Dannon Hulskotter of the Minnesota Vikings talks about the importance of listening to your fans so you can really engage on a personal level.

“We’ve gotten a lot smarter because we listen to the fans. And then take what we learn to give them the experiences that create memories”

Dannon Hulskotter is in his 21st season with the Minnesota Vikings. Dannon and the Marketing Department are responsible for managing the team’s brand, marketing, live entertainment assets, fan engagement initiatives as well as corporate hospitality and all partner/fan special events. Dannon also acts as the main liaison with the team’s flagship radio station, network radio affiliates, and local ancillary TV and pre-season TV partner relationships.

Prior to joining the Minnesota Vikings, Dannon worked with Pacers Sports & Entertainment in Indianapolis from 1999-2001 and CAVS/Gund Arena Company in Cleveland from 1994-99.

Chris McAdoo:

Welcome to Fired Up, an original podcast from Ignite Fan Insights. Powered by NASCAR, the National Sports Forum, and the Association of Luxury Suite Directors. This is a podcast for sports business pros like you. We go behind the gates and beyond the numbers that keep sports fans coming back for more. Our host, Chris Wise, is the brains behind Ignite Fan Insights. With a commitment to research and innovation for over 30 years, he knows the right questions to ask and more importantly, what to do with the answers. Get ready for engaging, in-depth conversations with sports industry leaders that will inspire you to take action and connect with your fans. I’m Chris McAdoo, and this is Fired Up.

Chris McAdoo:

Welcome to Fired Up y’all. We are super happy and privileged to be coming to you live from the National Sports Forum in Atlanta, Georgia. We are super excited to be joined here by Dannon Hulskotter, who has been with the Minnesota Vikings for 18 years?

Dannon Hulskotter:

19 seasons, just finished.

Chris McAdoo:

Basically you and your team head up the brand marketing live entertainment, fan engagement initiatives, and corporate hospitality, special events that keep those wheels running. I am Chris McAdoo. Happy to be here with you, and I’m going to turn it over to Chris Wise.

Chris Wise:

Thanks, Chris. Thanks, Dannon.

Dannon Hulskotter:

Thanks for having me here.

Chris Wise:

Sure. Tell us a little bit more about yourself. You’ve hardly said anything. So tell us more about yourself, your career, and what really ignites your professional fire?

Dannon Hulskotter:

I’ve been in the business for 25 years now. Had a passion for the NBA, basketball in general. Went to the Cleveland Cavaliers way back in 1994. I spent five years there doing a variety of different roles, but really focused in on the partnership side of the business. So fulfilling some of these great partnerships that we had. Went on to the Indiana Pacers for two years doing the same thing, and came up to Minnesota in 2001. Starting to build the partnerships department, and a couple of years later, marketing kind of came along. That was new to me, but had both departments for a while. So essentially for the last 14 years, I’ve been overseeing the marketing group and watching it grow. And now certainly trying to build in that strong fan engagement piece, I think, that we’re all trying to find the right answers for in the sports industry.

Chris Wise:

So what really gets you excited? What really lights your fire?

Dannon Hulskotter:

To me, Chris, sports is we have jobs because of the passion that our fans have for our teams. And so that gets me fired up every morning. I love the ability to come in and work on different projects, initiatives, activations all the time. There’s no monotony to working in the sports industry by any means. But, with those passions, trying to further enhance those through different programs we may have, seeing the smiles on fans faces when the team’s playing well, sports can bring, I think, so much to people’s lives. It helps get them out of their everyday world. And so coming to work everyday and trying to find and build on activations and initiatives that does that and further enhances that is a true passion of mine.

Chris Wise:

Awesome. Yeah. We’ve learned in our work that it takes them away from their troubles. It gives them something to be excited about. There’s camaraderie with the other fans. It’s really community, but it’s the emotional payoff that lasts not only at the event, but by being part of that fandom with a team that that just feeds them well beyond, it’s unlike buying a cup of coffee.

Dannon Hulskotter:

Absolutely.

Chris Wise:

It’s so personal.

