Ron Seaver, Founder of the National Sports Forum, joins us for the first episode of FIRED UP! Ron talks about the early days of The Sports Forum, and shares his thoughts on a changing industry—including the many new ways of connecting to fans.

Chris:

Hey, y’all. Welcome to Fired Up, where we go behind the gates and beyond the numbers that keep sports fans coming back for more. Fired Up is an original podcast from Ignite Fan Insights, and we are proud to be powered by NASCAR. Our interview today is with Ron Seaver, who heads up The National Sports Forum, an event that’s held once a year that brings together folks that make all of your favorite sporting events happen. It’s the behind the scenes guys in marketing and fan engagement that really keep the people coming. So Ron, I’ll let you take it from here. Why don’t you tell the good folks a little bit about yourself and give them a much better definition of The National Sports Forum than I just did?

Ron Seaver:

Well, thank you very much, Chris. I appreciate that. And thank you very much for inviting me to come out and do this, and we are honored and very pleased, not only do this, but to have Designsensory Intelligence as one of our partners for the last couple of years, including the one that’s coming up here in a few weeks in Atlanta. So to answer your question, a quick background, like a lot of people, I started as a sports fan. I’m a huge sports fan. I’m actually from New Hampshire. I live in San Diego now because, well, if you have to ask why then you haven’t spent some time in February or January in New Hampshire. But I migrated out here, gosh, a long time ago. I was one of those guys that had eight jobs my first five years out of college. I would tell people that I’m chronically unemployable. And I don’t think anybody would argue with that.

Ron Seaver:

But I did a little bit of everything after college, not sure what I wanted to do. And eventually, I just decided if I’m going to do something and probably not get rich at it, I might as well do something that I really, really feel passionate about. And for me that was sports, in particular baseball. I grew up a staunch, I still am, staunch Red Sox fan, but Patriots, Bruins, Celtics. And the other thing that’s interesting, if you’ve ever spent time out here in San Diego, is that none of us that live in San Diego are from San Diego. We’re all from someplace else. So I’m not alone. There’s a bunch of Boston fans out here as well.

Ron Seaver:

But once I got out here and to go to work in sports, I called up the San Diego Padres on a complete whim. And this is, oh gosh, probably 1982. I hate to say it, guys, but I’m old, and I proceeded. I had no idea what to say. So I proceeded to have what I call verbal diarrhea on this poor woman who answered the phone. And she just started laughing at me. She asked me what department to send me to and I didn’t know. I said, “You guys have departments?” And she goes, “Yeah, we’re just like a real business down here.” And I thought, “Well, I probably had that one coming.” And so she sends me to sales department, and like so many people in the industry, I started out in ticket sales, making phone calls, smiling and dialing.

Ron Seaver:

And I did that, not particularly well I might add, because if you’re going to be good at that business, it’s a numbers game. You just got to pound the phones. And the guys who are really good at it are really good at it. Me, I want to talk to everybody. So it’s like, “Hey, so what are you…” And I’m not making my numbers. I’m not making enough phone calls, but I’m making a lot of friends. And unfortunately, at that time, the Padres weren’t particularly good. I hate to say it, but in our illustrious history at the Pads were not the 27-time World Champion Yankees, we’re still looking for number one. In fact, I just saw a stat this morning that we currently have the record in major league baseball for most years, not even making the playoffs. So again-

Chris:

Ouch. Really?

Ron Seaver:

… we last made it in 2006. So I guess if we’re going to be number one, we’re number one at that. But trying to sell a team, particularly in a market that not everybody grew up here, this isn’t like 27 generations of Cubs fans. Most of these people, they’re themselves. They might have grown up a Phillies fan or a Mets fan. So trying to convince them to come out and see relatively neat or baseball, in those days, was a tough sale. But I stuck with it. I mean, that’s the one thing they liked. They said, “You’re not very good at it, but damn, you’re the first guy here in the last guy to go and you’re going to get through it and we like that.” But as quickly as I can, but I wanted to move out of that department cause I just wasn’t good at it. And I went into, in those days it was promotions, because we didn’t have sponsorship departments then, and we just had promotions and those were relatively new.

