I have two last questions for you. There's so much conversation going around Millennials and I just don't think this industry is trully embracing that this group has tremendous insights that we can learn from.
I'm really curious about your perspective of the sports industry and how we engage our fans and do you think there's something different that we should be doing as an industry with Millennials, because they're the future ticket buyers, they're the future season ticket holders.
Well, one of our hallmarks on our process that we go through, for any audience segment, is really two key things.
One is, think like a fan not an executive, is the real accountability that we have in any go to market, a team that's going to rebrand, a new story, whatever it might be. I think it's a good reminder that you're trying to engage with a consumer audience and you need to think like them not what you traditionally do in your own hallways.
hen secondly is, this process that we call GET FANS, and what GET stands for is grow, engage, transact, and in a digital world, I think that is the right process that Millennials as an audience segment really want to be communicated with. I think a lot of times they get turned off if you do the flip of that, you just try to transact with them, it's a turn off and you lose them.
I think that is just classic direct marketing and messaging. If you can think more like what a millennial would want to engage in, would care about, and then you understand that there's a courting process where you grow, engage, and then you transact them. I think that's the smartest way that we've learned in really kind of helping teams fan bases, you get younger, more diversified, and really attract that millennial audience, versus just trying to come up with a post-game concert of something that's not going to resonate with them and try to just sell them on it just simply for the transaction.
That is my number one encouragement. If I'm sitting with a team owner and he or she is trying to figure out how we're going to engage with that millennial audience, that to me is probably the best and most successful way that we've done it, and seen it, even with the most traditional teams, to be able to do that.
I would even say too, I'm like you, I think that audience is so engaged, they want a relationship with a brand and a team. They just don't want to be talked at, and I think understanding that it's probably a lot different than maybe the relationship that a team might have with my dad, who's now in his 70s, is a different parallel.
Last question Dan, how would you describe yourself in ONE word?
Learner. I love learning about new experiences, new ideas. I love learning about failure, really big on fail forward to be able to do it, but I think for me a full day is when I learn something.
Dan, it has been such a pleasure talking with you. We go way back and I've learned so much about you. I can't thank you enough for your time, and as well as your engagement in the SEAT community. You're on our executive advisory board, you've been such an integral part of SEAT.. so thank you for your friendship!
Likewise Christine, and again, it's been a pure joy to grow together and I have to think that the best is still yet to come.
Doc Higgins who is kind of the patriarch of the Ohio University sports administration program, the great saying where he said, Every person you meet in life and every situation is an opportunity to learn."
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