December 10, 2024 • 46 mins
On this episode of Butternomics, we sit down with Melissa Proctor, Chief Marketing Officer of the Atlanta Hawks, to explore her inspiring journey from a high school intern to a trailblazing executive. Melissa shares the unconventional path that led her to the C-suite, proving that success isn’t always a straight line. We dive into how she overcame challenges as a Black woman in sports, balanced motherhood with her demanding career, and used culture and authenticity to drive innovation. Melissa also reveals her strategies for shaping the future of fandom and inclusivity within the Hawks organization. Whether you’re looking for career inspiration, leadership insights, or just an incredible story of resilience and vision, this episode is packed with lessons that will leave you ready to take your own leap of faith.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
For me, I've always seen being a woman, to see
a black woman working in sports as my superpower because
the one thing you can't tell me about is what's
relevant to women or people of color. When I got
promoted to be a CMO, you're able to park in
the reserve parking area at.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
The arena, which is a big deal.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
And during the day I was heading over there to
a meeting I had just gotten promoted, and I parked
my car. I was walking into the building at a
security guard stop and he's like, I'm sorry, man, you
can't park there. That's reserve for executives. And I was
just like okay, and I kept walking and he's like, ma'am.
Then I showed him my badge. I was like, say,
like most of party literally says executive underneath it, and
I could see his mind.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Like like what, huh what.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
But for me, it was like the best moment because
I was changing the perception of what a senior level
executive looks like for an NBA team, for that person.
And I think every time that I'm in a room,
or I'm able to let my skills or my work speak,
or i am presenting and speaking, I think it changes
the mentality.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Of like, oh oh she knows. Okay, she's good, she
got it.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of Butters. I'm your host,
Brandon Butler, founder and CEO of Butter atl and today
we got the biggest M in the building. The biggest,
not the little, the biggest M, Miss Melissa Procter.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
How you doing about hilarious? I'm going, well, thank you
for having me.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Oh always, always, you know, you're one of my favorite
people out here, you know, always they won you know,
I remember when when a certain person who won't be named,
said we need to connect, and you know, we had
a little breakfast one more and you know, and talked
about some stuff. And ever since then, you know, we've
been we've been building together.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
So one hundred, one hundred. I recall that vividly.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Actually, you know, time flies look at that, it really does.
It's crazy. That was probably like what four or five
years ago.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Almost I looked up.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
But I just celebrated ten years with the Atlanta Hawks
last month and I could not believe it.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
That's crazy. Congratulations, Thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Now.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
Yeah. For those that don't know, Melissa is the CMO
of the Atlanta Hawks and also State Farm arena. Correct, Yes, correct,
So a lot of people don't understand that, right, A
lot of people don't understand that. You know, in your role,
you both oversee stuff for the Hawks and the arena,
So just give them a little context. It's not just
the games, but it's the concerts, the events, everything that
happens at the State Farm, right.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
So, I mean every marketing officer role in the NBA
is different, so they are not at all apps. Even
may go to another team and their title may be
the same, but their role is completely different. So ad
my role marketing really encapsulates all of our media general marketing, traditional,
non traditional social. It also incorporates all of our retail,
so we have a brand merchandizing team. We do all
(02:29):
of our retail in house, our eComm all of that
we call have Hawks Studios, which is our internal agency.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
So people always ask what agencies you work with? That
open was so great, and.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
I'm like, we may partner with production companies, but all
of the other work is done internally, so we don't
have an agency record. Hawk Studios is our internal which
is so dopey. We have our live entertainment and production team,
which is really game operations and so that's everybody from
harryt the Hawk, to the dance team, to the engineers
that are helping make sure all of our boards and
our center Hunger are working great, all of our production,
(02:58):
Big Tigger, the whole team, and so that's a really
really great team. Our community impact groups, all of our
community work and basketball programs, so camps, clinics, all that
good stuff is in that world. We created a new
department recently called the Entertainment Industry Relations, So it's all
around how we work. Especially being in Atlanta with the
home of entertainment, we found the need. There were so
many you know, requests and things and not just people
(03:20):
coming to games, but really what we do behind the scenes.
So all of that really makes up marketing in addition
to looking at the future of fandom and all the rest.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
And so we have not just.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
The Hawks but also the College Park Skyhawks, which is
another part of our business, as well as our two
K league. But within that people like, oh, see work
for the Hawks, and I'm like, we know over the
Hawks and stay for Marena. While the building is you know,
for the most part of rental space. So if you
are a promoter, you want to hey, I want to
do a show. There you come in. But we have
a marketing team that also supports our promoters, so they're
helping with you know, when WWE is.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Here and they have oh we want wrestling, how do
we cross promotes?
Speaker 1 (03:54):
Well, we will see cool promotions between you know, the
Hawks and you know Trey Young doing something.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
And then how do we also.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Reciprocate to help push ticket sales. It's all of that
all together, which is cool. It just makes it whether
there's never a dull day.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
Yeah, it sounds like it's low. How many how many
events in between events and games? How many you think
you all handle a year?
Speaker 1 (04:12):
I want to say the last count for this year
was one hundred and sixty, one hundred and seventy something
like that. Goodness across the board and that I mean
that doesn't count people who want to have meetings and
there or when we have sales events where they're coasting
you know, potential season ticket members and stuff like that.
That's games or you know, big shows.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
Yeah, So as a CMO for the Hawks and State
from Marina, like, what are what are some of your
overall like remits? Like what don't you set goals? How
do you set goals? Is around, attendance is around, you know,
revenue streams, Like what are some of the things that
you get measured on as a CMO at that level, I.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Mean a number of things, and I think because their
role is so varied, it just depends on which department
overall across the board. Our ownership team day one when
they came on board, said we exist to be a
civic asset before we are a basketball team, and so
we look a lot at our work. We have a
community Impact Report we put together every year that highlights
all the work across the organization that we do for
the community and through our Hawks Foundation, and so that's
(05:05):
kind of like part one. Obviously, revenue for any business
is important. So yeah, for the most part, So most
people say, oh, CMOS, your driver is butts and seats,
and so obviously ticket sales is important. You know, how
we work with our corporate partners My team is sitting
with our corporate partnership team when they're looking at different
sponsors that are coming in, designing the pitches that we're
going out with and so executing out all of that
(05:27):
flawlessly is a big part of our agreement. But it's
how do we keep the brand relevant. You know, in
the city of Atlanta, there's so much to do. So
people look at like, oh, who are your competitors? You know,
it's at the praise at the Falcons, and I'm like, no,
it's Netflix, it's your couch, it's every restaurant in the
city of Atlanta. Because ultimately, we're a basketball team, were
also a great night out. You know, we really strive
to keep our experience top nots when you're coming into
(05:48):
the building, regardless win or lose.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
I don't control that.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
You know.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
I talk with other cmos all the time, and I'm like,
the difference in being a CMO of a sports team
is I don't control my product. If I worked at
you know, Pizza Huad, I can say, hey, this ingredient
is in right now. Let's you know, we can do
taste tests and focus groups and decide what the product
would be best in order to sell basketball operations and
I are good friends, but I make no I have
no claim. People like who we signed it. I'm like,
(06:12):
I am not the one that's not me. And so
because of those reasons, we can really focus on the
brand and the experience and that's.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
What we do.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
Yeah, I mean, y'all do a lot of work and
like tying into culture, especially in Atlanta, And we always
kind of talk about, you know, brands that tap into culture,
you know, are always more authentic. They make stuff happen.
But to your point, since you all can't control the
product on the field or on the court, like what
kind of do you use for inspiration around those different
ideas and activations, you know, beyond just what's happening at
the game.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
Yeah, I mean, our brand, Mantra, has been true to Atlanta.
And when I started ten years ago, I came in
as a VP of Branch Strategy to help really define that,
like who do we stand for?
Speaker 2 (06:47):
What do we exist for?
Speaker 1 (06:48):
And we defined our target audience's next generation Atlantans. And
so we recognize that since nineteen ninety four there was
a little bit of a drop off in Hawk's relevance
to the city. Everyone said, what happened in ninety four
we traded Dominique Wilkins, And there's literally generations of people
who are like.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
Oh man, the Hawks, what are y'all doing?
Speaker 1 (07:06):
And so when we came on board, myself, Steve coohonan
our CEO came on board and brought me on board
to help with the brand strategy. Did a ton of research,
he says, you know what, we realized that we missed
generations after that happened, and so now it's all about
generational fan building. How do we look at building the
team for the next generation. So if I say that
you know you came from New York, doesn't matter what
I do. I can't make you a Hawks fan. You
(07:27):
go either love the Knicks, you clean orange and blue,
and that's just what it is. However, if you moved
to Atlanta level, which a lot of people have now
at a ten times, you're going to settle here, You'll
have a kid here. I want to be the team
for your kid. We first started how do we do that?
It was when we had those feather patterns, when old
didas jerseys. How do we become the coolest team? If
you're playing NBA two K, so like, oh wow, they
(07:48):
got a feather pattern on our court.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
That looks cool.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
I might not even be a Hawks fan, but I
like what they're doing getting all the dope artists that
are just coming out, like Who's Next?
Speaker 2 (07:56):
And so for us, it was super intentional.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
I remember when we launched it Jersey people over thirty
were like, oh, this is garbage.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
We don't like it, and I'm like, great, it wasn't
for you.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
Wasn't for you.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
We intentionally made this not for you.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Obviously, we've evolved a ton since then and gone, you know,
to a look that I think is really classic but
can work both ways as well as Nike designing or
city edition program that allows us to be flexible every year.
But for us, it's all around really engaging that next generation.
So the connection to the culture is really through that
looking at what's happening. When we did Tender Night back
in the day, it was like, what's relevant today? Tender
(08:28):
all right? Had we bring that experience into the real world,
and so we're constantly looking at ways to do that.
Last year it was only fans we had to talk
about the Ncason Tournament.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
We made this the only fans spot.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
With Harry the Hawks, and I tell everybody I got
fired two hundred times and re hired two hundred and
one times that day after it hit TMZ.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
It was a whole situation. But that's really what we
strive to do.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
I mean, and when you're doing stuff like that. It's
always interesting because I think, you know, I see it
on the gency side a lot, right. It's like, you
come up with these big ideas, you want to get
it done, but there's always people sometimes on the inside
of the organization that don't get it and maybe a
little hesitant to it, right, And so I always say,
it's really important to have good advocates on the other
side of the table that understand what you're doing, to
kind of see the bigger picture, like how do you
(09:08):
work through those kinds of situations again, how do you
get people, you know, not to freak out too much.
We say I got this idea about OnlyFans, Well they definitely.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
First of all, some people didn't know what only fans was,
so let's start there. But you know, I think it
really starts at the top and having a leader in
Steve Cooden that is creative and visionary but is also
understanding of culture and how to how to get things done.
And so as that as an example, the brief was
the n Season Tournament has now been created by the NBA.
No one knows what that means, and there are all
(09:36):
these interviews with players Tyber like.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
Oh, I don't know what that is. Are you excited
for it? What is it? You know? And so we said, well,
how do we cut through the clutter?
Speaker 1 (09:43):
So the league was doing their own marketing, which they
do nationally, and so the brief was cut through the
clutter to let fans know that the NCAS and tournament
is coming and then get them to learn about it
and sell some ticket.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
Cool.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
So when I gave that to Hawk Studios and our
creative team, the only fans idea came out, and that
was the one idea that everyone was like, oh, this
is crazy, like this cuts through the club that does
exactly what the brief stated. So they came up with
the idea, you know, shot something and I had to
be the one to deliver it, obviously represented from my team,
and I was like all right, So he got to
know how to pitch it.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
And the very first time we watched it, it was like.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
Okay, huh, don't know how this will land. And it
was great because at the same time it was this
is definitely cutting through the clutter in a very different way.
And so we had conversations internally and kudos to Steve.
It was like, let me make sure that we can
bring everybody along with us. So we shared with ownership,
we shared with our entire executive leadership team, and had
(10:37):
conversations about it. How people felt understanding. Some people doesn't
find the humor. Some people were like, what's only fans?