Ron Seaver:

And so, my job was to do the promotions for the San Diego Padres. And so I started working for the Pads in ’83 and then I was with them all the way through the end of 1990. And along the way you know, it’s very interesting because doing what you do, where you’ve got to fill up the promotions calendar, you’ve got to go get sponsors and stuff, there weren’t a lot of people at our organization in those days that did that. So the neat thing was, Major League Baseball used to have these meetings once a year, usually right around Halloween, after the World Series is over, where they bring all the promotions and marketing folks together, and we would share best practices. I mean, we didn’t even call it best practices those days, just talking to each other, kibitzing. I mean, all of a sudden was I ever in my element. I loved it, just sharing ideas with my counterpart at the Cubs and Montreal and the Toronto Blue Jays and San Francisco giants, guys that I’m friends with, many of these guys to this day. We all just really hit it off.

Ron Seaver:

And I used to think these were unbelievably helpful, you know. Ideas that are working, ideas that aren’t working are good, too. I don’t want to step on that. So it became one of those things where after many, many years of going to it and because I loved it so much, I started wondering, “Well, I wonder if I could go to the NBA meetings and find out what they do or could I go to the NFL meetings?” And the reality, I mean, I started poking around and, here’s the truth, you can’t. If you’re a Major League Baseball executive, you are not invited to the NHL meetings, and it makes sense.

Ron Seaver:

They’re not invited to ours. You’ll see that it becomes very territorial and for understandable reasons. It’s baseball in one room and basketball and another room and never the twain shall meet. So if somebody who is in the industry of trying to raise revenue, because at the end of the day my feeling was, “I’m not in the baseball business. I’m in the ticket sales business. My job is to figure out ways so that the tickets sales guys can sell tickets. And for us in San Diego, if I can have a fireworks show or a post game concert, or give away a baseball hat, man, that would really boost our attendance.” So my job was to do as many of those as I could. So I needed ideas.

Ron Seaver:

After a while people go, “Yeah, I don’t need another one of these,” but, “Hey, this is working for the Cardinals.” And so the thought was, “I wonder if I could pick out some ideas from the NHL or NASCAR. I mean, they’re in the ticket sales business. Their job is to sell sponsorship. Their businesses is exactly like mine. They just use a different ball.” And so the thought was, “Could we ever launch this?” It started out, weirdly enough, Chris and Brad, it started out as a “somebody ought to” idea. “Somebody ought to start a meeting and bring all of us together.”

Chris:

I love that. It’s a “somebody ought to” idea because I think that what makes so many things successful is that when somebody stands up and, “Who’s going to?” and somebody says, “Well, somebody ought to.” And when somebody takes that upon themselves and you take that responsibility, right, because I feel like what you’re talking about here, being in your element and finding your people, right? And then seeing those opportunities that the NHL, the NBA, MLB all these sports, in fact, while they may be competition in some ways, a rising tide raises all boats, right? So why wouldn’t you want to share, like you say, you didn’t call them best practices back then, but why wouldn’t you want to share the things that you’re doing that are working, right?

Brad:

What did you just say? A rising tide what?

Chris:

Raises all boats.

Brad:

Man, you’re just a wise old sage and a beard, to match, mon frere.

Ron Seaver:

But to your point, Chris, I mean, it’s true. You can even see that within baseball. While we may compete with each other on the field, we don’t compete in the front office. And so it’s not like if you give me your season ticket brochure, I’m going to start marketing to your fans and get them to not go to the Dodgers game, but to drive two and a half hours down to San Die… it’s not going to happen. So share with me. I’ll share with you. And like you said, the boats go up. Same with sponsors. If I’m trying to get into, let’s say a bank, Wells Fargo bank. I’m trying to talk to somebody Wells Fargo bank, but I can’t seem to find how do I get in, but I know that you’re doing it at the San Francisco Giants, and I can call and say, “Hey, who are you talking to?”

Ron Seaver:

They’ll give me the name and number because Wells Fargo wants to open up checking accounts in San Francisco. They’re not going to accomplish that by sponsoring the San Diego Padres. So that’s true in baseball. There’s no competition across sports. Why wouldn’t the Rams trade ideas with me, or I don’t know, the New York Knicks because I’m going to trade ideas with them? And I mean, as soon as you get over the fact that you’re basketball and I’m baseball, man. And I say that because you’re probably going to ask me how it started and it didn’t start well.

