Time to take a quick break and update you on the past few weeks here at the Warsaw Center. It’s been busy as we hosted an incredible slate of speakers from the industry, with an alumni event tossed in between, over the past three weeks.
Although they’ve been mentioned already, David Dunn (Agent, Athlete’s First), Jim Noel (VP, ESPN), Andy Dolich (COO, San Francisco 49ers) and Kelly Johnson (ESPN Audience Research) were all in the house for the final week of October. Unfortunately, classes and meetings intruded on my plans for several of the speakers, but I’ve had the pleasure of hearing David and Andy in the past. Last year, David mentioned the potential for a rookie pay scale to be instituted in the NFL and, lo and behold, the Sports Business Daily reported earlier this week that the NFL included one in their first collective bargaining session. Call the man a sage.
Despite competing with the Golf Industry Day in Portland, Kelly Johnson closed October with a bang. She showed us how ESPN has invested heavily in customer and audience research and backed it up with a presentation that highlighted the trends that shape programming and advertising. It was apparent that ESPN truly understands its customers and can communicate that to potential sponsors and advertisers. After hearing Kelly, the importance of analytics in sports becomes even more clear.
The following week, former Oregon star Joey Harrington stopped by to share his experiences in the NFL, and Nike’s Merryn Roberts followed with another great session. The next night, the Warsaw Center hosted about 50 staff, students and alums at an alumni event at the Rose Garden. The Hawks spoiled things for the Blazers, but it was an amazing opportunity to meet former Ducks in the industry.
Tod Leiweke, CEO of the Seattle Seahawks, dropped in later that week. Tod was instrumental in the creation of the First Tee, which teaches life values through the game of golf, and was a major player in the “fan-centric” model of the Seattle Sounders.
Finally, we get to this week where Portland Trail Blazers CMO Sarah Mensah visited on Wednesday, and today we saw Matt Levine of SourceUSA, hailed by ESPN as “the most valuable prophet to sports teams.”
Through all these visits, I learned a lot, but I have to admit I’m all tired out. Time for the weekend! Go Ducks!