Dannon Hulskotter:

Being a part of something can really be fulfilling for people, I think. And then that’s what sports can do so well, you feel a part of that community, that tribe, that group, the camaraderie that you can have with friends, family. It’s phenomenal.

Chris Wise:

It’s phenomenal. Tell us about national sports forum. What do you believe the impact to be to the business, and then how’d you get involved?

Dannon Hulskotter:

I got involved through a number of my colleagues over the years that were very passionate about tending the conference, especially with the fact that you work for different leagues, different teams, you’re going to league meetings. This is a true opportunity to actually get a chance to meet people from other leagues, other teams, the collegiate space, other countries. It’s really, in my opinion, very unique in that way. And it allows us to learn best practices from other areas of the sports industry that maybe we’re not seeing every day. The fact that you can have a thousand sports industry executives here and really ranked from all different levels, but there’s kind of a feeling of fraternity. Ron Seaver always talks about that fraternity. The networking opportunities is incredible. There’s no ties, so it feels a little bit more comfortable walking around. You feel like people are approachable and it’s a great opportunity to meet new people and learn from folks outside of your day to day, for me NFL, right? It’s been a lot of fun.

Chris Wise:

Do you have to wear a neck tie every day?

Dannon Hulskotter:

I do not.

Chris McAdoo:

Oh, we don’t either. Can you tell?

Chris Wise:

What are some of the great ways that, both quantitative and qualitative, how you stay in touch with and understand the fan perspective, and then with those learnings, how do you institutionalize it or actualize it?

Dannon Hulskotter:

Are you ready for this, Chris? This is going to blow you away. Listening. Listening is a big part of it.

Chris Wise:

Wait, what did you say?

Dannon Hulskotter:

Listening. That sounds simple, but I can’t say that that everybody does that. And over time, from a Minnesota Viking standpoint, we’ve gotten a lot smarter. Starting to really dive into analytics, making data driven decisions, and because we’re making every effort to listen to our fans, whether it be literally in person at an event or at a game, talking with them directly person to person, or through some of the surveys, some of the other things that our Linux department is doing, we’re listening now and trying to make some of those quick adjustments to existing initiatives. That’s what it’s really come down to for us, I think. And I can’t say that we always did a very good job of that. But now that’s really important to us.

Chris Wise:

Love to know more about your day to day. What is it that you do? You’re marketing and fan engagement.

Dannon Hulskotter:

Yeah.

Chris Wise:

What does that mean specifically?

Dannon Hulskotter:

My area covers a number of different, our youth and female initiatives are very important to us. That’s an aspect that just in the last three, four years, we’ve spent more time, effort, resources on. We have an aging demographic in terms of season ticket members and fan base in general. So trying to reach that younger group is really important to us. Women have become an enormous part of our fandom, our revenue streams. So those are important things. Our marketing advertising brand element is another piece. And as Chris mentioned earlier, our special events and hospitality, we see that as a focal point in our fan engagement efforts is creating unique experiences, events for our fans, as much as we can. Whether it be in the twin cities or even on the road at away games. It’s amazing to think about how large our fan base truly is, and finding ways to connect with them is really important to us. They may never come to US bank stadium for a Vikings home games. So finding new ways to reach out and connect with them is an important piece.

Chris Wise:

How are you connecting with youth? I know there’s been some concern over youth not participating in football anymore, because of parent’s concerns and the ability then to feed the NFL or even, not only from a player standpoint, but from just a fan engagement standpoint. And what are you doing to nurture that early on?

Dannon Hulskotter:

We’re certainly still trying to figure it out. I can tell you that for sure, Chris. The NFL has made it an enormous priority to reach that six to 18 year olds. It’s getting harder. I have a 15 year old and a 12 year old, two boys. It’s getting harder to figure that out. I saw a recent stat from the NFL that said the avidity level, the younger generation identifying with a particular favorite team, continues to go down year over year, which is scary. Is that fantasy football where the kids are really just cuing in on individual players versus that team. The other piece is the eSports component. My kids love video games. We’re ramping up our efforts with Madden. That’s a [inaudible 00:08:22] where kids can create their own teams.