You know, it was a different thing ultimately, even going
to Adam Silver because the irony is when we dropped
that video, the team was playing in Mexico City and
our CEO was sitting next to Adam Silver and so
the people are asking him about this video. So we
needed to make sure that everyone was aware. But when
(10:59):
we had those conversations, were like, you know what, we're
going to do it. And the one thing that I
was very proud of is I said, you know, if
we don't do it, we're going to hurt our culture
because we have a team of really young creatives who
have big ideas and to what you said, it can
be disheartening, like you're not going to come with the
big ideas over and over again if it gets killed
every time, right, And so I said, you know, if
we don't at least put it out there, it's going
(11:19):
to hurt the culture because they fulfill the brief And
that was the ask, and I think kind of the
combination of just understanding and tally and being willing to
take risks, which a lot of people are not willing
to do. I had other CMO from NBA teams and like,
how did y'all how did you get that through? Like
what did you how did that work? We could never
and that really made me proud to know that we're
working for an organization that's willing to say, hey, you
(11:40):
know what, we'll try it. And it was great, then
it wasn't, then it was and it wasn't. But overall,
I think for us, it was probably one of the
biggest lessons and like things that our team like congratulates
us on. They're like, thank you for being willing to
support us in doing something that was different.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
Yeah, And I mean, you know, it's also interesting because
it takes building that culture up. I mean, my guess
is the San Antonio Spurs probably wouldn't jump into an
only fans night, right, And.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Every market is different. So it's also when there send
in your market. You know, in Atlanta, we have a
lot of creativity flexibility.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
What's been some of your other favorite you know, events
or promotions that y'all have done, Like, I know that
one sticks out, but has it been your favorite or
has it been another one? You just think it's just
been amazing from end to end.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
I mean I always say my absolute favorite was what
we did with Doctor King for our City Edition uniforms.
And for me, it was personally my favorite because I'd
been with the Hawks maybe three or four years and
I got promoted to CMO and the first meeting that
I had was with Nike because they were talking about
the City Edition program and they're like, hey, how do
we You know, we're about three or four years out
(12:43):
from the time that the uniform drops when they're having
these meetings, So it has to be something evergreen, can't
be trendy, can't be something that's you know, hot today
because by the time you go to production and timelines
at Nike and delivery, three years would have passed. And
so you know, my idea said, you know, we do
something great every year for MLKDA to honor the legacy
of Doctor King, but I'd love to do it for
(13:04):
more than a day, So is there any way that
we could do that? And they're like, well, you know,
they work with the King of State every year around MLKDA.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
They said, well, you'd have to get the estate on board.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
So I built a relationship with the head of attorney
for the estate, who we were now great friends. So
we worked a lot together in that, and then we
had to get the NBA on board. We had to
get the Players Association on board. And so by getting
all those parties together on the line and Nike working
with us on the design, by the time we finished it,
it was like we knew we had something special.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
Yea.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
Even our ownership was like, whatever we need to do,
like we'd love this idea. And so when we designed it,
we had no idea what was going to happen in
the summer of twenty twenty. There was also a lot
on just timing, so it was like, oh, it's come
out twenty twenty twenty one, Like oh, okay, you know,
it's a couple of years covid on nobody's mind. So
the fact that it was George Ford Covid all these
things at one time, Black Lives matter signs everywhere. And
(13:56):
then the teams were in the bubble. The Hawks were
in the bubble, but the NBA was playing in the bubble.
And that's when we launched it on with T and
T on air. It became so galvanizing, like people who
aren't even Hawks fans were like, I love that jersey
so much. So I got a call from the Pope
who ushed out and they were like, hey, like, you know,
the Pope is really inspired by the Doctor King one
(14:18):
of his one of his inspirations. He loves what the
NBA has been doing. Would you be willing to send
him a jerky? Absolutely?
Speaker 2 (14:26):
What can we do?
Speaker 1 (14:26):
So, working with our partners at UPS, we were able
to send him one and even the images of that.
This looks so crazy to me, but to know that
an idea that came out of your head of like,
oh this could be cool could end up becoming that,
And I think what took it a step further, which
is probably why.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
I'm most proud of it.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
As we also decided at the time we did a
lot of work with Doctor King, with the family, and
it was their desire was to help educate the next
generation of Atlantan's our target audience on the legacy of
Doctor King makes sense. This is a perfect partnership and
so because of what we said, you know, the last
work that he was doing was kind of the Poor
People's Movement, How do we look at noomic parody and
empowerment for people of color. So we decided that every
(15:04):
single jersey that we sold, we were going to donate
one hundred percent of our profit to entrepreneurs, and it
ended up being the Women's Entrepreneurship.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
Initiative of Atlanta.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
So I love the idea that, you know, professional men's
basketball team is donating money to women entrepreneurs to help
create the next generation of business people to drive our
community forward. And we did that and then fortunately the
team played the best that ever had since it's been
in Atlanta in them Eastern Conference finals. And so now
we keep the center court in the arena on permanent
display right by our hawkshop.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
We have a frame jersey there.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
Along with a picture of the Pope and kind of
the story of all that happened, but the combination of
like community and culture and you know, religion if we're
going to bring the pope in and all of that,
as well as winning because team performance matters, Like I
don't think we could have crafted a better story, and
it was something that was it was written well before
we got here.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
No, it's interesting because I mean I haven't done a
ton of researching since some of the other city day
you know, jerseys and stuff like that. But I do
think Atlanta, especially with our history of culture and just
all these things like that was a perfect moment and
the court like the maze and I remember had to
stay glass element to it, and you know, the black jerseys.
But at the same time, you know, kind of one
of my definitions of culture is kind of the tension
between what's old and what's new. And I think, you know,
(16:18):
y'all did a really good balance with it right there.
But I got to be honest, the more we do stuff,
I do love those old red you know, Hawks retro
jerseys sometimes, Like how do y'all balance that, especially knowing
that you know, even though you're going after this younger
audience and you know, the kids of like, you know,
these next generation fans, Like, how do you kind of
give those subtle nods back to you know, the old
Atlanta or you know, again, those retro jerseys that people
(16:40):
I think it's really come back in style now too.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
Yeah, well we always sell them, so they're always available
in the arena. And the NBA actually has restrictions on
when teams can bring them back. So it has to
be all a big anniversary, either a zero or a
ten year or a five year or something like that.
So if you're retiring of players jersey or something like that,
you're able to bring it back for those reasons. So
it's not so much hey, we really like that, let's
just do it this year and the same thing and
(17:04):
has to be thought out well in advance, and so
we're fans of it too, even so much we're looking
at ways that we can incorporate some of that into
our design language as we move forward.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
But we never abandoned it.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
And to be honest, even from talking about those feather
pattern jerseys that we had five years after we launched it,
we were like, we want to go back closer to
the core. So even the colors of our core uniforms
now that we have kind of that golden ride red,
it was very focused on that nik era of Hawks
that a lot of people love. So it is a
little bit of blending the old with the new, but
designing something that's classic. When we look back at our
(17:36):
history of our uniforms, we changed a lot, like do
different ownership teams through different eras. Before the team was
in Saint Louis and it came here. We had that
bright green pistol picha like we've gone. When I look
back at it, I was like, wow, we did a
lot of different things. So when our current ownership team
came on board, we said, you know, we want to
design something that this team's going to win a championship
in from now in years to come, because there are
(17:57):
some teams that do have legacy brands that don't change.
Are one of them, I think the next or one
of the Lakers like and the Celtics. Yeah, those uniforms
are pretty much the same standard. They may make nuanced changes,
and as an organization, historically we just haven't been. So
what we've designed now is kind of the blend of
the old and the new in a classic timeless way
that we believe we're going to keep, you know, forever,
(18:17):
so we no longer have that going back and forth
kind of look.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
One thing too, I always appreciate about you, Melissa, is
just kind of your intentionality and how you talk about
different things, and how you talk about marketing and branding.
But one thing I'd love to understand too, especially for
the folks that are listening, is how does a person
or how did you kind of get to that CMO level.
I think for a lot of people that's kind of
there's like a glass ceiling you kind of hitting your career,
and I know I bumped my head against it a
couple of times and was finally kind of able to
(18:54):
break through it through different means. But you know, how
did you kind of make that jump? Like what was
kind of the requirements of going from doing the brand
as you work to kind of making that jump to
actually getting into the C suite? Man?
Speaker 2 (19:03):
You know what the biggest jump I took was was getting.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
Laid off, because real talk, if I didn't get laid off,
I don't know if I'd be here, you know. But
to be honest, I've always been driven by passion, Like
I don't I still don't know what I want to
be when I grew up, and I say it all
the time, but I genuinely never was like, I'm going
to be a CMO one day, Ronie.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
I love marketing.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
I liked brand strategy and I liked it as an
intern at Turner, so I went to grad school in
London to learn a little bit more about it. But
I was like I'll just do brand strategy. I'd be
a brand manager somewhere. I love the idea of building
a brand as a foundation and having other things come
on top of that.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
And I remember when I was at T and T.
I was like, what does branding even mean?
Speaker 1 (19:39):
And a woman Jennifer Dorian, who's one of my calling
my friend tour it's a friend of de Mensal.
Speaker 3 (19:45):
I still's a.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
Friends are now?
Speaker 1 (19:47):
She was like, you know, imagine T and T is
a television network, but we had to build a brand.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
We know, drama, and you have all these.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
Shows on top of it, which are kind of the products.
But then imagine you want to take T and T
and put it in the Atlanta airport. What does a
TNT store look like?
Speaker 2 (19:58):
What do you sell? What does this sme? I was like,
my creative mind was like blown. I'm like that is cool.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
So the idea of being able to craft that creatively
for me, and I grew up as an artist. It
was another way to take my art creativity or ideas
and apply it in a different way.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
And so that was it for me.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
And so I ended up staying at Turner, got jobs
and brand strategy. Soone's tapping Hey, you're interested in this
business strategy where with cartoon network and adult swims Like,
all right, cool, I'll take I'll learn about that too.
Because I didn't have a it has to be this
And I think that's probably the biggest lessons. I've talked
to people all the time and I'm like, I want
to be a CMO and I'm like why like and
the why is always either the perception of power. I
(20:34):
want to make decisions. I want to decide what the
strategy is. I was like, I have people who run
brand strategy or marketing strategy.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
I don't get to decide. Now.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
I have to manage the people who are doing the work.
So it's a very different world. But ultimately the higher
up that I got and I think I was last
VP of Communications and marketing and content for a digital
health and wellness startup that no one's ever heard of
called Upwave while at Turner, and I love that job
because I got to learn about digital and you know,
(21:01):
really working on building out an app from scratch and
making content and putting on HLN. And then we were
the last business started and when a new CEO came in,
we were first business cut and I was eight months
pregnant with my daughter, and I was like, hey, you
started as an intern.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
We all love you. You ain't got no job, and
I didn't.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
I couldn't worry about it because I had to have
my daughter, so you know, I had a little bit
of severance, but not enough to last for Maternity League.
But to be honest, I wasn't worried, but I didn't
know what I was going to do next. And I
was a ballgirl for the Miami Heat in high school,
just mopping up sweat. When I moved to Atlanta as
an intern, I made no money, so I called them
all Boston the Heat, you know, anyone at the Hawk.
So I ended up being a ball girl for the
(21:39):
Hawks my first year in Atlanta. I think, oh two,
the other All Star Game was here because I got
to work on the court for that. And I never
imagine going back to basketball because in my mind, I
evaal that now was an entertainment. And literally a good
friend of mine invited me to go with her to
the draft party at the Arena after I had my daughter.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
She was like, you ain't got no job. It's free,
you know, why don't you come?
Speaker 1 (21:59):
And I'm like, all right, So I go to this
draft party as a fan jeans and a T shirt,
and I run into Steve Conan, who was a mentor
of sorts while I was at Turner, but I never
worked for him before, I'd worked for like multiple people.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
Under him, and he saw me.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
He knew that I mopped up sweat at those Hawks
games because he was sitting courtside and would see me.
And we worked together on some big branch strategy projects
while I was at Turner. One was a rebredding court
TV to True TV, and a couple of projects for
Turner classic movies and things. He's like, Hey, I know
you love basketball, I know you love branding. You know
I might need your help in building a brand. Would
you mind sitting in on some meetings run the process
(22:33):
of redesign in this jersey? And I was kind of like, heck, yeah,
all day for free, like no issue. So he walks
me around that draft party and introduces me to every
senior level executor for the Hawks while I was there,
and I was like, in my mind, I'm like I'm
not dressed for this, Like I have been a job interview.
I just came, you know, to kick get at the
draft party, but every single one of them were like,
(22:54):
we've heard so much about you, we can't wait for
you to start. And I was so confused, I'm like, start,
what what are we starting? So when he asked me,
I guess he had mentioned, oh, you know someone who
was in creative and can kind of help us. They
didn't have a perspective of a woman or a woman
of color anywhere on that team. And so sitting with
the then head of marketing and the agency they were
working with on the design was such a great process.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
I was just doing it.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
Then maybe ten meetings in, he was like, I think
you should consult Would you mind consulting. I'd love your
perspective on, you know, designing this brand strategy.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
And I was like, cool, yeah, I'm consulting. Why not?