Ron Seaver:

I mean, the thing that very few people know is that we’re about to celebrate our 25th anniversary and truth be told, it should be our 26th because 26 years ago, I tried to launch this and I got 10 really top notch speakers. I mean, presidents, owners. I mean, we had some really good speakers willing to come out and talk. And this was before the internet. I mean, fax machines were cutting edge in those days, guys. So it wasn’t like we had instantaneous communication or FedEx overnights were like, “Ooh.” So for us, the thought was, I’m going to market, and I sent out more letters and brochures and one sheets. We had one week to go and I had exactly three people signed up to come.

Chris:

Oh, my God.

Ron Seaver:

And I thought, “Guys, I mean, there’s gotta be a law that you can’t have a meeting with three times as many speakers as you have attendees.” So I had to call. I mean, this was tough. This was tough, and then I’ll tell you what was tougher. The tough part was calling all of the speakers and telling them that I couldn’t get it done, and the tougher part was telling my wife because I owed everybody and their brother money, including the hotel. I owed them like $65,000 and they weren’t willing to go, “Oh, well you tried.”

Chris:

So there’s no mulligan on that?

Ron Seaver:

No like, “Hey, why don’t you try this again next year”? Nope. They don’t work that way. So, because when I told my, and I said, “Yeah, I’m not going to be able to do this,” I had been working on this for six months, hadn’t brought in a dime because this was going to be it. I mean, this was my million-dollar idea and I started working on it. So I hadn’t brought any money in and now I had to tell her that not only did I not do it, but now I owed over a $100,000. And she said, “What are you going to do next?” And I said, “Well, I’m going to do it again.” And she goes, “Please, dear, tell me you’re not serious?” And I go, “Yeah, no, I’m going to do this again.” And she thought, “Why? You had three people.” And of course, being a guy, of course, I’m like, “Well, because it’s a good idea, damn it,” right? She had the best line. She goes, “Bankruptcy court is full of guys with good ideas.”

Brad:

Such a good burn.

Chris:

It is.

Ron Seaver:

She swears to this day that she never said that, but I don’t know.

Chris:

Yeah, you were a member of that one.

Ron Seaver:

But, hey, look, I don’t blame her. I don’t think I’d be sleeping either. And she would tell me later, she used to walk around the house and write down all the things she thought she could sell like, “How much could we get for the dining room table? How much could we get for the chairs?” And I was like, “Boy, I’m glad you didn’t tell me that then. I was having a hard enough time sleeping, but knowing that it was just taking it out on you.” And we had three little kids in those days, so not exactly the way I would draw it up, guys.

Chris:

So right now, so you’ve got three kids. You have a wife that is, I would say, very reasonably concerned at this point, but it seems like the idea has struck such a chord with you. So what happens year two, what would now become your one, that made it work? What was the difference?

Ron Seaver:

Well, I mean, now I had a year and I think the biggest difference honestly, was there were a number of guys that I knew in the business that I had talked to ahead of time and said, “Hey, I’m thinking about doing this. What do you think?” And they’d go, “Hey, great idea.” Of course, they didn’t sign up the come, but they all thought it was a great idea because they probably didn’t want to tell me, “Boy, that’s a dumb idea.” I will say this, my mentor at the San Diego Padres, a man I respect, my best man at my wedding, Uncle Andy to my kids, he did take me out to lunch before I went down this road and he had me explain it. And he said, “You’ve worked for me for most of your career.” And I said, “Yes, I have.” And he said, “In all that time, you’ve come up with some incredibly stupid ideas.” And it wasn’t quite what I thought he was going to say. And I’m like, “Okay.”

Chris:

[crosstalk 00:14:42].

Ron Seaver:

And he goes, “But this is easily the dumbest idea you’ve ever come up with.” And I’m like, “Why do you say that?” And he said, “Look, Major League Baseball execs and Minor League Baseball execs don’t get together and they share the same commissioner. And what would ever make you think that the NBA would sit down with the NLH?” At least he was looking at it clearly. But to answer your question, I was one of those guys that if you want me to do something, tell me I can’t do it.

Brad:

Mm-hmm (affirmative), right.

Ron Seaver:

If my folks say, “Hey, whatever you do, don’t get an A on this test.”

“Well, damn it, I’ll show you. I’ll go get an A on this test.” And so this was one of those deals where I thought, “This is a good idea. I’m going to prove to everybody I can do it.” So after it crashed and burned, I went back to a lot of the guys that I had spoken to and I called them and I said, “Hey, remember that idea I was telling you about?” “Yeah, yeah. Whatever happened?”

