SoCal Action Sports Network

Lauren Schuil & Erica DeBenedetto

at ASR- Sports MBA V

ASR 2009 - San Diego

Bryan Elliott, Chairman of SoCal Action Sports Network

interviews Steve Tully at Quiksilver

Bryan Elliott, Chairman of SoCal Action Sports interviews Paul Naude, President of Billabong North America

Sports MBA students form partnership with SoCal Action Sports Network - Several of the Sports MBA V students have worked closely with Bryan Elliott, the Chairman of SoCal Action Sports Network, to help with the networks’ monthly events as well as the recent action sports retail show – Action Sports Retail (ASR). The purpose of the network is to create meaningful relationships, within the action sports industry, where members help each other, form a social community and prosper from their collective efforts. Bryan has made a consistent effort to create an environment where innovation, creativity and collaboration thrive and promote generosity. The network has seen significant growth since its inception, almost a year ago. At 5,000+ members the networks has maintained quality in the membership to attract/leverage the attention of leaders in marketing, including the social media world. The students have attended seminars where the secrets of the experts in the interactive marketing communication world are revealed.

On September 10 – 12th several of the students attended ASR in San Diego to work directly with the SoCal Action Sports Network and Planet X TV for a show that focused on the business of action sports. Twice a year the action sports industry invades San Diego to conduct business, preview lines for the upcoming seasons and celebrate the sports that fuel the industry. ASR provides companies in the industry the opportunity, as a community, to grow their business, get connected with key players, brainstorm business synergies and partnerships and leverage business opportunities with face-to-face interaction. Some companies, such as Volcom, used every square inch of their booth space to create an ASR block party to unveil their new product line for next summer. Hawaiian shirts, leis, loud music and waffles on a stick were all part of next year’s image.

At the three day event, the students helped to interview some of the top executives of the action sports retail brands, including Quiksilver, Billabong, Body Glove, Reef, Rip Curl and Fox Racing. In addition to the sneak peak of what the action sports industry will showcase in their up-and-coming product lines, the students received product, mingled with professionals in the industry and experienced first-hand the opportunities the $150 billion youth market has to offer.

The students agree they have been fortunate to develop this relationship with the SoCal Action Sports Network and they look forward to continuing their work with Bryan to connect, collaborate and grow in their understanding of the business world. Check out SoCal Action Sports Network at http://socalactionsportsnetwork.com/

Erika Lamiell & Lauren Schuil
Sports MBA V

Super Girl Jam 2009

On September 6, 2009, some of SMBA V students volunteered at Supergirl Jam 2009 in Venice Beach; an all girl pro competition and lifestyle festival sponsored by the Action Sports Association (ASA). Part three of a three series festival spread across the summer weeks, this culminating day showcased two particular competitions - the Skateboard Street contest and the Snowboard Rail Jam championship (YES! In the middle of the sand and surf there was actual snow! 80,000 pounds of icy wonderland). More than 50,000 Labor Day weekend spectators witnessed the latest talent in this rising sport. Some winners included Laurie Currier (Wrightwood, CA), who claimed the Snowboard Rail Jam championship title for the second year in a row and Coco Sanchez (San Francisco, CA) winning the Inline Best Trick contest. Supergirl Jam contestants fought for their share in a prize purse totaling $36,000.
Along with all the hype of these female athletes, there was a sponsorship village located in the middle of the two competitions. Some sponsors included LUNA bar, Cliff Bar for Kids, Vitamin Water, and bfd.com.
We were mainly stationed to the BFD.com booth. What does BFD stand for? BIG FLIPPIN' DEAL, an action sports website packed with blogs, highlights, and the latest video clips from different athletes in the industry (pro, amateur, and fan level). We definitely were able to nurture our extroverted part of our personalities… Dr. Randel from Organizational Behavior class would have been so proud! On the marketing side, who would have thought that something so simple like a cardboard set up of a monster with its mouth cut out would attract so much attention. A simple game of tossing rubber koosh balls into a monsters mouth definitely brought some attention to a website, that most folks (including us) were unaware of…
Our tag line… “Feed the monster! Win a prize!” What were the prizes? Each player had three chances to toss the ball into the hole. The prize scheme went like this make 1 shot, win a fake bfd.com tattoo, 2 shots and win an iron-on bfd.com logo for t-shirts…BUT make 3 out of 3 shots and win what we came to find out was the hottest commodity of all the vendor booths…a bfd.com sweat band (winner’s choice of black or white)
All in all, a Sunday well spent! It was so amazing to get to know some folks in the industry and meet some future athletes… check out our pictures and the websites below!

Irene Patricia Estrada & Lindsey Finnegan
SMBA Class of 2010

http://beta.bfd.com/
http://www.actionsportstour.com/2009/events/s3/

Snowboard Rail Jam ... one of the athletes showing off her grinding skills!