Dannon Hulskotter:

It’s not so much about just the Minnesota Vikings playing against the Chicago Bears, but we’ve started to create some gaming elements with our players, whether it be playing Call of Duty or Fortnite or Madden, putting that out on YouTube and trying to just connect with something that they already enjoy doing, but tying it back to the brand in any way we can. Another great example are the Wilf family, which owns the Minnesota Vikings just recently bought a new Call of Duty team in the new Call of Duty league through Activision blizzard. We want to work very closely with that group. It’s a separate entity from the Minnesota Vikings, but work with that group to try to connect and engage with the fans that are huge fans of Call of Duty. Our players are huge fans of Call of Duty. So there’s a great connection point there that we can maybe traverse a little bit of a divide, I’d say.

Dannon Hulskotter:

So those are a few of the things that we’re starting to try to do. Of course, we have the kids club. We have some different programs. Vikings Explorers is a great one where we recognize that there are kids that are maybe not diehard fans. They enjoy going to amusement parks, the zoo, the theater. We’re actually going out and working with the theaters and science museum, bringing some viking’s elements to what they’re already doing at those different entities, those different businesses. And just trying to create that association in some way shape or form. So some fun programs in that regard.

Chris Wise:

Do you sponsor youth sports in any way?

Dannon Hulskotter:

Well, internally we have a very robust youth football programming this going on with clinics going around the state, not just in the twin cities. That’s something that we help support. Getting very big into flag football, as you mentioned earlier, participatory rate is going down in terms of youth playing tackle football. The NFL has gotten really big into flag. And so we’re following suit and trying to connect with that younger audience in that way as well.

Chris Wise:

Are you using the players as well in that development?

Dannon Hulskotter:

They certainly help out at clinics. A lot of times, it’s former players that we’re using and have a great knowledge of the game, loved working with the kids. We do a lot of clinics at our training facility. So we certainly have a current players when we can come in and help out, but it’s been fun to see that expand. It was not really a focus of ours, not that long ago, but the Wilf family has said, “Look, we need to invest in youth in general. But in the fact of them playing football is huge.” So we’ll continue to push that as much as we can.

Chris Wise:

Wow.

Chris McAdoo:

I think kind of following up on that, figuring out where your fans are and engaging them where they are. And sometimes, I’m going to bring up a personal example, my daughter, my youngest loves Lizzo, as most kids do.

Dannon Hulskotter:

Right.

Chris McAdoo:

And most of the time at my house she’s singing that line. The Minnesota Vikings. How do you guys, and it sounds exactly like that in the song.

Dannon Hulskotter:

That was really good.

Chris McAdoo:

I know, right?

Chris Wise:

Wow. How did we get Lizzo? We got clout.

Chris McAdoo:

She’s here.

Chris Wise:

Wow.

Chris McAdoo:

How do you guys seize on those pop culture moments, because you can try to plan for some things.

Dannon Hulskotter:

Sure.

Chris McAdoo:

But sometimes you have something like that where you have a person of influence, it could be the creator or an influencer themselves, and how do you guys kind of grab onto that [inaudible 00:11:30]?

Dannon Hulskotter:

Well, the first thing is you invite her to come and sing actually at a game, which hasn’t happened yet, but we’re still holding out hope. I think that’s where social can be a huge benefit and make those connections. Certainly someone like Lizzo in terms from an influencer standpoint, is huge and trying to build a relationship. Maybe if it’s not her coming and singing at halftime, you can still that relationship through some of the social platforms. I think that’s probably the biggest effort that we’ve tried. The other thing, just because you’re touching on the influencer side or I was, the NFL with a new CMO, Tim Ellis, has made a huge, he came from Activision Blizzard, worked on a number of the gaming elements for many years. He has brought this concept of using influencer marketing to as many teams and tools given to us to try to use that more often. So that’s a huge initiative for us. I think moving forward is really diving into that influencer element. We haven’t done that a whole lot until recently.

Chris Wise:

So if a young person came to you and said, “I’m really kind of interested in the sports business, what do I need to do?” How would you direct them? What would you say to them?