“Well, I didn’t do it. We couldn’t get people to come. So let me ask you, I’m thinking about doing it again. Now I may be crazy, but I’m putting together a steering committee, and this time I’m going to do it with the help of other people.” I don’t know. I think I had nine people on the steering committee just to help me. “And here’s the thing. You don’t have to do anything. Just, I think if people can see that’s so and so from the Boston Red Sox is involved and so and so from the Philly’s is involved, they don’t know me, but they do know you and they certainly know the Phillies, so it’ll give us some credibility.”

“Sure. Go ahead.”

Ron Seaver:

And so, little by little, that steering committee, not those same people, but the committee concepts still drives the NSF. It’s still very much the fraternity, the forum, the forum family. And the steering committee does have more obligations now and there’s 25 people on it now.

Chris:

Okay.

Ron Seaver:

But in those days, I mean, that was probably the biggest difference because the next year, I mean, not that this was astronomical, but we went from having three people, excuse me, the next year we had 32. And, of course, we still lost a whole bunch of money. And my wife is saying to me, “Please, dear God, tell me, you’ve got this out of your system.” And again, being a guy, I said, “Well, what do you mean? We have 10 times as many people as we had last year.”

Ron Seaver:

So we stayed with it. I’ve got to be honest with you, gents, looking back on it, I don’t know why I stayed with it. We lost money on this thing for seven straight years. I mean, it costs more, and let alone the cost to keep the lights on and people paid, but for seven years, we went at this thing. And each year, we’d lose a little bit less money. And I was trying to convince my wife to A, stay with me, not take the kids and go to her mother’s house-

Chris:

[crosstalk 00:17:39].

Ron Seaver:

… but B, that, “Hey, we’re making progress here. Now we’re not hemorrhaging in six figures. We’re hemorrhaging in five.” It really started to come back around 2003.

Chris:

Yeah, man. And since then, I mean, it has grown. It’s 2020. Although, when I say 10 years ago, I still think it’s 1990. You know what I mean?

Brad:

No.

Chris:

Come on, man. Okay. But in the 25 years since it’s been founded, you went from three to 32 to like how many people are going to be there, how many people are going to be there in 2020?

Ron Seaver:

I don’t know because they’re still coming in, but we had, last year, just over a 1000, about 1060, I think last year. We were in Las Vegas and it’s tough to match the enthusiasm of Las Vegas, but we’ll be close. I don’t know that we’ll be over that, but I think, believe me, it’ll definitely feel like that.

Chris:

Man, I mean, obviously you went through some tough times to make sure that this finds its footing and finds its place in the sports world. And one of the things that you and your cohorts have probably seen over this past quarter century is a lot of changes in the business of sports, right? In the time that you have founded the National Sports Forum, I mean, the internet started. You know what I mean? There’s so much. What have you seen, in your experience, that have been some of the most significant changes, some of the most significant opportunities and challenges?

Ron Seaver:

Before I answer that question, Chris, the one thing I’ll say that’s the same, that still has never changed, is the need, the demand to sell tickets. I mean, the concept that started us back in 1996 is still what brings people to the forum now. And that’s to figure out various and sundry ways to use the elements that we have to get the fans off the couch, get them into the game, get them coming back, keeping them entertained, win, lose, or draw. I mean, just the whole entertainment package, that still is the same issues that we’re dealing with today as we were dealing with. And we’ll probably, 25 years from now, still be dealing with. But to answer your question specifically, and I think you touched on it, obviously, the biggest change for us is the advent of more technology.

Ron Seaver:

We’re no longer doing business over fax machines. For us, the internet, digital, it’s just completely changed the way that you’re able to, not only engage with people, but to stay engaged with them. I mean, the importance now isn’t so much, once you get a fan, don’t let them go on the last game. Keep them engaged. Keep talking to them. Keep them within the herd, if you would, during the off season. I think the NFL, look what they do with the draft and what a spectacle that is. The draft used to be nothing. I mean, it used to happen and you’d read about it the next day. The NBA does a great job with the draft. I mean, if you’re a fan, you can’t get enough information on your team.

Ron Seaver:

So whether it’s talking about tonight’s game or the first round draft pick or who you’re going to trade or who’s going to play third base or be the quarterback next year, fans just eat it up, and it just doesn’t seem to end. So, for us, being able to tap technology at our fingertips, videos that you can stream now and people can see things instantaneously. For us, within the forum, now the one thing I would say, we built the forum and we maintain it around what we call the four pillars. So the four pillars of the forum are ticket sales, sponsorship, business development, and marketing. So anytime we’re going to tackle a topic, it’s got to resonate on one or more of those pillars, and that’s kept us kind of true to school, if you would.

