May 2, 2023 • 40 mins
In this episode of “Inside the Oval” presented by Dignity Health, Nate Racela shared how he got to the 49ers, the importance of networking, the nuances of partnership sales in the sports industry and more.
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Speaker 1 (00:11):
Welcome to the Inside the Oval podcast presented by Dignity Health.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
I'm Hailey Jones and I'm Patty Kwan.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
And today we are joined by Partnerships sales manager Nate Rissala. Nate,
thank you so much for doing the podcast.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
Thank you for having me honored to be here. This
is going to be a lot of fun to start.
Speaker 4 (00:28):
What are your job responsibilities as a manager of partnership
sales for the forty nine Ers.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
Yeah, I would say that I engage and reach out
to companies that want to utilize the forty nine ers
as a marketing platform to solve numerous business objectives, right
whether that is through I guess in Layman's terms like
sponsorship right, like, it could be very cut and dry
(00:57):
like that where we're trying to put their logo like
on a sign But you know, we say partnerships because
we think that it's a little bit more integrated than that,
where for example, like SAP, yes, they have a ton
of signage in our building right now, but we also
utilize their software throughout all of our business subject or
our business operations and things like that.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
Since you've started working in partnerships, do you tend to
find that like partners that you've signed or you work
with a lot, like you actually are using their products,
like you have a brand affinity.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
I try to honestly, I'm drinking an aquafina right now,
you know. I try to wear Levi's whenever I can.
I think that's like the only pair of genes I
really like wear. But yeah, definitely have an affinity to
those brands. And it works both ways too, right because
in my position, I get told know a lot and
(01:54):
if a certain brand tells me no, they probably lost
a customer of that product, like at least six months
to a year.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
That's actually good. Leads me to a good question is
just how do you handle rejection?
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Yeah, no, that's a great question because our or at
least my role is very very different than what would
be like a traditional seller, right, like even in tech
sales or like ticket sales, right, you're expected to sell
a certain amount in a certain quarter, right, which is
three months for us. A partnership typically could take anywhere
(02:29):
from six to nine months, could be a year, could
be two years. That's not a lot of like deals
that are getting done, right. A ticket seller might be
required to sell ten season tickets in a certain week.
We would be lucky to get anywhere from four to
five in a year. So there's a lot of small
(02:52):
things that you have to just count as like wins
throughout the week, right, whether it's a really good outreach
email that you sent out that got a really good
reaction and got a meeting right, or you know, you
did really well on a pitch in terms of trying
to tie in your storytelling with how we align with
X brand and how they align with us.
Speaker 4 (03:13):
Right.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
So definitely have to get really granular to find those
moments because for every you know, one hundred emails, I'm
probably getting you know, five replies, and out of those
five replies, maybe there are you know, one to two
meetings that come out of it. So it's a very
kind of volume based thing from that standpoint.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
You have experience also in partnership services. How do partnership
sales and services differ.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
Yeah, so we actually call it activation now, but partnership
activation is essentially they execute everything that is sold within
a partnership deal. So in my role now, I go
find an X company they agree to do a partnership
with us. I then work with an activation manager to
(04:04):
make sure that everything that I sold to them is
getting executed. So they're really like the boots on the
ground and the one that kind of ties not only
that certain partner together with us, but also internal departments,
if that makes sense, right. So, our activation team is
consistently reaching out to stadium ops, marketing community relations to
(04:28):
try to get everyone on board to get this certain
at marketing asset or activation kind of executed and done.
And also in the activation world presents an opportunity for
either up cells, so additional things that could be sold
to them in the deals or renewals. Right, So if
(04:49):
a certain contract is up after let's say three years,
it's pretty much on the activation manager to lead those
conversations in terms of bringing on them on for another
three years or five years or whatever.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Right.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
So I would say it's very different in a sense
that you know, I talked about reaching out and to
like one hundred companies and you know, getting like five replies.
It's kind of the opposite in the partnership activation world
because they're getting emails from not only their current partners,
but they're getting emails internally and they're getting pushed and
(05:26):
pulled in different directions, right, because they want to look
out for the best interests of the partner, but they
also want to look out for the best interests of
our team or in this case, the Oval, right and
protecting the oval and making sure that everything that marketing
is doing, everything that stadium ops is doing, everything that
community relations is doing, and their goals are still aligning
(05:47):
with those activations that the partner wants to do.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Right. Can you take us through your path to the
forty nine ers?