Dannon Hulskotter:

Well, the one thing I would say is, “To get into the sports industry, it doesn’t have to be a league, doesn’t have to be a team necessarily. I know a lot of people think that direction, but the industry has grown so much. There’s an enormous amount of opportunities out there.” So I would certainly start with, “Make sure you do your homework and your background, and look all throughout the industry, because there are opportunities.” I talked a lot of high school and college kids that are looking in that direction. Find something that can give you a little bit of experience, certainly while you’re still young, to show that passion for getting into sports. I think that’s one of the biggest things. Do your homework, try to network, try to reach out. LinkedIn is obviously a great tool now for strangers to reach out to strangers, but find a common bond there in some way shape or form. Informational interviews is a part of that networking piece, because there are opportunities. You have to work for it a little bit.

Chris Wise:

Did they have to have a passion for sports or a passion for the discipline that they may like?

Dannon Hulskotter:

I think there’s a combination of both. I think you have to, certainly the discipline. You’re right, Chris. But I think you have to have some level of interest, and that’s part of the career. If you’re going to work, say for the Minnesota Vikings, I want to make sure that you do have some passion for football. Because if they don’t, how are we going to make our fans feel where they have all this passion, but maybe someone that’s working inside doesn’t. That just doesn’t seem to really jive.

Chris Wise:

Or if they’re a Bears fan instead.

Dannon Hulskotter:

I did grow up a Bears fan by the way.

Chris Wise:

You got over it.

Dannon Hulskotter:

I got over it quickly. My first day on the job. Then Minnesota. I love purple. Absolutely.

Chris Wise:

I remember seeing my first game. I lived in Minnesota for a while. My first game was in Bloomington stadium. It was really cold. It was 18 below.

Dannon Hulskotter:

Wow.

Chris Wise:

And then I waited until the new stadium was built.

Dannon Hulskotter:

Yeah.

Chris Wise:

Well the old new stadium.

Dannon Hulskotter:

Yeah, the Metrodome, and now the US Bank Stadium, right?

Chris Wise:

I haven’t been to the new stadium.

Dannon Hulskotter:

You have to come check it out.

Chris Wise:

Okay. Well, I’m going to call you.

Dannon Hulskotter:

Yeah. Call me.

Chris Wise:

I’m going to be up there in May. So I’ll call you.

Dannon Hulskotter:

I will say US Bank Stadium has brought another level of talk about fan engagement. When fans are in the building, they’ve created an unbelievable home field advantage. Our team has created a great game day atmosphere, I think. I’m just excited that we’re already four seasons in to what is still a shiny new object to us, but it’s an amazing home field advantage for us. So you should come check it out.

Chris Wise:

I heard it gets loud. Is that true?

Dannon Hulskotter:

It can be very loud. Get that skull chant going and look out.

Chris Wise:

Look out. Alternative revenue streams. How are you approaching them? Do you care about them?

Dannon Hulskotter:

Absolutely. Yeah. No, for sure.

Chris Wise:

I knew that answer.

Dannon Hulskotter:

Most of the revenue streams aren’t coming through my areas, but we’re very supportive of those. One thing that’s really important to me from a sponsorship perspective is, and again, having been on the partnership side for so many years, I have a pretty small marketing budget and working with some of these incredible partners that we have that are very open to wanting to show that association, whether it be on retail packaging, whether it be in promotional campaigns that they’re doing, those essentially are free advertising dollars for the Minnesota Vikings, for the brand itself. And yet they’re actually paying us for that ability. So it’s a great scenario for us. We utilize our partners to help grow the brand. They’ve come up with some great ideas from a fan engagement perspective. So it’s really been fun to work with them. From my world on the special events side, we certainly have some incremental revenue opportunities that help fund some of the initiatives that we do for the fans. And so that’s a critical piece for us, to gain a little bit of revenue and to cover expenses that we’re using as part of these activations and initiative.

Chris Wise:

Your operations are in Eagan?

Dannon Hulskotter:

They are. Yes.

Chris Wise:

How large of a facility or property, it’s massive, isn’t it?