Ron Seaver:

And it does give you a lot of flexibility, and I’ll explain. But the siren song of jumping into broadcasting or licensing merchandise, not in those four pillars. We’ll oftentimes get people with great ideas to have a session that’s around community relations. And it’s not that it’s a bad thing. It’s a great thing, but unless you can show me how this community relations program is selling tickets or activating a sponsorship, doesn’t fit within the four pillars. So within the four pillars though, you still, and this is to answer your question, you have a lot of latitude. It’s expanded. And that is that, I mean, we have programs on customer retention, renewals. We have sessions on Esports, sessions on sports gaming, is a topic now that we weren’t talking about, I don’t know, three years ago, let alone 25 years ago.

Ron Seaver:

But as the industry evolves in business, non-traditional revenue is one of our fastest growing. So, so many of the people who attend the forum, and it’s primarily ball clubs and sports properties, so many of those guys, “What are you doing tonight if you’re not playing a basketball game? What could you be doing in your arena that could help generate revenue because there’s only so many games you have and so many tickets you can sell? But what if you could make that building make money for you 52 weeks a year instead of just 30 weeks a year?” So non-traditional revenue is an avenue because it resonates off of our business development pillar.

Ron Seaver:

So, all of these things have started to come in that we didn’t use to have. Back in the old days, you might have a front office with 50 people in it. That front office today has 250 people in it. And I’m just talking about non-player development. I’m talking about people that are working in all various levels of revenue generation, whether it’s partnership activation, sponsorship fulfillment, it could be social and digital media, all of these things in addition to ticket sales groups, seasons, inside sales, things of that nature that the organizations have gotten so much more micro in terms of how they’re generating different buckets of revenue. And we try to make a place for all of those folks at the forum.

Chris:

Well, talk to me a little bit more about non-traditional revenue, stuff like Esports right, which has just become alive in the past several years, just how it’s affecting teams from all over the country?

Brad:

You’re speaking my language, Ron. I love Esports.

Ron Seaver:

Yeah, it’s an interesting exercise because frankly, a lot of the owners jumped in relatively early, bought franchises. Leagues came online and said, “We’re going to do something,” and you get an owner that comes to your desk and says, “Well, I just dropped $50 million on an Overwatch franchise,” And of course, I’m looking at you going, “What is Overwatch?” And they’re saying, “Now make this thing work.” And I’m sitting there trying to figure out, first of all, what the heck is it? And then secondly, how does this work into my product? But, but seriously though, if you think about it, when you look at the numbers of consumers, particularly the next generation consumers that are following Esports, it’s staggering. I mean, the numbers just don’t lie. Well, they’re not fans, yet.

Ron Seaver:

Many of them are consumers that might sit there and play. They could play FIFA on their Xbox all day long and never go to an MLS game. Well, I want you out to the game. If you think that’s fun, wait until you see the real thing. So if we can’t get them to come to us, we should go to them. We should speak and try to develop and cultivate. If it’s NBA 2K, and here’s the thing, a lot of the players themselves, in their downtime between games or on the road, they love to play NBA 2K. So all of a sudden Steph Curry is my team manager of my team and we’re going up against somebody. I’m not 6’7″. I can’t dunk the ball, but you should see me. I’m a wiz on NBA 2K. That’s creating dialogue and a connection that heretofore wasn’t existing.

Ron Seaver:

So there’s something there, but one of the things that we’re trying to do with the forum, we’re still relatively in our infancy because we’re trying to answer the question, “Okay, now what?” I mean, I have a franchise. We’re starting to come online.

“What are you doing?”

“Well, what are you guys doing? What’s happening over here? Let’s talk to some of the sponsors?” The endemic ones make a lot of sense, but what about the non-endemic ones? It’s like “Now, why are you spending money on Esports?” “Okay, so having said that, do you want to spend it with my team? We have this, we have this ability to not only connect you with our ongoing fans, but now we can get into that next generation of fans that are in their teens, early 20s.”

Ron Seaver:

I mean, there’s a sweet spot for it, but there’s people that are in their 40s, 50s and 60s, playing the games. And so you’re going to see this continue to develop. We love to bring out some of the teams themselves to come and speak on what they’re doing and give us an idea, what’s next, what’s in store for us? How can we be connecting the dots between the sports fan and our product? How can we get them into engage with us?