I got time? I got nothing but time.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
And then you know, by September of that year, I
came on board as a VP of brand Strategy, and
so very quickly we had our major racial crisis. We
remember back in the day with previous ownership, we had
to onboard a new ownership team. We'll go through the
process of selling the team. Onboarding a new team, no
one knew how to do that, so I figured it out.
So I ended up becoming the SVP of business strategy.
Just in doing filling gaps. It was like I was
(23:53):
kind of a chief of staff. I was writing speeches,
I was helping manage digital agencies.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
Whatever was needed.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
I'm like, hey, I got it Swiss army knife and
partnered with the whole organization. And then the reality was
one day he was like, hey, I want you to
be CMO. You know, we had worked and gotten new
ownership on board, We're about to open up. We were
about to start working with Amry on a practice facility
and start talking about redoing the arena. And so our
head of marketing was also the head of a creative
(24:19):
and he was pulled in different directions on those two things.
So the day to day tactic of marketing was kind
of it needed some love.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
And he was like, I love you to step in.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
You've worked in marketing, can you support And I was like, CMO,
I'm like me and I was like no, thank you,
And I turned it down actually multiple times, really because
I loved doing brand strategy.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
I was a team of one.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
It was really like being an internal consultant beginning to
work on all the cool stuff, and he asked again
and I was like, nah, I think I'm good. And
then it got to a point where he's like, all right, Melissa, look,
this is the job that we need right now. And
it was positioned in a way where I love I'm
very organized and detailed and also very creative, and so
they needed some operational help and it was campaign management
(25:00):
tools and I was like, oh.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
That's cool, I can do that. He was like, all right,
well you'll be CMO and.
Speaker 1 (25:04):
Do that and I was like, ah, you got me, gotcha.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
And I was like, well, why me?
Speaker 1 (25:09):
And it was the one question I asked and he's like,
you know what, my mantra has always been like I
just want to make dope shit. I'm here to make
That's what I'm That's what we do. And he was like,
it's because of that. You aren't driven by most things
that people are driven by that want this role.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
It was a perception of power.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
It's understanding that you know in sports doesn't pay historically
as well as you know other Fortune five hundred companies,
So you're not not just about money. Like the reasons
why you are great at what you do is for this,
You're great with people. You're great at leading teams, and
I want that energy in this role. And I was
kind of like, Okay, I could never have imagined that
seven years I'd still be in the position. And the
(25:47):
role has grown and evolved tremendously since then because I
was taking over a really small piece of the team.
But for people who are looking to get in that role,
I think it's so much more around the curiosity of
looking at how to fill those gaps. If I didn't
take that business strategy year old with cartoon networking Adult Swim,
I don't know if I would have had the p
and L inside of knowledge to help lead parts of
this organization. You know, creative. There's some people that come
(26:09):
up through creative, some are finance. There's all different ways,
you know, to get to this seat. But starting out
as an artist, I was, you know, an art school
in Miami, growing up drawing, painting, went.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
To Wake Force at an art scholarship.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
It's very rare that you find someone who's in creative
that has the ability to kind of I call it
the superpowers, but being both creative and strategic right, and
that is incredibly necessary in this job because there are
no two days that are the same. And so I'm
always questioning wh people say I want to be a SAMO.
I'm like why, because now why really matters because if
it's about getting the title, if I came into it
(26:41):
trying to become a CEMO, I probably would have made
very different decisions within my career. I would have taken
on jobs that I thought I'd have to take in
order to get there. And the reality was I had.
It was like a ladder. Career path of mine was
a jungle gym all day long. I was going left, right, back, front,
different places didn't matter to me.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
Yeah, well, you know you can always connect the dots
looking backwards is what I can say, right, And like
when you look at it, you nah, when you do
you look at it, you know what if I wouldn't
been together, if I wouldn't have done this thing, then
maybe this thing wouldn't have happened. And like you can,
it makes sense when you look backwards at it. To
your point, you can't always, you know, forecast it.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
You can't.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
And the irony was, I remember when I was a
turner thinking about taking that digital startup job. I went
to all my mentors and I talked to Steve, who
was like a mentor to me, and he said, don't
take that job. And I was like every mentor I
had said, don't take that job, and I took the
job and ultimately.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
I got hired. I did it, I loved it. I
got laid off.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
And I later learned that Steve, when he left Turner,
because he was there as well, had a policy where
he couldn't take talent from Turner with him. So if
I didn't get laid off from the job that he
told me not to take not to take, I probably
couldn't even physically could not be in the role with
the Hawks. And so like I truly AMA believe that,
you know, women of faith, everything happens for a reason,
but that was like a major one to me.
Speaker 3 (27:53):
Yeah, And I mean even kind of going back, I
mean over the last ten years. I mean, we won't
get into it, but I remember when that whole transition
with Ship happened, I was actually working at the Agency
and we were doing a lot of work, you know,
with the Hawks on that whole situation, and I got
a chance to kind of work with Steve Cohan directly
on that and saw the kind of leader he was
and I could. I was definitely appreciative of just, you know,
his approach to everything. I think that was the first
(28:14):
time I really worked with somebody at his level that
kind of saw things in a very holistic way and
kind of understood, you know, culture, but had a lot
of intentionality behind it too. So I can totally see
how he could evolve you into that kind of role.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
Well yeh, yeh.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
He also has a vision for what he wants and
he was like, oh, yeah, you didn't know. I already
knew he knew from the from the beginning. But what
I what I also appreciate about working with him is
like he's also not afraid to say he doesn't know
what he doesn't know, and a lot of times at
c CEO level people never want to say I don't know,
and I'd be the main one. I'm like, look, you know,
help build me a sead of brains around this, like
(28:46):
how do we do this better? Or sometimes it even
comes to like can you be my cultural advisor? Like
I say, this is that the right thing to say?
Some people don't want to have those conversations, but I'm
appreciative that I can be. And it's also trust, you know,
built over years, considered things that I will say to
him and he'll be like, Okay, all right, got it.
You know check where I think it's just based on
(29:08):
our relationship over time and so having that sort of
leadership and you know, that's rare, and I try to
have the same with my team where I'm like, please
give me feedback, because ain't nobody perfect.
Speaker 3 (29:17):
As a woman in leadership too? Like, what's it been like?
Just as you've kind of navigated different elements of it?
My assumption is that a lot of this sports stuff
is kind of an old boys club in certain areas.
You know, I don't know how much basketball is compared
to you know, I really feel like football is probably
the way more, but I mean maybe they're equal. But
just especially as a black woman too, Like, what's that
process been like as you've had that role and had
to kind of institute some of these changes and ideas?
(29:39):
Is it you know it is there been friction? Has
there been challenges? And how did you kind of work
through those things?
Speaker 2 (29:44):
You know, I've seen it evolve.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
I remember when I was working for the heat when
I was in high school, and I remember every summer
in college I would go back and volunteer with the
Heat helping out draft free agency, and they're like a family,
Like I love them, I love their ownership.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
They're a really really great organization.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
There's a person working in scouting and I was putting
the there's skyting reports and I was doing something but
it wasn't efficient, and I was like, there's a better
way to do this, and so I made a suggestion.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
And I was told, you don't get paid to think.
You get paid to do what I tell you to do.
And I was like, huh, all right, check that ain't
gonna work. But I got it.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
But there were areas kind of like that where you know,
it wasn't overt just in terms of like, oh, you
know you're a woman, just sit down, shut up.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
It was never that, but I felt the energy.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
It's different on the basketball operations side than it is
on the business side. And I think the NBA has
done a tremendous job over even the ten years that
I've been with the Hawks of just make seeing that
change and evolving that business like from team presidents to
you know, coaches, assistant coaches obviously the w and all
the great things happening there. I definitely think there's an
evolution happening, and it's coming quickly in a way that's
(30:48):
super positive.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
But for me, I've always seen being a woman. To
see a black woman.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
Working in sports is my superpower because the one thing
you can't tell me about is what's relevant to women
or people of color. So, especially in the leadership role
with the Hawks, I do think there's being in Atlanta's
unfair to ask that question because I do think there's
a different perspective for people that live here and understand
who's coming to our games, what's happening, what's reltive. They
(31:14):
don't They're not listening to what's happened. They're not on Instagram,
they're not going outside like I see you outside. I
want to also live in the world. So I do
think that helps with that authenticity and being relevant, and
so I've always really proud of myself on that. Now
when I got promoted to be a CMO until the
story and is so interesting to me. But you're able
(31:34):
to park in the reserve parking area at the arena,
which is a big deal. If everybody knows, you know,
parking at arena, it's it's a thing.
Speaker 3 (31:41):
I've seen it.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
You see it so you can park in a reserve spot.
And during the day, I was heading over there to
a meeting. I had just gotten promoted, and I parked
my car. I was walking into the building at a
security guard stop and he's like, I'm sorry, man, you
can't park there. That's reserve for executives. And I was
just like okay, and I kept walking and he was like, ma'am,
I'm not to my badge. I was like to say,
like most of party literally says executive underneath it. And
(32:04):
he looked so confused. And I was wearing maybe some Jordans,
some sweats and sneakers, and I could see his mind
like like what, huh what. But for me, it was
like the best moment because I was changing the perception
of what a senior level executive looks like for an
NBA team, for that person. And I think every time
that I'm in a room where I'm able to let
my skills or my work speak, or I am presenting
(32:25):
and speaking, I think it changes the mentality.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
Of like oh oh, she knows, okay, she's good, she
got it.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
And so as a woman, I'm always trying to represent
not just for me, but everybody else.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
On my team.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
And so when I first started with the Hawks, had
just had my daughter. There were no lactation rooms. It
was not a very female friendly environment. They're actually women
that came to me when I first started and said,
thank you so much for being here. We've never seen
a woman in a VP or senior level role because
a lot of times women get promoted if they have
a kid, they either git demoted or they leave based
(32:56):
on the rigor of working in sport.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
And so I always give props to Steve because he
was like, Nope, I want you to be here.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
I want you to be able to use the family
room to take your daughter if you have to work
a game and you don't have child.
Speaker 2 (33:07):
Whatever.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
It is like, we wanted to make that environment. So
now that is our culture. But I think he had
to come in and really instill it. But I had
to check myself because sometimes I'm so chill, laid back, cool,
easy going that I forget that people don't just see me.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
It's like, oh, you're a list. Like no, you're a
woman in the senior role.
Speaker 1 (33:25):
And as an example, I had gotten a promotion and
I had a really small office that I loved because
it's facing my house and I can see traffic on
the way home, and Atlanta traffic is no joke. And
so I didn't want to move. And they had a
big corner office available. They're like, hey, you can move
into that office if you want, and I turned it
down like twice, and I have a history of doing that.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
I'm like, no, I'm good, all right, it's fine, But
I really liked my space.
Speaker 1 (33:51):
And I remember having a conversation with someone or like,
you know, there's no women in corner offices, and it
hit me and I was like, wow, by not taking
get you're sending a signal that that is not what
women and so it just really changed my perspective. I'm like, no,
I will not take notes in that meeting. Yes, I
want to sit in the middle of the the boardroom
and the table and not kind of shrink back. But
(34:13):
I think when you're more junior, it's really the experience
that kind of helps you get there. And so for me,
I've been able to grow and see that over time.
So now I'm telling my team, I'm like, hey, young lady,
you sit right here, don't sit back there like you
You've come up and I want to help give people
the same knowledge that I had to get, you know,
kind of overtime myself, asking asking questions times when I
(34:33):
needed help, and I'm like everyone else has an admin
or you know, help, why don't I have one?
Speaker 2 (34:39):
And I want my boss. I'm like, hey, is it possible?
He's like, sure, you never asked, and I was like, man,
this is crazy. But now I understand.
Speaker 3 (34:47):
You know, a big part of luck and you know,
success is always say it's asking the right combination of
really smart questions, stupid questions and obvious questions. Yeah, you
know you got to you you can't have you let
your ego get in way of that, Like you know what,
I'm asking this stupid question or maybe it's just stupid
to y'all, but I'm gonna get it outcause I didn't
even't know right.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
Right, And most times people are like, oh, wow, you
know that should come with it. I'm like, people don't
know what to until you tell them, right, you know.
I mean, And it's not about being annoying or repetitive.
It's like sometimes it's just saying it.
Speaker 3 (35:28):
How do you feel about all this amazing stuff that's
happening in the w NBA. Now, I mean you know,
we had an amazing College of you know, women's tournament
a couple of year ago. W NBA season. W NBA
is getting so much you know, credit and visibility now,
like things are starting to happen, and I can really
see that starting to trend and uptick. Like, how excited
are you about that in comparison with the stuff what
you're working on right now too?
Speaker 2 (35:48):
I mean, I love it.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
You know, I know that there's some NBA teams that
own their w team. We are not one of those teams.
To me, that's super exciting when you can blend it too.