Erin from bfd.com, Lindsey,Irene & the future of skatboarding... this litte girl is already sponsored by THRASHER magazine!
big flippin' deal- action sports website... check it out!

Feed the monster... Win a prize!

Petco Park Perspective Part II

In the preceding post my classmate Tyler Griggs eloquently captured our evening last Monday at Petco Park, but I want to provide some of my own impressions. Coming into the program I knew we would have great exposure to many sports industry leaders as well as have excellent access to the Padres organization. But, to have a class taught by Richard Anderson (Executive VP of Ballpark Operations) at PetCo Field? Or, to have the Western Metal suite reserved for the class and fully catered? And, then to top things off have Tom Garfinkel (President and C.O.O. of the Padres), Mark Guglielmo (VP of Ballpark Ops) and Ken Kawachi (Director of Security and Transportation) drop by the suite for over a half hour and talk with us as a group and 1-on-1? Well, the evening and overall opportunities I have been presented with thus far have exceeded already high expectations. Wow!

What was particularly great about our evening was listening to Garfinkel who is one of the youngest executives in Major League Baseball—not to mention one of the nicest, funniest and most personable guys you will ever meet. I thought he would drop by for a minute or two, give the Padres company pitch and leave without saying as much as hello. My assumption couldn’t have been further from the truth. He came in, first asked us questions, told us his personal story, gave us trivia questions (10 or so lucky winners got 2nd-5th row tickets behind home plate), talked about the organization and provided the class with invaluable insights on breaking into the sports industry. One piece of advice he gave us: sports is all about relationships so start making them!

Despite the fact that I wasn’t one of the lucky few to win trivia, one of my classmates gave me his 5th row ticket (thanks Eddy!). So, I walked down to my seat with some classmates and immediately ran into Steve Becvar who is the Associate Athletic Director for Marketing and Sponsorships at the University of San Diego. Well, I happened to know Steve because he was a guest class speaker about a month ago and I had also previously met him during a class project in which we analyzed the organizational structure and behavioral patterns of the USD Athletic Department. He then pointed out a number of his friends sitting next to him, one of which was the Athletic Director at the University of Oregon. For me this was particularly great because college athletics is one of the fields I would like to break into, and I was trying to develop as many connections to those in the field. Steven and I ended up talking for about 20 minutes after the game, and amidst our conversation I remember thinking two things: 1) the SDSU Sports MBA has exceeded my wildest expectations when it comes to connecting me with sports executives and industry leaders, and 2) breaking into sports is all about relationships.

Oh, and some pictures from the night:

SMBA '10 Begins Ballpark Operations

SMBA ’10 started their Operations Management class with Richard Andersen only two short weeks ago, but there is already a lot to report!

First things first, the class, as mentioned above, is taught by Richard Andersen, the Padres Executive Vice President of Ballpark Management (quick translation: Professor Andersen runs Petco Park). Professor Andersen has over 30 years of experience working in professional baseball. Aside from the Padres, Professor Andersen has worked for the Pirates, Marlins, and Braves organizations, and, aside from running the, in my opinion, best ballpark in all of baseball, he has held such positions as Minor League General Manager in the Braves organization and VP of Business Operations, a gig with the Marlins that included the responsibility of managing the squad’s Spring Training operations. This probably goes without saying, but Professor Andersen is a pretty awesome professor to have if you have any interest in working in professional baseball.

As one would expect, Professor Andersen has amassed an impressive list of contacts during his 30+ years in the industry and he wasted no time before introducing some of those contacts to SMBA ’10. In the very first Operations class, Mike McGee, Ticketmaster’s Executive Vice President of North American Business Operations, spoke to students about a very misunderstood company. For instance: who keeps that $3.50 per ticket convenience fee? Ticketmaster does, right? Wrong! (It’s okay -- about 38 of 38 SMBA students would have gotten that one wrong too.) Ticketmaster does keep some of that fee, but they also split it with the event’s venue, the team or band performing, and pretty much every other entity that has anything to do with putting on the show. Pretty interesting stuff. A big SMBA thanks to Mike for taking the time to come talk with us!

As an encore to class one, Professor Andersen held class two, this past Monday, at Petco Park. There, Professor Andersen conducted a DiSC seminar to assess the personality types of his SMBA students. The seminar taught students that more important than what personality type you are is how you deal with the different personality types of others -- a valuable lesson for a group of students inspiring to become managers.

After the seminar, Professor Andersen invited students to stay to watch the Padres play the Nationals. Halfway through the game, which students watched from two luxury suites by the left field foul pole, the newly named Padres President Tom Garfinkel stopped by to talk with students. Garfinkel is a 40-year-old MBA (U of Michigan) who got his start in sports in the auto racing industry. Among the topics of Garfinkel’s address to students were: our class’ efforts in the Dominican Republic, the future of the Padres logo, and general career and relationship (yes, seriously) advice.