Chris:

Well, and to follow up on that, I like what you’re saying about not taking your audience for granted. You go where your audience is because you’re talking about the Padres, right, not the cream of the crop, not the top of the pyramid. But you’re a fan and you are going to remain a fan regardless of a winning season. You may yell and scream at the TV. But I think that taking that audience into account. What are they doing? What are they engaging with and why? What do you see as the future of fan engagements? What have folks have been doing to take that team, that early 20s person that may be into Esports to get them to the seats, to get them, to the live events? And a follow-up question, is there a sweet spot? I mean, when I was a kid, my dad loved the Cowboys. I still love the Cowboys. I’m sorry, Brad.

Brad:

A Cowboys fan?

Chris:

I’m just saying.

Brad:

How did I not know this? You hid that from me the whole time, this whole time.

Chris:

It’s never come up until now.

Brad:

You’ve lived a lie this whole time.

Chris:

But do you find, if you can engage somebody with value and with fun at that teen, early 20s, is that a sweet spot and how are you doing it or how do you find that folks are doing it and engaging?

Ron Seaver:

Well, I’m going to answer the first question first because it slides in the second one, and that is the difference in how do you engage with, let’s say, the younger fan versus the older fan. I’m an older fan. I’m in my 60s. So I should qualify that as I’m an old geezer, but I’m from maybe the old school or traditional line of thought. And we grew up watching. We were happy to be spectators and cheer and root and holler and wear our tee shirts and support our franchise, and that’s great. But what we’re discovering as we get into the next generation, that’s not necessarily enough for them. This is a much more engaged group. They want to feel like they’re part of it.

Chris:

Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Ron Seaver:

They don’t necessarily want to sit there and watch it so much as they want to engage in it. And so having Esports, to your question, it allows them to actually play the game. I mean, I’ll go to a bunch of Padre games and watch them, but to this point, they’ve still not asked me to play second base.

Chris:

Your time’s coming, man.

Ron Seaver:

It’s coming. But to that point, if I was definitely a gamer, I can play a season and I can play well because I know what I’m doing. So you can find that, for them, it’s got to be more than just sitting there watching it. So it could be, if it’s not Esports, there’s other things that we can do at the facility or during the course of the year, meet-and-greets and clinics and opportunities to do social engagement, “Meet me at such and such a place,” where you can really start to find because they want to meet. They want to know the players. It’s not enough just to watch and be a fan. I would love to think “I’m friends with that person.” Maybe I’m one of a million friends with them, but like I said, Steph Curry coaches my team, and so I feel a higher level of engagement and involvement with that particular team and that particular player.

Ron Seaver:

So, to that, that’s a big difference now is that we’re finding it experiences is so much more of a relevant sticking point, marketing point, when you’re talking to people. And it could be engaging with them on social media. It doesn’t necessarily have to be on site, but it’s making sure that they are part of the story, part of the game, part of the role, instead of necessarily just watching it. Hopefully that makes sense.

Chris:

No, I absolutely love it. Making the fan part of the story, I think, that’s probably the most well put way that you can say that for folks that want to engage. So we know now a little bit more about what it takes to bring people in and get them to engage and the efforts that folks are taking. What do you see as one of the big threats to live attendance, to live sports? What are some of the what are some of the threats that folks are dealing with?

Ron Seaver:

Well, the easy answer to that is just to say the proliferation of broadcasting, whether it’s over the air or it’s streaming. The one thing, I think, we obviously have to be very, very cognizant of is making sure that we’re not pricing our tickets out of the market. And I’m not telling you anything you haven’t already heard. But it can be very, very expensive to get fans to come out and use their discretionary income, particularly when they can watch it on their first or second or third device and not have to stand in line for beer or the restroom. So we have to do more than just be a seat. There’s got to be something more to being at the event than just necessarily, “Did you win or lose or how many points did this guy get?”

Ron Seaver:

And so it’s got to be a whole show and it starts an hour before the event and it goes on for an hour after the event. And it could be in some of the clubs that you offer. You’ve seen food upgraded across the board. I mean, I’m old enough to remember that it didn’t make any difference what concession stands you went to, you had a hot dog, a hamburger, popcorn, and maybe nachos if it was exotic. But now, of course, some of the finest restaurants in town are in the stadium. They have a branch in there. And so people can have any experience for whatever the price point. That’s important because going to a game should be an event. It should be something fun that the kids are all excited about. And it should be so much more than just necessarily, four quarters, three periods or nine innings.