I was talking with the young lady that's the head
of the Valkyries, Georgia Golden State's new WNA team they
are launching next season, but because they're owned by the
same team, they're doing such amazing things, like they're camps
and clinics, they're giving boys WNBA jerseys and girls NBA
(36:10):
jerseys because it shouldn't matter, you know what I mean.
And I love that just in the idea of taking
the perceptions way because I think before it was like, oh,
that's just this, that's just that, and so having it
being elevated on a national scale is awesome. I'm all
about parody, and so I look at salaries, I look
at what executives are making, and that still is not
(36:33):
where it needs to be. But I think obviously they're
taking large steps forward having teams be able to fly
on charters. I think for the w like, that's a
big deal, you know, But I think the more people
can support, and that's literally buy a ticket, watch a
game on TV because a lot of people are like, oh, yeah,
that's great, but it won't grow until they get the
eyeballs because that's at the end of the day, it's
all about the revenue, and so that's really important. While
(36:55):
they got a bigger TV deal, the NBA's TV though,
got even bigger, and so I love it and I
don't want it to be a blip because of Caitlin Clark.
I don't want it to be like, Okay, well it's
going to write time. I don't think that's the case
at all. But in order for that to continue growth,
I'm like, hey, buy a ticket, come out to a game,
watch a game, because that's that's how it's going to
keep growing.
Speaker 3 (37:14):
Yeah, and it's got we got to support that thing.
I mean, you know, the Dreams sold out some games
that they sold out season tickets this year, which was amazing.
So you can kind of see the trends starting to happen,
and yeah, my hope is that it continues. It just
makes the game even more exciting. Like, what are some
other trends that you kind of noticed or you're you know,
you're kind of being like, you know what, let's keep
down on the radar some other things that you know,
helped the Hawks and stay from marena, kind of stay
(37:34):
ahead of the culture and be innovative.
Speaker 2 (37:37):
I mean, there's so many things for us.
Speaker 1 (37:41):
We talked like and asking about the state from arena side,
we thought in COVID, when the touring industry went from
poppingto disappeared, that you know, okay, people may start coming
back to events, but they came back with a vengeance
and which we were just talking about in one music fest,
like the idea of festivals like peace, people want to
be together, and I mean, and COVID is so far
(38:03):
back removed now, but we always kind of look at
that as the mark because it was like we're up
and then we're way down and then it's shot straight up.
And so currently even with the usher residency that we
have at the arena, you know, blocks of shows doing
more of those things. While he did that in Vegas
super successful, like oh can you do that on tour
and arenas? Currently we're in the process of doing that,
Like that's a trend that like I never really saw
(38:23):
that as a trend, and I'm like, oh, yeah, but
it is. So we're looking at what happens in three
years from now, does it start to decline? You know,
looking at the economy, looking at all these things, and
so for our business, consistently focused on what happens in
that space. How do we get more creative with types
of shows and events you see big podcasts or major
podcasts being able to use you know, big venues like
(38:44):
arenas to draw crowds based on all of that. So
I'm consistently looking at Influencers are a big one right now.
And people have always obviously used influencers in multiple ways.
How do you sell a ticket or make it transactional?
But for us, it's about building relationship over time and
incorporating them in different ways within our game, presentation, within
our show, within our business, a lot of different things.
(39:05):
I'm always keeping my eyes and ears open. Obviously everyone's
talking about AI and I'm like, yep, sure, yep, that too,
for all in all the ways, for all the things.
But I have a young lady on my team who's
focused on building the building out research to help us
get smarter on the future of fans because we've learned
a lot and that those are kind of the trends
that we're focused on. Internally, the future of fandom is
(39:25):
going to be very different. And one example we talk
about is millennial parents. So when you were a kid,
if your parent was a fan of something, they made
you a fan of it, like you didn't have a choice,
Like you're going to be a fan of other falcons
if you like by like football, this is what you're
gonna do. Millennial parents grew up with the power of choice,
so now they're giving their kids like, oh, you know,
my parents made me do that. You can be a
(39:45):
fan of whatever you want. You don't like it, it's okay,
we'll find something else for you. And that has changed
the number of kids. And there's also a lot of
research that shows the number of kids that play a
sport have a higher propensity of becoming fans of that
sport down the line, but there's been a de line
and use sport participation, I think because you're up against
an iPad and everything else. And so we're constantly looking
(40:06):
at how do we grow our basketball camps and clinics.
How do we find opportunities to do drop in at
STEM camps or art camps or whatever else to give
them a basketball exposure experience so that we can ultimately
build that next generation Hawks fan with those you know,
the difference in youth now, I really wonder so much
of what sports looks like ten fifteen years from now
(40:27):
for our for our kids, because it's a different world
and the desire isn't necessarily the same. So while there
are things like cosm I don't know if you've seen it,
or like the sphere, you can go and watch games
in these really amazing venues versusperience, right, Yeah, that's fantastic.
Some people may love that more than come in to
a game, you know, suppose if you can get it
for cheap and whichever. And so it's looking at how
(40:48):
do we partner with some of those things, how do
we get inspiration from it, but really looking at evolving
what we do because we can't just stay stagnant, do
the same thing over and over again.
Speaker 3 (40:58):
Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, you know, I have two kids.
I even watched my son, he plays baseball. He's starting
to get into basketball and stuff like that. I put
a basketball goal up in the backyard, you know, two
years ago, just to see what would happen.
Speaker 1 (41:07):
You know.
Speaker 3 (41:08):
He goes up there every once in a while. She's
a couple jump shots. But yeah, there's just a lot
of challenges even as a parent, of trying to you know,
get the practices and get them over there. I think
that's the part where I get it, you know, frustrated
a lot of times personally. Right, It's like I want
him to do more things in sports. But between doing
a million things myself and then trying to get there
and get him to practice.
Speaker 1 (41:25):
And the world is in so much you can be like, hey,
get on your bike and go to school and do
that because you know safety, and it's it's a different generation. Yeah,
and we're always looking at like, all right, so because
of that, what do we do differently?
Speaker 3 (41:37):
Yeah. I actually I ended up coaching his tee ball
team last year because of that, and I was like,
look y'all, like, look, I'm just out here because I
want him to have a good experience.
Speaker 2 (41:46):
You know, that's wonderful.
Speaker 3 (41:47):
So he's going to be the star player too, just
so you know. But if anybody else got something to say,
let me know. You meet y'all new star player. I'm
the coach. It was and we had a good season.
You know, he enjoyed it. Story about it. He said, Man,
that's one of my favorite memories.
Speaker 2 (42:02):
No, that's awesome.
Speaker 3 (42:05):
You go sot me as she didn't. How does as
a parent, then, how do you balance with all this
different stuff? I mean, you got a million one thing's
going on. You got one hundred plus events. You got
basketball concerts, you know, not just at the venue but
at school probably with other events. How do you banage
on that?
Speaker 2 (42:20):
You know?
Speaker 1 (42:20):
I tell everybody you know, I love being the same
of the Hawks, but being a mom is my number
one job. And so you know, single mom. Daughter's ten
years old. Marley is amazing, and she is super creative.
I feel like I gave virtual a senior citizen because
she's like really responsible and like cooks, and it's very
into anime and art, which I was as well, so
that that brings me joy. But she hates basketball, has
(42:42):
no desire to come to a game, and I'm like,
you've been going since you were two months old, Like,
you know, come on, she just wants to eat then leave.
So I find that I really pride myself on kind.
I call it work life harmony. Sometimes you got to
work a whole lot of other times, I'm like, hey,
I took her to Japan this summer because she loves
is anime and wanted to really learn more about the culture.
Speaker 2 (43:02):
Having the ability to do that or.
Speaker 1 (43:03):
Taking the time to do that is where I put
my priority. So I said it a year in advance.
I'm like, hey, all, this is what's happening.
Speaker 3 (43:11):
Cool.
Speaker 1 (43:11):
And I find on a regular basis, like yesterday it
was Halloween, she didn't have school. I was working from home,
the whole trick or treat thing or talking about it
like that was what I was going to do.
Speaker 2 (43:19):
First.
Speaker 1 (43:19):
She comes to the office, hangs out with me. Everyone
knows her because they feel like they've seen her grow up.
But that was a big part of it. Even to
the young lady that mentioned to me, like, oh, you know,
and women have kids, they leave or get demoted, I'm like,
I'm she coming with me, and we were getting promoted,
and so I want to show that so that others
know that it's okay if your mom be a mom.
(43:40):
And I think COVID kind of put down a lot
of those barriers, invisible barriers, and I think corporate some
corporate people had like, oh, no, I can't show too
much of my personal life.
Speaker 2 (43:48):
And I'm like, go, this, this is this is the
biggest part of it.
Speaker 3 (43:51):
We get it now.
Speaker 2 (43:51):
We all.
Speaker 1 (43:54):
So I'm I'm managing girl Scouts and it was cross country,
and you know, I want to be at every meet.
Sometimes I can't make it. There has to be a
big situation or reason why I can. But for the
most part, I'm there and she knows that. And I
think just having a strong relationship with her to me
is most important.
Speaker 3 (44:11):
That's dope. That's dope. Well, Melissa, this has been a
great conversation. I appreciate you pulling up before we get
out of here. I like to ask people if there
was a Melissa Proctor billboard somewhere in Atlanta and you
could put any message you want to put on that billboard, Oh,
what message would you put on your Melissa proct The
billboard bonus points if you know where you would want
(44:32):
to put.
Speaker 2 (44:32):
It, but you can't just throw that at me.
Speaker 3 (44:35):
That's would you put on it? Would you put a
piece of advice? You put a quote? Would you put
who was it? Would you say? Make dope? Shit?
Speaker 2 (44:41):
Like that's so funny because that's where I was going.
Speaker 1 (44:44):
We actually have it up in our offices on the wall.
The creative team put it up there, and no, I
don't think they know where it came from. I'm like,
you probably can't curse on the billboard either, so huh, well,
I would want it on our corner board selfishly, because
it's the biggest board in the southeast right there to
tail up at part driving Marrieta talk about that Hudson girl.
Because it goes around around here. It does a lot
(45:05):
of things, and so I would put it there for sure.
Speaker 2 (45:09):
What would it say? You know, I love fun and
good energy.
Speaker 1 (45:13):
So when I was born my name was Melissa Bree
McGee mmmm, so in college everyone called me that's what
it would be.
Speaker 2 (45:19):
So I would probably have a picture of me my daughter.
It would just say mmm. And if people knew, they'd
be like, oh, it's so crazy.
Speaker 1 (45:28):
All she got it a little board, But I figured
that would be like amazing and hilarious all at the
same time.
Speaker 3 (45:34):
Well, that that would cap it off perfectly. Those who know.
It's like, if you know, you know, if you know
you know, if you don't know, ask.
Speaker 2 (45:40):
Right underneath it, I would probably put make dope.
Speaker 3 (45:41):
Shit for yo. Melissa, Thank you so much for pulling up.
Speaker 2 (45:45):
Thanks.
Speaker 3 (45:46):
This has been an amazing conversation. Y'all. Make sure y'all
go out there and support the Hawks. Y'all make sure
y'll go out to these events at State Farm Marina.
And please y'all don't don't be calling up asking for tickets.
Speaker 2 (45:56):
Okay, Oh yeah, don't don't don't.
Speaker 1 (45:58):
Oh and check out my book too, girl, CMO almost forgot,
but yeah, I wrote it for my daughter, So that's
that's that's a big one, anyone. In all the gems,
everything that I learned, I wrote in there for her,
So that that was a good one. Starting as a
ballgirls the CMO, well let's.
Speaker 3 (46:11):
Do it, you know, congratulations and everything, and uh, thank you.
That's the pot. Y'all we out you've been listening to
butteron nomics and I'm your host. Brandon Butler comments feedback.
Want to be a part of the show. Send us
an email today at Hello at butterdomics dot com. Butter
Nomics is produced in Atlanta, Georgia at iHeartMedia by Ramsey,
with marketing support from Queen and Nike. Music provided by
(46:32):
Mister Hanky. If you haven't already, hit that subscribe button
and never missed an episode, and be sure to follow
us on all our social platforms at butter dot a
t L. Listen to button Nomics on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
For me, I've always seen being a woman, to see
a black woman working in sports as my superpower because
the one thing you can't tell me about is what's
relevant to women or people of color. When I got
promoted to be a CMO, you're able to park in
the reserve parking area at.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
The arena, which is a big deal.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
And during the day I was heading over there to
a meeting I had just gotten promoted, and I parked
my car. I was walking into the building at a
security guard stop and he's like, I'm sorry, man, you
can't park there. That's reserve for executives. And I was
just like okay, and I kept walking and he's like, ma'am.