Thanks to Professor Andersen, it has been a great start to the fall cohort of classes; all of SMBA ’10 is looking forward to the rest of our Operations Management class and to beginning the rest of our fall classes after we return from Labor Day break! Below are some pictures from Monday night.

Tyler Griggs
SMBA ’10

The title page of Professor Andersen's DiSC assessment seminar.

Padres President Tom Garfinkel speaking to SMBA students.

SMBA '10 student Yuma Ono sat pretty close to the action after Tom Garfinkel provided SMBA students with tickets for seats that went unsold that night.

The view from Yuma's seat of SMBA's two luxury suites (I'm the one in the beige shirt).

Selling Fathead

The SMBA 2010 class has been doing some creative marketing work with our Sports Marketing professor Dan Bruton. Recently, we were tasked with generating ideas for Fathead on how they might license their brand to other companies with similar values and target markets.

After much research and discussion regarding demographics, fit and the like, each group presented their laundry list of ideas to Dan and he gave us feedback on which ideas to pursue further and what he thought Fathead was looking for.

Over the weekend, the best ideas were flushed out completely and formulated into a presentation and take away deliverable for Linda Castillon, Chief Licensing Officer at Fathead, LLC.

Linda’s visit to class was tremendous, it was fascinating to hear about Fathead’s start-up phase and how they managed to became an industry leader and licensing giant in such short time. Linda talked about Fathead’s vision and where she sees sports marketing and licensing heading in the future. It was extraordinary to learn about Linda’s career and how licensing is such an intricate and cooperative part of the sports industry from a first-hand executive perspective.

This was our second formal presentation to an industry executive in Dan Bruton’s class. To be honest I was just as nervous the second time round. It was great to feel the pressure of a work environment again, and to now know what it’s like to be staring out at the Chief Licensing Officer of Fathead is truly priceless.

The presentations were great and our ideas were well received by Linda and Dan. There was even talk of Linda taking the proposals back to Fathead headquarters. Just another example of how the SMBA program is helping to teach us about - and connect us to - the sports industry.

David Carter, SMBA 2010

Aflac All-American Baseball Classic

SDSU Sports MBA students had an opportunity to work on-site at the 2009 Aflac All-American High School Baseball Classic, which took place at PETCO Park while the the San Diego Padres were on the road. This highly scouted event consists of approximately 40 of the nation's top high school baseball stars who face off in an East vs. West match-up.

This was the third year the event was hosted in San Diego, and this year's event established a new record for attendance. The Sports MBA students worked closely with the San Diego Sports Commission, Aflac's sponsorship team and Blue Ridge Sports & Entertainment. This experience offered the students exposure not only to event operations, but also sponsorship activation and implementation.

With VIP access to Petco Park, students were granted the opportunity to experience hospitality lounges, media rooms, press boxes and on-filed access, gaining exposure to the various sectors in sports management. After a full day's work, the students watched the nationally televised game of some of MLB's most high anticipated future stars.

The game was closely contested, with the West scoring in the bottom of the 9th to send the game to an extra frame, only to see each team score in the 10th to end in a 4-4 tie. The box score is here.

An overwhelming amount of positive feedback and continued success in growing the event has given San Diego significant leverage to host the 2010 Aflac All American High School Baseball Classic next year. SDSU Sports MBA looks forward to being a part of the event in the future.

-Erika Lamiell (SMBA '10)

Erin Garvey (SMBA '10) prepares the giveaways for Aflac

I prepare some posters for the fans

BP prior to the game

Great seats!

Post-Game

USA - Mexico

After a long morning working on a market project, a group Sports MBA classmates got together to enjoy one of the most passionate challenges in international soccer: Mexico vs. USA. With the room being split between Mexico fanáticos and US supporters, Diego’s normally quiet neighborhood experienced the true stadium-like atmosphere that the sport creates all around the world...

As the US took an early lead, tension rose on the green side of the room, completely silencing Hugo Jimenez (SMBA '10), our classmate from Mexico for nearly ten minutes. When Castro scored a wonder of a goal to bring La Tricolor back to the game, the mood immediately changed and the noise level went back up.

The end of the first half and the entire second half were pretty much dominated by Mexico and I recall hearing one of the American students say “I should just start studying for Marketing now” at least a handful of times - we had a midterm scheduled for the following day. Since I'm from Brazil, I had no favorite team in the game, it was a relief that Mexico only scored at the very end of the game. This meant that as the host of the game watch party, I only had to deal with upset fans for the last few minutes, and we were all able to enjoy a very decent soccer game.

-Diego Masiero (SMBA '10)