Ron Seaver:

You want to make sure that this is something they want to come back to again and again. Now having said that, the biggest threat, of course, is anything that keeps them from coming back. What we’re seeing out there is that stadiums and arenas seem to be getting smaller instead of larger. And part of that is a result of the market. I mean, the broadcast revenue, you just can’t turn that away. I’m old enough to remember when, the cardinal rule was you don’t televise your home games because people won’t go. Now everybody’s televising home and away. It’s a two-and-a-half-hour commercial for your product, but it does give you two and a half hours to show the fans what they’re missing, not just necessarily the game, but why it’s gotta be such a fun event to be able to come out. It’s a family event. It’s family fun. There’s not a whole lot of those that are out there.

Ron Seaver:

So, you want to make sure that they have a big experience. You don’t want to be broadcasting empty seats. Nobody likes that, including your sponsors. So you want to right-size your ballpark. You’ve got to dress them right, bring the fans together, make sure that television helps to compliment you instead of hurt you. I hate when they do those pull away shots and you can practically count the fans in the seats. And of course, there’s no promotion that succeeds like winning, but technically, I guess, there’s only one winner and the rest of us would be losers. So, you can’t necessarily plan, in your marketing plan, to win the Stanley Cup. You have to plan that, “Hey, you’re not,” so plan accordingly. Build your promotions calendar wisely. Get your sponsors involved. Make sure that they stay involved. And for all purposes, what can you do to bring the fans out and keep them coming out?

Ron Seaver:

And so, if that might be ticket packaging. I see memberships, I think the Oakland A’s are a really cutting edge organization where they’re doing away with season tickets, full season tickets. The likelihood of people buying 81 games is not there. So instead, following the membership model, you can buy a membership for the month of May or June. You’re guaranteed a seat at all the home games in June. So if you’re just in the market for the summer or you want to get out there early, but the team falls off, you’re not committed. There’s nothing worse than a drawer full of tickets you didn’t use. So now you can pay as you go, so to speak. So they’re getting very innovative now. And they’re also very good, the teams are becoming better and better at analytics, not necessarily. I mean, they’re great at performance analytics, the Billy Ball that we’ve seen-

Chris:

Oh, yeah.

Ron Seaver:

… obviously the consumer analytics. “Who’s a fan and who looks like that fan that maybe I’m not getting yet? Let me figure out how to get ahold of that person.”

Brad:

Oh, that’s well, that’s music to our ears, friend. Full circle.

Chris:

Hey, yeah. Well, hey, I want to I want to be friendly with your time. And so I’ve just got a couple of more questions. And that first question is, that I’ve got to ask is after, I mean, starting all of this, you don’t put this much effort this much time, this much of your life into something, if you’re not a fan yourself, right? You’re talking about the Padres. You’re talking about bringing people, not just to events, but bringing them into the story and making them fans. What is, personally, one of your favorite experiences as a professional or just as a fan over the years that you’ve been involved in sports?

Ron Seaver:

Well, as I mentioned, as a kid growing up in New Hampshire, I mean, we lived probably a little over an hour to Fenway park. So I will never forget when I was probably 10 years old, my dad took me out of school. He had tickets for opening day, Red Sox against Baltimore. Isn’t that scary? I remember that. I also remember we didn’t win, but I couldn’t tell you the final score. And I remember the first time that I walked through. He’s taking me into Boston, which is exciting in itself. And now we go to this old building. It’s all brick and it looks very cool, and you can hear the organ playing inside. And then you walk through the vomitory into your seats, right? And you see the greenest grass you’ve ever seen in your whole life. This place looks like the biggest place you’ve ever seen. And I got to tell you, I will never forget that feeling.

Ron Seaver:

So as a fan, as a 10-year-old fan, I was hooked. I mean, I just absolutely loved it. Now in 1967, Carl Yastrzemski, he was a triple crown winner that year. I’ve never met the man. I would love to. But Yaz was the guy. We’ve all had favorite ballplayers growing up and Yaz was mine. And so, like I said, even years later, he’s somebody I’ve never met, but I’ll never forget that. And professionally, so I started, as I mentioned in 1983, working for the Padres. In 1984, all of a sudden we just turned it around and we went to the world series. Now they’ve only been to the world series twice, and this was the first time and we’re 50 years old.