Then I showed him my badge. I was like, say,
like most of party literally says executive underneath it, and
I could see his mind.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
Like like what, huh what.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
But for me, it was like the best moment because
I was changing the perception of what a senior level
executive looks like for an NBA team, for that person.
And I think every time that I'm in a room,
or I'm able to let my skills or my work speak,
or i am presenting and speaking, I think it changes
the mentality.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Of like, oh oh she knows. Okay, she's good, she
got it.
Speaker 3 (01:00):
Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of Butters. I'm your host,
Brandon Butler, founder and CEO of Butter atl and today
we got the biggest M in the building. The biggest,
not the little, the biggest M, Miss Melissa Procter.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
How you doing about hilarious? I'm going, well, thank you
for having me.
Speaker 3 (01:16):
Oh always, always, you know, you're one of my favorite
people out here, you know, always they won you know,
I remember when when a certain person who won't be named,
said we need to connect, and you know, we had
a little breakfast one more and you know, and talked
about some stuff. And ever since then, you know, we've
been we've been building together.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
So one hundred, one hundred. I recall that vividly.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
Actually, you know, time flies look at that, it really does.
It's crazy. That was probably like what four or five
years ago.
Speaker 2 (01:41):
Almost I looked up.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
But I just celebrated ten years with the Atlanta Hawks
last month and I could not believe it.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
That's crazy. Congratulations, Thank you.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Now.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
Yeah. For those that don't know, Melissa is the CMO
of the Atlanta Hawks and also State Farm arena. Correct, Yes, correct,
So a lot of people don't understand that, right, A
lot of people don't understand that. You know, in your role,
you both oversee stuff for the Hawks and the arena,
So just give them a little context. It's not just
the games, but it's the concerts, the events, everything that
happens at the State Farm, right.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
So, I mean every marketing officer role in the NBA
is different, so they are not at all apps. Even
may go to another team and their title may be
the same, but their role is completely different. So ad
my role marketing really encapsulates all of our media general marketing, traditional,
non traditional social. It also incorporates all of our retail,
so we have a brand merchandizing team. We do all
(02:29):
of our retail in house, our eComm all of that
we call have Hawks Studios, which is our internal agency.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
So people always ask what agencies you work with? That
open was so great, and.
Speaker 1 (02:37):
I'm like, we may partner with production companies, but all
of the other work is done internally, so we don't
have an agency record. Hawk Studios is our internal which
is so dopey. We have our live entertainment and production team,
which is really game operations and so that's everybody from
harryt the Hawk, to the dance team, to the engineers
that are helping make sure all of our boards and
our center Hunger are working great, all of our production,
(02:58):
Big Tigger, the whole team, and so that's a really
really great team. Our community impact groups, all of our
community work and basketball programs, so camps, clinics, all that
good stuff is in that world. We created a new
department recently called the Entertainment Industry Relations, So it's all
around how we work. Especially being in Atlanta with the
home of entertainment, we found the need. There were so
many you know, requests and things and not just people
(03:20):
coming to games, but really what we do behind the scenes.
So all of that really makes up marketing in addition
to looking at the future of fandom and all the rest.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
And so we have not just.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
The Hawks but also the College Park Skyhawks, which is
another part of our business, as well as our two
K league. But within that people like, oh, see work
for the Hawks, and I'm like, we know over the
Hawks and stay for Marena. While the building is you know,
for the most part of rental space. So if you
are a promoter, you want to hey, I want to
do a show. There you come in. But we have
a marketing team that also supports our promoters, so they're
helping with you know, when WWE is.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
Here and they have oh we want wrestling, how do
we cross promotes?
Speaker 1 (03:54):
Well, we will see cool promotions between you know, the
Hawks and you know Trey Young doing something.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
And then how do we also.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
Reciprocate to help push ticket sales. It's all of that
all together, which is cool. It just makes it whether
there's never a dull day.
Speaker 3 (04:07):
Yeah, it sounds like it's low. How many how many
events in between events and games? How many you think
you all handle a year?
Speaker 1 (04:12):
I want to say the last count for this year
was one hundred and sixty, one hundred and seventy something
like that. Goodness across the board and that I mean
that doesn't count people who want to have meetings and
there or when we have sales events where they're coasting
you know, potential season ticket members and stuff like that.
That's games or you know, big shows.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
Yeah, So as a CMO for the Hawks and State
from Marina, like, what are what are some of your
overall like remits? Like what don't you set goals? How
do you set goals? Is around, attendance is around, you know,
revenue streams, Like what are some of the things that
you get measured on as a CMO at that level, I.
Speaker 1 (04:45):
Mean a number of things, and I think because their
role is so varied, it just depends on which department
overall across the board. Our ownership team day one when
they came on board, said we exist to be a
civic asset before we are a basketball team, and so
we look a lot at our work. We have a
community Impact Report we put together every year that highlights
all the work across the organization that we do for
the community and through our Hawks Foundation, and so that's
(05:05):
kind of like part one. Obviously, revenue for any business
is important. So yeah, for the most part, So most
people say, oh, CMOS, your driver is butts and seats,
and so obviously ticket sales is important. You know, how
we work with our corporate partners My team is sitting
with our corporate partnership team when they're looking at different
sponsors that are coming in, designing the pitches that we're
going out with and so executing out all of that
(05:27):
flawlessly is a big part of our agreement. But it's
how do we keep the brand relevant. You know, in
the city of Atlanta, there's so much to do. So
people look at like, oh, who are your competitors? You know,
it's at the praise at the Falcons, and I'm like, no,
it's Netflix, it's your couch, it's every restaurant in the
city of Atlanta. Because ultimately, we're a basketball team, were
also a great night out. You know, we really strive
to keep our experience top nots when you're coming into
(05:48):
the building, regardless win or lose.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
I don't control that.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
You know.
Speaker 1 (05:51):
I talk with other cmos all the time, and I'm like,
the difference in being a CMO of a sports team
is I don't control my product. If I worked at
you know, Pizza Huad, I can say, hey, this ingredient
is in right now. Let's you know, we can do
taste tests and focus groups and decide what the product
would be best in order to sell basketball operations and
I are good friends, but I make no I have
no claim. People like who we signed it. I'm like,
(06:12):
I am not the one that's not me. And so
because of those reasons, we can really focus on the
brand and the experience and that's.
Speaker 2 (06:18):
What we do.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
Yeah, I mean, y'all do a lot of work and
like tying into culture, especially in Atlanta, And we always
kind of talk about, you know, brands that tap into culture,
you know, are always more authentic. They make stuff happen.
But to your point, since you all can't control the
product on the field or on the court, like what
kind of do you use for inspiration around those different
ideas and activations, you know, beyond just what's happening at
the game.
Speaker 1 (06:39):
Yeah, I mean, our brand, Mantra, has been true to Atlanta.
And when I started ten years ago, I came in
as a VP of Branch Strategy to help really define that,
like who do we stand for?
Speaker 2 (06:47):
What do we exist for?
Speaker 1 (06:48):
And we defined our target audience's next generation Atlantans. And
so we recognize that since nineteen ninety four there was
a little bit of a drop off in Hawk's relevance
to the city. Everyone said, what happened in ninety four
we traded Dominique Wilkins, And there's literally generations of people
who are like.
Speaker 2 (07:03):
Oh man, the Hawks, what are y'all doing?
Speaker 1 (07:06):
And so when we came on board, myself, Steve coohonan
our CEO came on board and brought me on board
to help with the brand strategy. Did a ton of research,
he says, you know what, we realized that we missed
generations after that happened, and so now it's all about
generational fan building. How do we look at building the
team for the next generation. So if I say that
you know you came from New York, doesn't matter what
I do. I can't make you a Hawks fan. You
(07:27):
go either love the Knicks, you clean orange and blue,
and that's just what it is. However, if you moved
to Atlanta level, which a lot of people have now
at a ten times, you're going to settle here, You'll
have a kid here. I want to be the team
for your kid. We first started how do we do that?
It was when we had those feather patterns, when old
didas jerseys. How do we become the coolest team? If
you're playing NBA two K, so like, oh wow, they
(07:48):
got a feather pattern on our court.
Speaker 2 (07:49):
That looks cool.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
I might not even be a Hawks fan, but I
like what they're doing getting all the dope artists that
are just coming out, like Who's Next?
Speaker 2 (07:56):
And so for us, it was super intentional.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
I remember when we launched it Jersey people over thirty
were like, oh, this is garbage.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
We don't like it, and I'm like, great, it wasn't
for you.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
Wasn't for you.
Speaker 2 (08:05):
We intentionally made this not for you.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Obviously, we've evolved a ton since then and gone, you know,
to a look that I think is really classic but
can work both ways as well as Nike designing or
city edition program that allows us to be flexible every year.
But for us, it's all around really engaging that next generation.
So the connection to the culture is really through that
looking at what's happening. When we did Tender Night back
in the day, it was like, what's relevant today? Tender
(08:28):
all right? Had we bring that experience into the real world,
and so we're constantly looking at ways to do that.
Last year it was only fans we had to talk
about the Ncason Tournament.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
We made this the only fans spot.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
With Harry the Hawks, and I tell everybody I got
fired two hundred times and re hired two hundred and
one times that day after it hit TMZ.
Speaker 2 (08:44):
It was a whole situation. But that's really what we
strive to do.
Speaker 3 (08:47):
I mean, and when you're doing stuff like that. It's
always interesting because I think, you know, I see it
on the gency side a lot, right. It's like, you
come up with these big ideas, you want to get
it done, but there's always people sometimes on the inside
of the organization that don't get it and maybe a
little hesitant to it, right, And so I always say,
it's really important to have good advocates on the other
side of the table that understand what you're doing, to
kind of see the bigger picture, like how do you
(09:08):
work through those kinds of situations again, how do you
get people, you know, not to freak out too much.
We say I got this idea about OnlyFans, Well they definitely.
Speaker 1 (09:16):
First of all, some people didn't know what only fans was,
so let's start there. But you know, I think it
really starts at the top and having a leader in
Steve Cooden that is creative and visionary but is also
understanding of culture and how to how to get things done.
And so as that as an example, the brief was
the n Season Tournament has now been created by the NBA.
No one knows what that means, and there are all
(09:36):
these interviews with players Tyber like.
Speaker 2 (09:38):
Oh, I don't know what that is. Are you excited
for it? What is it? You know? And so we said, well,
how do we cut through the clutter?
Speaker 1 (09:43):
So the league was doing their own marketing, which they
do nationally, and so the brief was cut through the
clutter to let fans know that the NCAS and tournament
is coming and then get them to learn about it
and sell some ticket.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
Cool.
Speaker 1 (09:53):
So when I gave that to Hawk Studios and our
creative team, the only fans idea came out, and that
was the one idea that everyone was like, oh, this
is crazy, like this cuts through the club that does
exactly what the brief stated. So they came up with
the idea, you know, shot something and I had to
be the one to deliver it, obviously represented from my team,
and I was like all right, So he got to
know how to pitch it.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
And the very first time we watched it, it was like.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
Okay, huh, don't know how this will land. And it
was great because at the same time it was this
is definitely cutting through the clutter in a very different way.
And so we had conversations internally and kudos to Steve.
It was like, let me make sure that we can
bring everybody along with us. So we shared with ownership,
we shared with our entire executive leadership team, and had
(10:37):
conversations about it. How people felt understanding. Some people doesn't
find the humor. Some people were like, what's only fans?
You know, it was a different thing ultimately, even going
to Adam Silver because the irony is when we dropped
that video, the team was playing in Mexico City and
our CEO was sitting next to Adam Silver and so
the people are asking him about this video. So we
needed to make sure that everyone was aware. But when
(10:59):
we had those conversations, were like, you know what, we're
going to do it. And the one thing that I
was very proud of is I said, you know, if
we don't do it, we're going to hurt our culture
because we have a team of really young creatives who
have big ideas and to what you said, it can
be disheartening, like you're not going to come with the
big ideas over and over again if it gets killed
every time, right, And so I said, you know, if
we don't at least put it out there, it's going
(11:19):
to hurt the culture because they fulfill the brief And
that was the ask, and I think kind of the
combination of just understanding and tally and being willing to
take risks, which a lot of people are not willing
to do. I had other CMO from NBA teams and like,
how did y'all how did you get that through? Like
what did you how did that work? We could never
and that really made me proud to know that we're
working for an organization that's willing to say, hey, you
(11:40):
know what, we'll try it. And it was great, then
it wasn't, then it was and it wasn't. But overall,
I think for us, it was probably one of the
biggest lessons and like things that our team like congratulates
us on. They're like, thank you for being willing to
support us in doing something that was different.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
Yeah, And I mean, you know, it's also interesting because
it takes building that culture up. I mean, my guess
is the San Antonio Spurs probably wouldn't jump into an
only fans night, right, And.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
Every market is different. So it's also when there send
in your market. You know, in Atlanta, we have a
lot of creativity flexibility.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
What's been some of your other favorite you know, events
or promotions that y'all have done, Like, I know that
one sticks out, but has it been your favorite or
has it been another one? You just think it's just
been amazing from end to end.
