook, and was very excited because of the amount of travel I do to not have to carry around a bulky notebook computer – not to mention my battery life in the netbook is almost seven hours!

But the IPAD has changed everything! I can easily access emails, read books, use the internet and manage my music library. I thought for about six minutes that the “Kindle” was a great piece of technology, but the IPAD makes the Kindle look like toilet paper, and if you have one of these pieces of crap, man up and upgrade. I just ordered a second one for my wife.

In addition, I have gone back to an IPHONE. A couple of years ago, someone convinced me to go away from the Iphone, and since then, i have had a dozen or so phones, including the Palm Pre and the Palm Pre Plus (which are good for teenage girls, or other brainless idiots). The Iphone has applications that I can use in my business, translates to my new Ipad, and is so easy to use. And now, it works with microsoft exchange and can integrate with all of my business applications, just awesome. Ahhhh, all Apple, All the time.

Speaking of amazing….

Ten years ago, I was employed by the Minnesota Twins. We played in the Metrodome, and the team was not very good on the field. Repeated attempts at a stadium financing plan failed and we were even rumored to be included in contraction. Many of my former co-workers still work for the Twins, and a couple of nights ago- Target Field opened for an exhibition game against St. Louis.

I had the opportunity to attend the game, and take a tour of the new ballpark. To be honest, I didn’t expect this ballpark to be on the same par with Safeco Field in Seattle, or the Ballpark in Arlington, and I certainly didn’t think it would be close to new Yankee Stadium.

I am not sure why I thought this, maybe it was the lack of a roof in Minnesota, where I always thought there should be a retractable roof.

I was shocked. I guess I shouldn’t have been. The Pohlad family, team management and the state of Minnesota always do things the right way – and the hit a home run with this new stadium.

It was great to see Twins baseball outside. The home white uniforms against real dirt and green grass. This ballpark was not designed to be retro like the dump in Baltimore, but quite the opposite – it’s modern,with restaurants and the best food service program that I have ever seen at a ballpark – anywhere (be sure to stop by Hrbeks and order a Rex Burger, amazing). Featuring local flavor, and national favorites, expanded open concourses and the best – I mean THE BEST group sales area I have ever seen (Budweiser Party Deck).

If you have a chance to get to one ballpark this Summer, with great sight lines, a panoramic view of downtown, great customer service, amazing food and oh yhea, a pretty good team – visit Target Field in Minnesota.

I have had the opportunity to visit new ballparks over the past two years (Washington DC, Philly, New Yankee Stadium, Citi Field), as well as Safeco Field, Coors Field, Fenway Park, and a host of minor league buildings. Target Field makes me wish I still cared about or even liked baseball – it is a great place to take your family, and a beautiful new gem for Minneapolis.

This is the best time of year – even with baseball starting – the MLS season is in full swing, the MISL finals just concluded tonight, the Stanley Cup playoffs are just around the corner and the NBA playoffs are coming. Then I can shut my television off and go outside.

I admit – I am with the players in their fight for the same rights as other soccer players around the world. The single entity structure of Major League Soccer doesn’t allow for a free market system, and limits the players ability to truly develop a market value for themselves.
Some might say that any MLS player worth anything will end up overseas anyway – but the current system employed by MLS management causes that.

If Landon Donovan can make three or four times the amount of money overseas that he makes in his own back yard, he should leave and play with the world’s best.

I have been a fan and participant in the sport of soccer for over 30 years. I have Seattle Sounders season tickets – and I don’t even live in Washington anymore – I sell them game by game just so I can maintain them for the day that I do move back.

Aside from Seattle, the league is not strong enough to survive a strike by the players, or a lockout from the owners. Those players that are great MLS players but average players around the world are not going to get contracts from teams in the Premier League – rather, they will be playing indoor soccer in the winter time for a fraction of what they are making now.

It has taken 15 years for the MLS to get to where it is today, and need I remind you that without the Seattle Sounders and their 32,000 fans per game in 2009, the league would have seen a drop in attendance of about 9 percent. Instead, they saw a 3% growth.
American sports fans just don’t care about the MLS. It is seen as an inferior league around the world, and in America – it has a long way to go to become “Major League” in the eyes of the average fan who doesn’t live in the Puget Sound.

If the players decide to strike before MLS First Kick next week, and the strike lasts longer than fifteen minutes, the limited number of devoted fans that this league has will decide to spend their money elsewhere.

Think about the MLB strike – and the years that it took to win fans back, and only then it took a home run chase by two steroid ridden players to re-engage the fan base.

The NHL still has not fully recovered, and hockey is much more of a mainstream sport than soccer in the United States.

My point is this – lock yourselves in a room for the next seven days until you work something out, because if you don’t – the revenues won’t be there for the players to demand higher salaries, fans will commit their time to other endeavors, and this league will end up like all of the other American soccer leagues over the past 40 years.

History.

1. NHL Outdoor game;
2. Sundance;
3. Target Field Tour;
4. Pictures below!;