Ron Seaver:

So in 1984, we just had the team. Dick Williams, the old red Sox manager in ’67, he was our manager in ’84 here in San Diego, and he put a great team together with Jack McKeon, our general manager, and damned if the team didn’t win. And we went up against a Cubs team that everybody said was far better than we were. The Cubs and the Tigers that year were the two teams. They had the MVPs and the Cy Young guys. And I mean, those teams were monsters. And so we were just this nice team that doesn’t usually win, but, “Ha, look. They won. So now they’re going to go play the Cubs.” We got crushed in the first game, I mean, by more than 10 rounds. And there was a, “Yeah, this is over,” right?

Ron Seaver:

It’s the best of the five. And we fought back. We won it in the fifth game in San Diego. I mean, a moment I will never forget. And then we went on to play the Tigers, which I will forget because yep, they crushed us in five games. But we split the first two in what was then called Jack Murphy stadium, later to become Qualcomm. And so we split the first two, went to Detroit and they swept us. And this town is just magic. We don’t have a lot of teams that win here. The weather’s terrific. And did I tell you about our zoo?

Brad:

And those fish tacos, man. And In-N-Out.

Ron Seaver:

The fish tacos, you can’t be. But you’re not coming here to watch a juggernaut. So when they do get a winner here, it’s magic. It’s not like, “Oh, ho hum. Wake for the playoffs.” No. Way. We don’t make the playoffs. So when you do get that team and our hopes are that the Padres this season will put a competitive… I think they’re going in the right direction. I’m still a fan to this day, years later. I haven’t worked for them since 1990, but I’d love to see them do well because it’s just great. It’s great for sports. It’s great for baseball and it’s certainly great for San Diego.

Chris:

Well, I mean, that’s what, I mean, what it means to be a true fan, sticking stick in there through thick and thin. And then, so as our parting shot, I should come up with better sports metaphors for-

Brad:

It almost sounds dirty.

Chris:

The parting shot.

Brad:

The parting shot.

Chris:

The last hit, the last inning. We’re at the last inning-

Brad:

There you go.

Chris:

… of our interview. And to send everybody off, I always like to talk about, you have seen sports evolve, you’ve seen the fans evolve and you’re going to see what’s next. So tactically or strategically, what do you think is coming up next? And to the folks out there that are trying to answer a lot of the same questions that you are, what advice do you give somebody that’s out there trying to do the best that they can to get folks in seats and to create those fans?

Ron Seaver:

Well, and the neat thing about sports is that the topics and the headlines, the storylines change every day. So what we’re talking about today versus what we might be talking about two or five years from now, I mean, there may be stuff coming down the pike that I haven’t even heard of. But I think as I sit here today, the thing that has that I’m really interested in seeing is the evolution and what happens to our industry via sports gaming? What’s happening with the future? I think it’s going to impact our industry, our business, in so many different ways as it starts to roll out there, as you start to see more of the teams, more of the states bring it online. I think the ability for fans to engage and stay engaged, I think it’s gonna help our television ratings. I think it’s gonna help our ticket sales.

Ron Seaver:

And we see this in football. “I got 10 bucks on the game.” All of a sudden it’s like, “I’m in. I’m watching and I’m following them.” And so I think that’s where this is. We’re going to see some real interesting things start to happen in the next three to five yeas as fans are able to get involved and maybe throw a couple dollars on a game.

Chris:

Well, I love it, man. Ron, thank you so much for joining us. And I think one of my favorite things that you have said out of this is, “Show the fans what they’re missing.” And if that’s through Esports, if it’s through social engagement, if it is through experiences there at the stadium, taking into account what your audience needs, what they need from the things that those of us are doing to try to bring those butts to seats. So Ron, thank you very much. Ron Seaver, from the National Sports Forum.

Ron Seaver:

Thank you, gentlemen. I really appreciate you letting me bend your ear on the podcast and very much appreciate everything you guys are doing and we’re looking forward to seeing you in Atlanta.

Chris:

Yeah, thanks a lot. And everybody, this has been Fired Up, a podcast from Ignite Fan Insights. We are proud to be powered by NASCAR and proud to be in your ears. If you’ve enjoyed what you’ve heard, please don’t hesitate to subscribe, leave us a review and tell all your friends and family about us. Thanks so much. This is Chris McAdoo and Brad Carpenter signing off.