Speaker 1 (12:22):
I mean I always say my absolute favorite was what
we did with Doctor King for our City Edition uniforms.
And for me, it was personally my favorite because I'd
been with the Hawks maybe three or four years and
I got promoted to CMO and the first meeting that
I had was with Nike because they were talking about
the City Edition program and they're like, hey, how do
we You know, we're about three or four years out
(12:43):
from the time that the uniform drops when they're having
these meetings, So it has to be something evergreen, can't
be trendy, can't be something that's you know, hot today
because by the time you go to production and timelines
at Nike and delivery, three years would have passed. And
so you know, my idea said, you know, we do
something great every year for MLKDA to honor the legacy
of Doctor King, but I'd love to do it for
(13:04):
more than a day, So is there any way that
we could do that? And they're like, well, you know,
they work with the King of State every year around MLKDA.
Speaker 2 (13:12):
They said, well, you'd have to get the estate on board.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
So I built a relationship with the head of attorney
for the estate, who we were now great friends. So
we worked a lot together in that, and then we
had to get the NBA on board. We had to
get the Players Association on board. And so by getting
all those parties together on the line and Nike working
with us on the design, by the time we finished it,
it was like we knew we had something special.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
Yea.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
Even our ownership was like, whatever we need to do,
like we'd love this idea. And so when we designed it,
we had no idea what was going to happen in
the summer of twenty twenty. There was also a lot
on just timing, so it was like, oh, it's come
out twenty twenty twenty one, Like oh, okay, you know,
it's a couple of years covid on nobody's mind. So
the fact that it was George Ford Covid all these
things at one time, Black Lives matter signs everywhere. And
(13:56):
then the teams were in the bubble. The Hawks were
in the bubble, but the NBA was playing in the bubble.
And that's when we launched it on with T and
T on air. It became so galvanizing, like people who
aren't even Hawks fans were like, I love that jersey
so much. So I got a call from the Pope
who ushed out and they were like, hey, like, you know,
the Pope is really inspired by the Doctor King one
(14:18):
of his one of his inspirations. He loves what the
NBA has been doing. Would you be willing to send
him a jerky? Absolutely?
Speaker 2 (14:26):
What can we do?
Speaker 1 (14:26):
So, working with our partners at UPS, we were able
to send him one and even the images of that.
This looks so crazy to me, but to know that
an idea that came out of your head of like,
oh this could be cool could end up becoming that,
And I think what took it a step further, which
is probably why.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
I'm most proud of it.
Speaker 1 (14:42):
As we also decided at the time we did a
lot of work with Doctor King, with the family, and
it was their desire was to help educate the next
generation of Atlantan's our target audience on the legacy of
Doctor King makes sense. This is a perfect partnership and
so because of what we said, you know, the last
work that he was doing was kind of the Poor
People's Movement, How do we look at noomic parody and
empowerment for people of color. So we decided that every
(15:04):
single jersey that we sold, we were going to donate
one hundred percent of our profit to entrepreneurs, and it
ended up being the Women's Entrepreneurship.
Speaker 2 (15:12):
Initiative of Atlanta.
Speaker 1 (15:14):
So I love the idea that, you know, professional men's
basketball team is donating money to women entrepreneurs to help
create the next generation of business people to drive our
community forward. And we did that and then fortunately the
team played the best that ever had since it's been
in Atlanta in them Eastern Conference finals. And so now
we keep the center court in the arena on permanent
display right by our hawkshop.
Speaker 2 (15:35):
We have a frame jersey there.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
Along with a picture of the Pope and kind of
the story of all that happened, but the combination of
like community and culture and you know, religion if we're
going to bring the pope in and all of that,
as well as winning because team performance matters, Like I
don't think we could have crafted a better story, and
it was something that was it was written well before
we got here.
Speaker 3 (15:55):
No, it's interesting because I mean I haven't done a
ton of researching since some of the other city day
you know, jerseys and stuff like that. But I do
think Atlanta, especially with our history of culture and just
all these things like that was a perfect moment and
the court like the maze and I remember had to
stay glass element to it, and you know, the black jerseys.
But at the same time, you know, kind of one
of my definitions of culture is kind of the tension
between what's old and what's new. And I think, you know,
(16:18):
y'all did a really good balance with it right there.
But I got to be honest, the more we do stuff,
I do love those old red you know, Hawks retro
jerseys sometimes, Like how do y'all balance that, especially knowing
that you know, even though you're going after this younger
audience and you know, the kids of like, you know,
these next generation fans, Like, how do you kind of
give those subtle nods back to you know, the old
Atlanta or you know, again, those retro jerseys that people
(16:40):
I think it's really come back in style now too.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
Yeah, well we always sell them, so they're always available
in the arena. And the NBA actually has restrictions on
when teams can bring them back. So it has to
be all a big anniversary, either a zero or a
ten year or a five year or something like that.
So if you're retiring of players jersey or something like that,
you're able to bring it back for those reasons. So
it's not so much hey, we really like that, let's
just do it this year and the same thing and
(17:04):
has to be thought out well in advance, and so
we're fans of it too, even so much we're looking
at ways that we can incorporate some of that into
our design language as we move forward.
Speaker 2 (17:12):
But we never abandoned it.
Speaker 1 (17:14):
And to be honest, even from talking about those feather
pattern jerseys that we had five years after we launched it,
we were like, we want to go back closer to
the core. So even the colors of our core uniforms
now that we have kind of that golden ride red,
it was very focused on that nik era of Hawks
that a lot of people love. So it is a
little bit of blending the old with the new, but
designing something that's classic. When we look back at our
(17:36):
history of our uniforms, we changed a lot, like do
different ownership teams through different eras. Before the team was
in Saint Louis and it came here. We had that
bright green pistol picha like we've gone. When I look
back at it, I was like, wow, we did a
lot of different things. So when our current ownership team
came on board, we said, you know, we want to
design something that this team's going to win a championship
in from now in years to come, because there are
(17:57):
some teams that do have legacy brands that don't change.
Are one of them, I think the next or one
of the Lakers like and the Celtics. Yeah, those uniforms
are pretty much the same standard. They may make nuanced changes,
and as an organization, historically we just haven't been. So
what we've designed now is kind of the blend of
the old and the new in a classic timeless way
that we believe we're going to keep, you know, forever,
(18:17):
so we no longer have that going back and forth
kind of look.
Speaker 3 (18:33):
One thing too, I always appreciate about you, Melissa, is
just kind of your intentionality and how you talk about
different things, and how you talk about marketing and branding.
But one thing I'd love to understand too, especially for
the folks that are listening, is how does a person
or how did you kind of get to that CMO level.
I think for a lot of people that's kind of
there's like a glass ceiling you kind of hitting your career,
and I know I bumped my head against it a
couple of times and was finally kind of able to
(18:54):
break through it through different means. But you know, how
did you kind of make that jump? Like what was
kind of the requirements of going from doing the brand
as you work to kind of making that jump to
actually getting into the C suite? Man?
Speaker 2 (19:03):
You know what the biggest jump I took was was getting.
Speaker 1 (19:06):
Laid off, because real talk, if I didn't get laid off,
I don't know if I'd be here, you know. But
to be honest, I've always been driven by passion, Like
I don't I still don't know what I want to
be when I grew up, and I say it all
the time, but I genuinely never was like, I'm going
to be a CMO one day, Ronie.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
I love marketing.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
I liked brand strategy and I liked it as an
intern at Turner, so I went to grad school in
London to learn a little bit more about it. But
I was like I'll just do brand strategy. I'd be
a brand manager somewhere. I love the idea of building
a brand as a foundation and having other things come
on top of that.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
And I remember when I was at T and T.
I was like, what does branding even mean?
Speaker 1 (19:39):
And a woman Jennifer Dorian, who's one of my calling
my friend tour it's a friend of de Mensal.
Speaker 3 (19:45):
I still's a.
Speaker 2 (19:45):
Friends are now?
Speaker 1 (19:47):
She was like, you know, imagine T and T is
a television network, but we had to build a brand.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
We know, drama, and you have all these.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
Shows on top of it, which are kind of the products.
But then imagine you want to take T and T
and put it in the Atlanta airport. What does a
TNT store look like?
Speaker 2 (19:58):
What do you sell? What does this sme? I was like,
my creative mind was like blown. I'm like that is cool.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
So the idea of being able to craft that creatively
for me, and I grew up as an artist. It
was another way to take my art creativity or ideas
and apply it in a different way.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
And so that was it for me.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
And so I ended up staying at Turner, got jobs
and brand strategy. Soone's tapping Hey, you're interested in this
business strategy where with cartoon network and adult swims Like,
all right, cool, I'll take I'll learn about that too.
Because I didn't have a it has to be this
And I think that's probably the biggest lessons. I've talked
to people all the time and I'm like, I want
to be a CMO and I'm like why like and
the why is always either the perception of power. I
(20:34):
want to make decisions. I want to decide what the
strategy is. I was like, I have people who run
brand strategy or marketing strategy.
Speaker 2 (20:40):
I don't get to decide. Now.
Speaker 1 (20:41):
I have to manage the people who are doing the work.
So it's a very different world. But ultimately the higher
up that I got and I think I was last
VP of Communications and marketing and content for a digital
health and wellness startup that no one's ever heard of
called Upwave while at Turner, and I love that job
because I got to learn about digital and you know,
(21:01):
really working on building out an app from scratch and
making content and putting on HLN. And then we were
the last business started and when a new CEO came in,
we were first business cut and I was eight months
pregnant with my daughter, and I was like, hey, you
started as an intern.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
We all love you. You ain't got no job, and
I didn't.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
I couldn't worry about it because I had to have
my daughter, so you know, I had a little bit
of severance, but not enough to last for Maternity League.
But to be honest, I wasn't worried, but I didn't
know what I was going to do next. And I
was a ballgirl for the Miami Heat in high school,
just mopping up sweat. When I moved to Atlanta as
an intern, I made no money, so I called them
all Boston the Heat, you know, anyone at the Hawk.
So I ended up being a ball girl for the
(21:39):
Hawks my first year in Atlanta. I think, oh two,
the other All Star Game was here because I got
to work on the court for that. And I never
imagine going back to basketball because in my mind, I
evaal that now was an entertainment. And literally a good
friend of mine invited me to go with her to
the draft party at the Arena after I had my daughter.
Speaker 2 (21:55):
She was like, you ain't got no job. It's free,
you know, why don't you come?
Speaker 1 (21:59):
And I'm like, all right, So I go to this
draft party as a fan jeans and a T shirt,
and I run into Steve Conan, who was a mentor
of sorts while I was at Turner, but I never
worked for him before, I'd worked for like multiple people.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
Under him, and he saw me.
Speaker 1 (22:12):
He knew that I mopped up sweat at those Hawks
games because he was sitting courtside and would see me.
And we worked together on some big branch strategy projects
while I was at Turner. One was a rebredding court
TV to True TV, and a couple of projects for
Turner classic movies and things. He's like, Hey, I know
you love basketball, I know you love branding. You know
I might need your help in building a brand. Would
you mind sitting in on some meetings run the process
(22:33):
of redesign in this jersey? And I was kind of like, heck, yeah,
all day for free, like no issue. So he walks
me around that draft party and introduces me to every
senior level executor for the Hawks while I was there,
and I was like, in my mind, I'm like I'm
not dressed for this, Like I have been a job interview.
I just came, you know, to kick get at the
draft party, but every single one of them were like,
(22:54):
we've heard so much about you, we can't wait for
you to start. And I was so confused, I'm like, start,
what what are we starting? So when he asked me,
I guess he had mentioned, oh, you know someone who
was in creative and can kind of help us. They
didn't have a perspective of a woman or a woman
of color anywhere on that team. And so sitting with
the then head of marketing and the agency they were
working with on the design was such a great process.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
I was just doing it.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
Then maybe ten meetings in, he was like, I think
you should consult Would you mind consulting. I'd love your
perspective on, you know, designing this brand strategy.
Speaker 2 (23:24):
And I was like, cool, yeah, I'm consulting. Why not?
I got time? I got nothing but time.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
And then you know, by September of that year, I
came on board as a VP of brand Strategy, and
so very quickly we had our major racial crisis. We
remember back in the day with previous ownership, we had
to onboard a new ownership team. We'll go through the
process of selling the team. Onboarding a new team, no
one knew how to do that, so I figured it out.
