Chris, you have built your career in marketing and strategic communications. There is so much evolution around marketing, What do you foresee being a major disruptor in the marketing industry, and how should leaders really prepare themselves to handle that?
As it relates to the college space, I think the biggest disrupter we're facing right now, is our inability to take care of the necessities of our fans.
You know, sometimes it seems ludicrous when a professional organization tears down a building after 20 years, and builds a brand new one. And what is never in the bullet points or the sales pitch for that process are the problems and necessities that that stadium their tearing down didn't solve.
Usually it is about the glitz, the glamour and more economic impact on the front end. But the reality is a huge part of the reasoning for pro team building these brand new venues is that in the old building the concourses weren’t wide enough, concessions were ill-equipped, there aren’t enough bathrooms or parking or beer taps. These are basic problems that are very hard and even more expensive to renovate around.
In the college space, that's probably the biggest issue we have. We just can't operate around the idea of tearing down a stadium and building a new one, it almost always has to be a renovation. Colleges have copied the glitz and glam of the pro model by adding massive video boards but we have rarely copied the model of dramatically improving the basic needs of our fans. When I say basic needs, I think about traffic as an example? College campuses are not generally built for 70 thousand people coming in. I think about parking. I think about restrooms, cleanliness, the lines. I think about concessions. And those are all really big problems that show up in our surveys every year.
I look at it as if, if a fan starts at 100% when they leave their house in the morning to come to the football game, if the toilet's backing up in the restroom, that has a chance to take 20% or 30% away from their satisfaction.
No matter how big the video board is, or how good the intro video is, or what unique element or free T-Shirt you're giving away, I would argue that it's not going to refill that 20% to 30% negative that was just taken away by a bad experience in the restroom.
And you better hope someone wasn’t rude as they were driving into the event, or rude getting into their parking lot.
I think that's the biggest disruptor in the college space is our inability and/or unwillingness to fix the basic needs of our fans because there isn’t an immediate ROI connected to adding more bathrooms. They want to be entertained and they want it to be easy, and there are very some very hard problems we need to address.
Yes, I absolutely agree! Chris, you mentioned earlier in our discussion, that you were thankful that SEAT has really helped your career. Would you mind sharing with me how you think SEAT has helped move your career forward?
My networks grown exponentially, because of SEAT. I'm a curious person by nature, so the opportunity to show up and learn from professional sports folks, from other industries and the entertainment space that are connected to sports, it just excites me.
The smartest people I know in sports I've met at SEAT, and some have become good friends and mentors and colleagues.
That ability to infoshare, ask questions and have transparent and intriguing dialogue, is incredibly unique to SEAT, and I can say I've been to five or six SEATs now, and I can't remember out of those five or six experiences, not coming back to my campus and just being incredibly re-energize to attack the challenges we have in our department.
CHRIS FREET INTERVIEW
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