Dannon Hulskotter:

It is, we’re finally under one roof. Again at 19 seasons, we had not been under the same roof as a staff until a year ago March. So we opened up twin cities orthopedics performance center, March of 2018. It’s been great to bring everybody under one roof. We have a 200 acre development called Viking Lakes. The Minnesota Vikings training facility and fields are 33 acres of that 200. So what’s really exciting to me is the other 167 acres is being developed to a live work play type of development with residential. We have a 14 story Omni hotel going up right now. It opens in October. We have a new Vikings museum. We’ve never had a museum before. So we built out a 15,000 square foot museum with a retail flagship retail store connected to it. So a lot more to come with that. And the more traffic and events that we can do on the property is good for us from a brand perspective.

Chris Wise:

Strengthens the brand.

Dannon Hulskotter:

Absolutely. Yeah.

Chris Wise:

Chris, you got anything you want to ask?

Chris McAdoo:

I would say you’ve been at this a while from different perspectives, running teams, doing from small to large things for a young person that’s maybe entering that looks to be a sports industry professional, or just I don’t know, a good human that wants to talk to people. What’s some good advice that you would give to somebody wanting to come up and do the best that they can?

Dannon Hulskotter:

Start with confidence. When I was young, I didn’t have a lot of confidence. I wasn’t reaching out to sports industry executives and making an effort to learn from them. But I highly encourage people to don’t be shy. Like I said before, using LinkedIn, using any connection you can find to network a little bit, set up informational interviews. I’m not going to speak for everyone. I love doing that. And getting out into high schools and colleges and talking about what we do, and like I mentioned earlier, just the passion of our fans is something that really ignites me every day.

Dannon Hulskotter:

And I try to get that point across to young people getting into the industry. But as I said before too, it’s a big industry. And if you’re only focused on working for a team, you might be selling yourself a little bit short. It’s great to go get experience in a number of different facets of the industry. And you can always move later as you gain that experience and increase your roles and responsibilities. But reaching out and finding people that would be open to having conversations with them, trying to guide them a little bit.

Chris Wise:

The opening session this morning asked the question, what keeps you up at night? What keeps you up at night, besides those teenagers?

Dannon Hulskotter:

Besides my teenagers. Yeah. There’s a number of things. Probably the biggest is really trying to capture that younger fan at a young age now. I worry about that and finding the right ways to go about it and growing that youth fan base, that’s probably the biggest thing for me.

Chris Wise:

And how do you hang on to fans?

Dannon Hulskotter:

You listen to them, you treat them well, try to create some of those unique experiences. Technology is certainly changing the environment, I think. And when you do get a chance to get them to an event, when you get a chance to get them to a game, make it memorable for them because they have so many options nowadays. So making it memorable, sorry, is probably my biggest motto.

Chris McAdoo:

Dannon Hulskotter, thank you so much for being a part of Fired Up.

Dannon Hulskotter:

Thanks Chris. Appreciate it.

Chris McAdoo:

We’ve loved hearing from you. And I would encourage everyone out there, like Dannon says, find your tribe, find your home field advantage. Right?

Dannon Hulskotter:

Absolutely.

Chris McAdoo:

Determine your home field advantage. Find the people that care about that. Listen to them and they will take care of you.

Dannon Hulskotter:

There you go.

Chris McAdoo:

Dannon Hulskotter, thank you so much for joining us. This has been Fired Up, live from the National Sports Forum in Atlanta, Georgia.

Chris McAdoo:

Thanks for listening. And if you like what you heard, be sure to subscribe. And if you really like what you heard, please leave us a five star review and tell all your friends. Also, thanks to the good people that power Fired Up and Ignite Fan Insights at NASCAR, the National Sports Forum, and the Association of Luxury Suite Directors. To learn more about Ignite Fan Insights and what that exclusive content can mean for you, visit ignitefaninsights.com and subscribe today. It’s a wealth of information, all about the fan at no cost to you. Your fan club subscription includes our e-publication, podcasts like this one, exclusive blogs, quarterly e-newsletters, and timely webinars that keep you not only up to speed on what your fans are doing, but ahead of the curve and ready to take on anything that comes at you. Fired Up is hosted by Chris Wise and myself, Chris McAdoo. Thanks again for listening, tune in next time. And as always, y’all stay fired up.