So I ended up becoming the SVP of business strategy.
Just in doing filling gaps. It was like I was
(23:53):
kind of a chief of staff. I was writing speeches,
I was helping manage digital agencies.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
Whatever was needed.
Speaker 1 (23:58):
I'm like, hey, I got it Swiss army knife and
partnered with the whole organization. And then the reality was
one day he was like, hey, I want you to
be CMO. You know, we had worked and gotten new
ownership on board, We're about to open up. We were
about to start working with Amry on a practice facility
and start talking about redoing the arena. And so our
head of marketing was also the head of a creative
(24:19):
and he was pulled in different directions on those two things.
So the day to day tactic of marketing was kind
of it needed some love.
Speaker 2 (24:25):
And he was like, I love you to step in.
Speaker 1 (24:26):
You've worked in marketing, can you support And I was like, CMO,
I'm like me and I was like no, thank you,
And I turned it down actually multiple times, really because
I loved doing brand strategy.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
I was a team of one.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
It was really like being an internal consultant beginning to
work on all the cool stuff, and he asked again
and I was like, nah, I think I'm good. And
then it got to a point where he's like, all right, Melissa, look,
this is the job that we need right now. And
it was positioned in a way where I love I'm
very organized and detailed and also very creative, and so
they needed some operational help and it was campaign management
(25:00):
tools and I was like, oh.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
That's cool, I can do that. He was like, all right,
well you'll be CMO and.
Speaker 1 (25:04):
Do that and I was like, ah, you got me, gotcha.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
And I was like, well, why me?
Speaker 1 (25:09):
And it was the one question I asked and he's like,
you know what, my mantra has always been like I
just want to make dope shit. I'm here to make
That's what I'm That's what we do. And he was like,
it's because of that. You aren't driven by most things
that people are driven by that want this role.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
It was a perception of power.
Speaker 1 (25:25):
It's understanding that you know in sports doesn't pay historically
as well as you know other Fortune five hundred companies,
So you're not not just about money. Like the reasons
why you are great at what you do is for this,
You're great with people. You're great at leading teams, and
I want that energy in this role. And I was
kind of like, Okay, I could never have imagined that
seven years I'd still be in the position. And the
(25:47):
role has grown and evolved tremendously since then because I
was taking over a really small piece of the team.
But for people who are looking to get in that role,
I think it's so much more around the curiosity of
looking at how to fill those gaps. If I didn't
take that business strategy year old with cartoon networking Adult Swim,
I don't know if I would have had the p
and L inside of knowledge to help lead parts of
this organization. You know, creative. There's some people that come
(26:09):
up through creative, some are finance. There's all different ways,
you know, to get to this seat. But starting out
as an artist, I was, you know, an art school
in Miami, growing up drawing, painting, went.
Speaker 2 (26:18):
To Wake Force at an art scholarship.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
It's very rare that you find someone who's in creative
that has the ability to kind of I call it
the superpowers, but being both creative and strategic right, and
that is incredibly necessary in this job because there are
no two days that are the same. And so I'm
always questioning wh people say I want to be a SAMO.
I'm like why, because now why really matters because if
it's about getting the title, if I came into it
(26:41):
trying to become a CEMO, I probably would have made
very different decisions within my career. I would have taken
on jobs that I thought I'd have to take in
order to get there. And the reality was I had.
It was like a ladder. Career path of mine was
a jungle gym all day long. I was going left, right, back, front,
different places didn't matter to me.
Speaker 3 (26:57):
Yeah, well, you know you can always connect the dots
looking backwards is what I can say, right, And like
when you look at it, you nah, when you do
you look at it, you know what if I wouldn't
been together, if I wouldn't have done this thing, then
maybe this thing wouldn't have happened. And like you can,
it makes sense when you look backwards at it. To
your point, you can't always, you know, forecast it.
Speaker 2 (27:14):
You can't.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
And the irony was, I remember when I was a
turner thinking about taking that digital startup job. I went
to all my mentors and I talked to Steve, who
was like a mentor to me, and he said, don't
take that job. And I was like every mentor I
had said, don't take that job, and I took the
job and ultimately.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
I got hired. I did it, I loved it. I
got laid off.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
And I later learned that Steve, when he left Turner,
because he was there as well, had a policy where
he couldn't take talent from Turner with him. So if
I didn't get laid off from the job that he
told me not to take not to take, I probably
couldn't even physically could not be in the role with
the Hawks. And so like I truly AMA believe that,
you know, women of faith, everything happens for a reason,
but that was like a major one to me.
Speaker 3 (27:53):
Yeah, And I mean even kind of going back, I
mean over the last ten years. I mean, we won't
get into it, but I remember when that whole transition
with Ship happened, I was actually working at the Agency
and we were doing a lot of work, you know,
with the Hawks on that whole situation, and I got
a chance to kind of work with Steve Cohan directly
on that and saw the kind of leader he was
and I could. I was definitely appreciative of just, you know,
his approach to everything. I think that was the first
(28:14):
time I really worked with somebody at his level that
kind of saw things in a very holistic way and
kind of understood, you know, culture, but had a lot
of intentionality behind it too. So I can totally see
how he could evolve you into that kind of role.
Speaker 2 (28:25):
Well yeh, yeh.
Speaker 1 (28:26):
He also has a vision for what he wants and
he was like, oh, yeah, you didn't know. I already
knew he knew from the from the beginning. But what
I what I also appreciate about working with him is
like he's also not afraid to say he doesn't know
what he doesn't know, and a lot of times at
c CEO level people never want to say I don't know,
and I'd be the main one. I'm like, look, you know,
help build me a sead of brains around this, like
(28:46):
how do we do this better? Or sometimes it even
comes to like can you be my cultural advisor? Like
I say, this is that the right thing to say?
Some people don't want to have those conversations, but I'm
appreciative that I can be. And it's also trust, you know,
built over years, considered things that I will say to
him and he'll be like, Okay, all right, got it.
You know check where I think it's just based on
(29:08):
our relationship over time and so having that sort of
leadership and you know, that's rare, and I try to
have the same with my team where I'm like, please
give me feedback, because ain't nobody perfect.
Speaker 3 (29:17):
As a woman in leadership too? Like, what's it been like?
Just as you've kind of navigated different elements of it?
My assumption is that a lot of this sports stuff
is kind of an old boys club in certain areas.
You know, I don't know how much basketball is compared
to you know, I really feel like football is probably
the way more, but I mean maybe they're equal. But
just especially as a black woman too, Like, what's that
process been like as you've had that role and had
to kind of institute some of these changes and ideas?
(29:39):
Is it you know it is there been friction? Has
there been challenges? And how did you kind of work
through those things?
Speaker 2 (29:44):
You know, I've seen it evolve.
Speaker 1 (29:45):
I remember when I was working for the heat when
I was in high school, and I remember every summer
in college I would go back and volunteer with the
Heat helping out draft free agency, and they're like a family,
Like I love them, I love their ownership.
Speaker 2 (29:56):
They're a really really great organization.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
There's a person working in scouting and I was putting
the there's skyting reports and I was doing something but
it wasn't efficient, and I was like, there's a better
way to do this, and so I made a suggestion.
Speaker 2 (30:06):
And I was told, you don't get paid to think.
You get paid to do what I tell you to do.
And I was like, huh, all right, check that ain't
gonna work. But I got it.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
But there were areas kind of like that where you know,
it wasn't overt just in terms of like, oh, you
know you're a woman, just sit down, shut up.
Speaker 2 (30:24):
It was never that, but I felt the energy.
Speaker 1 (30:27):
It's different on the basketball operations side than it is
on the business side. And I think the NBA has
done a tremendous job over even the ten years that
I've been with the Hawks of just make seeing that
change and evolving that business like from team presidents to
you know, coaches, assistant coaches obviously the w and all
the great things happening there. I definitely think there's an
evolution happening, and it's coming quickly in a way that's
(30:48):
super positive.
Speaker 2 (30:49):
But for me, I've always seen being a woman. To
see a black woman.
Speaker 1 (30:52):
Working in sports is my superpower because the one thing
you can't tell me about is what's relevant to women
or people of color. So, especially in the leadership role
with the Hawks, I do think there's being in Atlanta's
unfair to ask that question because I do think there's
a different perspective for people that live here and understand
who's coming to our games, what's happening, what's reltive. They
(31:14):
don't They're not listening to what's happened. They're not on Instagram,
they're not going outside like I see you outside. I
want to also live in the world. So I do
think that helps with that authenticity and being relevant, and
so I've always really proud of myself on that. Now
when I got promoted to be a CMO until the
story and is so interesting to me. But you're able
(31:34):
to park in the reserve parking area at the arena,
which is a big deal. If everybody knows, you know,
parking at arena, it's it's a thing.
Speaker 3 (31:41):
I've seen it.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
You see it so you can park in a reserve spot.
And during the day, I was heading over there to
a meeting. I had just gotten promoted, and I parked
my car. I was walking into the building at a
security guard stop and he's like, I'm sorry, man, you
can't park there. That's reserve for executives. And I was
just like okay, and I kept walking and he was like, ma'am,
I'm not to my badge. I was like to say,
like most of party literally says executive underneath it. And
(32:04):
he looked so confused. And I was wearing maybe some Jordans,
some sweats and sneakers, and I could see his mind
like like what, huh what. But for me, it was
like the best moment because I was changing the perception
of what a senior level executive looks like for an
NBA team, for that person. And I think every time
that I'm in a room where I'm able to let
my skills or my work speak, or I am presenting
(32:25):
and speaking, I think it changes the mentality.
Speaker 2 (32:27):
Of like oh oh, she knows, okay, she's good, she
got it.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
And so as a woman, I'm always trying to represent
not just for me, but everybody else.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
On my team.
Speaker 1 (32:36):
And so when I first started with the Hawks, had
just had my daughter. There were no lactation rooms. It
was not a very female friendly environment. They're actually women
that came to me when I first started and said,
thank you so much for being here. We've never seen
a woman in a VP or senior level role because
a lot of times women get promoted if they have
a kid, they either git demoted or they leave based
(32:56):
on the rigor of working in sport.
Speaker 2 (32:58):
And so I always give props to Steve because he
was like, Nope, I want you to be here.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
I want you to be able to use the family
room to take your daughter if you have to work
a game and you don't have child.
Speaker 2 (33:07):
Whatever.
Speaker 1 (33:07):
It is like, we wanted to make that environment. So
now that is our culture. But I think he had
to come in and really instill it. But I had
to check myself because sometimes I'm so chill, laid back, cool,
easy going that I forget that people don't just see me.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
It's like, oh, you're a list. Like no, you're a
woman in the senior role.
Speaker 1 (33:25):
And as an example, I had gotten a promotion and
I had a really small office that I loved because
it's facing my house and I can see traffic on
the way home, and Atlanta traffic is no joke. And
so I didn't want to move. And they had a
big corner office available. They're like, hey, you can move
into that office if you want, and I turned it
down like twice, and I have a history of doing that.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
I'm like, no, I'm good, all right, it's fine, But
I really liked my space.
Speaker 1 (33:51):
And I remember having a conversation with someone or like,
you know, there's no women in corner offices, and it
hit me and I was like, wow, by not taking
get you're sending a signal that that is not what
women and so it just really changed my perspective. I'm like, no,
I will not take notes in that meeting. Yes, I
want to sit in the middle of the the boardroom
and the table and not kind of shrink back. But
(34:13):
I think when you're more junior, it's really the experience
that kind of helps you get there. And so for me,
I've been able to grow and see that over time.
So now I'm telling my team, I'm like, hey, young lady,
you sit right here, don't sit back there like you
You've come up and I want to help give people
the same knowledge that I had to get, you know,
kind of overtime myself, asking asking questions times when I
(34:33):
needed help, and I'm like everyone else has an admin
or you know, help, why don't I have one?
Speaker 2 (34:39):
And I want my boss. I'm like, hey, is it possible?
He's like, sure, you never asked, and I was like, man,
this is crazy. But now I understand.
Speaker 3 (34:47):
You know, a big part of luck and you know,
success is always say it's asking the right combination of
really smart questions, stupid questions and obvious questions. Yeah, you
know you got to you you can't have you let
your ego get in way of that, Like you know what,
I'm asking this stupid question or maybe it's just stupid
to y'all, but I'm gonna get it outcause I didn't
even't know right.
Speaker 1 (35:07):
Right, And most times people are like, oh, wow, you
know that should come with it. I'm like, people don't
know what to until you tell them, right, you know.
I mean, And it's not about being annoying or repetitive.
It's like sometimes it's just saying it.
Speaker 3 (35:28):
How do you feel about all this amazing stuff that's
happening in the w NBA. Now, I mean you know,
we had an amazing College of you know, women's tournament
a couple of year ago. W NBA season. W NBA
is getting so much you know, credit and visibility now,
like things are starting to happen, and I can really
see that starting to trend and uptick. Like, how excited
are you about that in comparison with the stuff what
you're working on right now too?
Speaker 2 (35:48):
I mean, I love it.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
You know, I know that there's some NBA teams that
own their w team. We are not one of those teams.
To me, that's super exciting when you can blend it too.
I was talking with the young lady that's the head
of the Valkyries, Georgia Golden State's new WNA team they
are launching next season, but because they're owned by the
same team, they're doing such amazing things, like they're camps
and clinics, they're giving boys WNBA jerseys and girls NBA
(36:10):
jerseys because it shouldn't matter, you know what I mean.
And I love that just in the idea of taking
the perceptions way because I think before it was like, oh,
that's just this, that's just that, and so having it
being elevated on a national scale is awesome. I'm all
about parody, and so I look at salaries, I look
at what executives are making, and that still is not
(36:33):
where it needs to be. But I think obviously they're
taking large steps forward having teams be able to fly
on charters. I think for the w like, that's a
big deal, you know, But I think the more people
can support, and that's literally buy a ticket, watch a
game on TV because a lot of people are like, oh, yeah,
that's great, but it won't grow until they get the
eyeballs because that's at the end of the day, it's
all about the revenue, and so that's really important. While
(36:55):
they got a bigger TV deal, the NBA's TV though,
got even bigger, and so I love it and I
don't want it to be a blip because of Caitlin Clark.
I don't want it to be like, Okay, well it's
going to write time. I don't think that's the case
at all. But in order for that to continue growth,
I'm like, hey, buy a ticket, come out to a game,
watch a game, because that's that's how it's going to
keep growing.
Speaker 3 (37:14):
Yeah, and it's got we got to support that thing.
I mean, you know, the Dreams sold out some games
that they sold out season tickets this year, which was amazing.
So you can kind of see the trends starting to happen,
and yeah, my hope is that it continues. It just
makes the game even more exciting. Like, what are some
other trends that you kind of noticed or you're you know,
you're kind of being like, you know what, let's keep
down on the radar some other things that you know,
helped the Hawks and stay from marena, kind of stay
(37:34):
ahead of the culture and be innovative.
Speaker 2 (37:37):
I mean, there's so many things for us.
Speaker 1 (37:41):
We talked like and asking about the state from arena side,
we thought in COVID, when the touring industry went from
poppingto disappeared, that you know, okay, people may start coming
back to events, but they came back with a vengeance
and which we were just talking about in one music fest,
like the idea of festivals like peace, people want to
be together, and I mean, and COVID is so far
(38:03):
back removed now, but we always kind of look at
that as the mark because it was like we're up
and then we're way down and then it's shot straight up.
And so currently even with the usher residency that we
have at the arena, you know, blocks of shows doing
more of those things. While he did that in Vegas
super successful, like oh can you do that on tour
and arenas? Currently we're in the process of doing that,
Like that's a trend that like I never really saw
(38:23):
that as a trend, and I'm like, oh, yeah, but
it is. So we're looking at what happens in three
years from now, does it start to decline? You know,
looking at the economy, looking at all these things, and
so for our business, consistently focused on what happens in
that space. How do we get more creative with types
of shows and events you see big podcasts or major
podcasts being able to use you know, big venues like
(38:44):
arenas to draw crowds based on all of that. So
I'm consistently looking at Influencers are a big one right now.
And people have always obviously used influencers in multiple ways.
How do you sell a ticket or make it transactional?
But for us, it's about building relationship over time and
incorporating them in different ways within our game, presentation, within
our show, within our business, a lot of different things.
(39:05):
I'm always keeping my eyes and ears open. Obviously everyone's
talking about AI and I'm like, yep, sure, yep, that too,
for all in all the ways, for all the things.
But I have a young lady on my team who's
focused on building the building out research to help us
get smarter on the future of fans because we've learned
a lot and that those are kind of the trends
that we're focused on. Internally, the future of fandom is
(39:25):
going to be very different. And one example we talk
about is millennial parents. So when you were a kid,
if your parent was a fan of something, they made
you a fan of it, like you didn't have a choice,
Like you're going to be a fan of other falcons
if you like by like football, this is what you're
gonna do. Millennial parents grew up with the power of choice,
so now they're giving their kids like, oh, you know,
my parents made me do that. You can be a
(39:45):
fan of whatever you want. You don't like it, it's okay,
we'll find something else for you. And that has changed
the number of kids. And there's also a lot of
research that shows the number of kids that play a
sport have a higher propensity of becoming fans of that
sport down the line, but there's been a de line
and use sport participation, I think because you're up against
an iPad and everything else. And so we're constantly looking
(40:06):
at how do we grow our basketball camps and clinics.
How do we find opportunities to do drop in at
STEM camps or art camps or whatever else to give
them a basketball exposure experience so that we can ultimately
build that next generation Hawks fan with those you know,
the difference in youth now, I really wonder so much
of what sports looks like ten fifteen years from now
(40:27):
for our for our kids, because it's a different world
and the desire isn't necessarily the same. So while there
are things like cosm I don't know if you've seen it,
or like the sphere, you can go and watch games
in these really amazing venues versusperience, right, Yeah, that's fantastic.
Some people may love that more than come in to
a game, you know, suppose if you can get it
for cheap and whichever. And so it's looking at how
(40:48):
do we partner with some of those things, how do
we get inspiration from it, but really looking at evolving
what we do because we can't just stay stagnant, do
the same thing over and over again.
Speaker 3 (40:58):
Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, you know, I have two kids.
I even watched my son, he plays baseball. He's starting
to get into basketball and stuff like that. I put
a basketball goal up in the backyard, you know, two
years ago, just to see what would happen.
Speaker 1 (41:07):
You know.
Speaker 3 (41:08):
He goes up there every once in a while. She's
a couple jump shots. But yeah, there's just a lot
of challenges even as a parent, of trying to you know,
get the practices and get them over there. I think
that's the part where I get it, you know, frustrated
a lot of times personally. Right, It's like I want
him to do more things in sports. But between doing
a million things myself and then trying to get there
and get him to practice.
Speaker 1 (41:25):
And the world is in so much you can be like, hey,
get on your bike and go to school and do
that because you know safety, and it's it's a different generation. Yeah,
and we're always looking at like, all right, so because
of that, what do we do differently?
Speaker 3 (41:37):
Yeah. I actually I ended up coaching his tee ball
team last year because of that, and I was like,
look y'all, like, look, I'm just out here because I
want him to have a good experience.
Speaker 2 (41:46):
You know, that's wonderful.
Speaker 3 (41:47):
So he's going to be the star player too, just
so you know. But if anybody else got something to say,
let me know. You meet y'all new star player. I'm
the coach. It was and we had a good season.
You know, he enjoyed it. Story about it. He said, Man,
that's one of my favorite memories.
Speaker 2 (42:02):
No, that's awesome.
Speaker 3 (42:05):
You go sot me as she didn't. How does as
a parent, then, how do you balance with all this
different stuff? I mean, you got a million one thing's
going on. You got one hundred plus events. You got
basketball concerts, you know, not just at the venue but
at school probably with other events. How do you banage
on that?
Speaker 2 (42:20):
You know?
Speaker 1 (42:20):
I tell everybody you know, I love being the same
of the Hawks, but being a mom is my number
one job. And so you know, single mom. Daughter's ten
years old. Marley is amazing, and she is super creative.
I feel like I gave virtual a senior citizen because
she's like really responsible and like cooks, and it's very
into anime and art, which I was as well, so
that that brings me joy. But she hates basketball, has
(42:42):
no desire to come to a game, and I'm like,
you've been going since you were two months old, Like,
you know, come on, she just wants to eat then leave.
So I find that I really pride myself on kind.
I call it work life harmony. Sometimes you got to
work a whole lot of other times, I'm like, hey,
I took her to Japan this summer because she loves
is anime and wanted to really learn more about the culture.
Speaker 2 (43:02):
Having the ability to do that or.
Speaker 1 (43:03):
Taking the time to do that is where I put
my priority. So I said it a year in advance.
I'm like, hey, all, this is what's happening.
Speaker 3 (43:11):
Cool.
Speaker 1 (43:11):
And I find on a regular basis, like yesterday it
was Halloween, she didn't have school. I was working from home,
the whole trick or treat thing or talking about it
like that was what I was going to do.
Speaker 2 (43:19):
First.
Speaker 1 (43:19):
She comes to the office, hangs out with me. Everyone
knows her because they feel like they've seen her grow up.
But that was a big part of it. Even to
the young lady that mentioned to me, like, oh, you know,
and women have kids, they leave or get demoted, I'm like,
I'm she coming with me, and we were getting promoted,
and so I want to show that so that others
know that it's okay if your mom be a mom.
(43:40):
And I think COVID kind of put down a lot
of those barriers, invisible barriers, and I think corporate some
corporate people had like, oh, no, I can't show too
much of my personal life.
Speaker 2 (43:48):
And I'm like, go, this, this is this is the
biggest part of it.
Speaker 3 (43:51):
We get it now.
Speaker 2 (43:51):
We all.
Speaker 1 (43:54):
So I'm I'm managing girl Scouts and it was cross country,
and you know, I want to be at every meet.
Sometimes I can't make it. There has to be a
big situation or reason why I can. But for the
most part, I'm there and she knows that. And I
think just having a strong relationship with her to me
is most important.
Speaker 3 (44:11):
That's dope. That's dope. Well, Melissa, this has been a
great conversation. I appreciate you pulling up before we get
out of here. I like to ask people if there
was a Melissa Proctor billboard somewhere in Atlanta and you
could put any message you want to put on that billboard, Oh,
what message would you put on your Melissa proct The
billboard bonus points if you know where you would want
(44:32):
to put.
Speaker 2 (44:32):
It, but you can't just throw that at me.
Speaker 3 (44:35):
That's would you put on it? Would you put a
piece of advice? You put a quote? Would you put
who was it? Would you say? Make dope? Shit?
Speaker 2 (44:41):
Like that's so funny because that's where I was going.
Speaker 1 (44:44):
We actually have it up in our offices on the wall.
The creative team put it up there, and no, I
don't think they know where it came from. I'm like,
you probably can't curse on the billboard either, so huh, well,
I would want it on our corner board selfishly, because
it's the biggest board in the southeast right there to
tail up at part driving Marrieta talk about that Hudson girl.
Because it goes around around here. It does a lot
(45:05):
of things, and so I would put it there for sure.
Speaker 2 (45:09):
What would it say? You know, I love fun and
good energy.
Speaker 1 (45:13):
So when I was born my name was Melissa Bree
McGee mmmm, so in college everyone called me that's what
it would be.
Speaker 2 (45:19):
So I would probably have a picture of me my daughter.
It would just say mmm. And if people knew, they'd
be like, oh, it's so crazy.
Speaker 1 (45:28):
All she got it a little board, But I figured
that would be like amazing and hilarious all at the
same time.
Speaker 3 (45:34):
Well, that that would cap it off perfectly. Those who know.
It's like, if you know, you know, if you know
you know, if you don't know, ask.
Speaker 2 (45:40):
Right underneath it, I would probably put make dope.
Speaker 3 (45:41):
Shit for yo. Melissa, Thank you so much for pulling up.
Speaker 2 (45:45):
Thanks.
Speaker 3 (45:46):
This has been an amazing conversation. Y'all. Make sure y'all
go out there and support the Hawks. Y'all make sure
y'll go out to these events at State Farm Marina.
And please y'all don't don't be calling up asking for tickets.
Speaker 2 (45:56):
Okay, Oh yeah, don't don't don't.
Speaker 1 (45:58):
Oh and check out my book too, girl, CMO almost forgot,
but yeah, I wrote it for my daughter, So that's
that's that's a big one, anyone. In all the gems,
everything that I learned, I wrote in there for her,
So that that was a good one. Starting as a
ballgirls the CMO, well let's.
Speaker 3 (46:11):
Do it, you know, congratulations and everything, and uh, thank you.
That's the pot. Y'all we out you've been listening to
butteron nomics and I'm your host. Brandon Butler comments feedback.
Want to be a part of the show. Send us
an email today at Hello at butterdomics dot com. Butter
Nomics is produced in Atlanta, Georgia at iHeartMedia by Ramsey,
with marketing support from Queen and Nike. Music provided by
(46:32):
Mister Hanky. If you haven't already, hit that subscribe button
and never missed an episode, and be sure to follow
us on all our social platforms at butter dot a
t L. Listen to button Nomics on the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Host
Brandon Butler
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