Speaker 4 (05:57):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (05:57):
Man, I mean how much time we got? Is this
gonna be It's gonna be a long one. Need Okay, Well,
I feel like I have to start from the beginning,
mainly because it's kind of like a butterfly effect because
if something, if if X experience didn't happen, then I
wouldn't be sitting here on this podcast right now. Right. So,
(06:20):
I was in college, I think it was my junior year.
I was looking for a sports internship and I got
like one of my best friends, Anthony. He sent me
a job description for an internship with Warriors. It was
just a traditional like marketing game day internship. You would
be passing out bobbleheads and stuff like that. But for
(06:41):
me growing up and playing basketball, and like loving the Warriors.
That was like the team I wanted to work for.
And this was I think, yeah, it was like twenty twelve,
so it was the last time the NBA was on
a lockout, so that that season it didn't start until December,
and I think I got the job description and like
October November, right, so they obviously needed to hire a
(07:05):
lot of interns really fast. So I remember seeing the
job description, I applied. I got called in group interview
and it was with the marketing manager, Erica Butler, and
she literally asked all of us. There must have been
like five of us in the room. She asked all
of us one question. We were done with the interview,
(07:26):
and then we left it. I think like three hours later,
we got the email saying that we got the position.
So I was psyched. It was like my dream job, right,
and I was like my dream team. I was like, man,
I'm really going to like just ride this out and
eventually get a full time job, because that's how I
thought internships worked, right. But I remember going through that season,
(07:50):
I was a little starstruck because of just a prestige
behind of working for your favorite team and everything, and
I was just like not really showing up up on time.
I didn't really stay late. I wasn't really networking with
anyone on the business team outside of Erica and like
my kind of like intern cohort. So I just went
(08:10):
through that season and I was just thinking like, all right,
I got it made. I'm gonna, you know, I'm eventually
going to get this full time job, which is very
uncharacteristic of me. But again, I think it was just
that being at Oracle Arena all those games, I was
just like, I got it. So fast forward through the season.
Off season comes up and we get an email, like
(08:33):
all the interns get an email saying that Erica is
moving down to Santa Cruz to work for the Santa
Cruz Warriors and be the director of marketing for the
first season. So they also said that all the interns
from last season would have to reinterview for the upcoming season. Right,
So I was just like, Okay, kind of sucks, but
(08:54):
I'll just go ahead and you know, go in there
and try to kill it again, even though like the
previous interview was one question. So I remember I showed
up to Oakland probably about twenty five minutes before I
was scheduled for the interview, and I had a bunch
of notes on my phone and I was just reading it,
and I had a coffee in my hand. It was
(09:15):
a cup of Pills coffee in my car, and as
I take a sip, I noticed that, like I spilled
a good amount like on the right side of my shirt.
And I wasn't wearing a suit, right, I was too
poor to like before a suit, so I was wearing
like a just a shirt and a tie. And I
started freaking out. Right by this time, it's like twenty
minutes before the interview, and I'm like, I have to
(09:37):
go somewhere and find a jacket or something like that.
So I found a tailor that was like down the
street from the offices where the Warriors used to be.
I run in there, I'm like sweating, and I'm like
there's this old lady at the front, and I'm like,
I will give you my wallet and my phone right now.
I just need a jacket for this interview. They're like,
(09:59):
can you please help me me out? And she just
told me no. And by that time, it was you know,
maybe ten five minutes before the interview, and I was like, okay,
I just had to go in there and like rock
with it, but obviously like it like messed me up
in my head. Right, So I go in, say, with
the interview, same setting as before, but obviously different people
that are running the interview. There's three people on the
(10:20):
panel now in terms of the group interview, there was
like five others that I worked with in the previous season.
And I could just tell right away that it was
very different than the previous year in terms of those
interview questions because they actually asked us questions, pointed at
us to answer certain questions, and I was just not
in the right mindset. And I remember walking out of
(10:44):
that office and I was just like I'm not going
to get this, Like this sucks right, Like this was
the team I wanted to work for and everything and
lo and behold. Like after that weekend, I got the
rejection email from someone in the HR department, and I
was just like, you know what, I maybe there's a
way I could say this. So I came up with
this response and I was like, hey, like, thank you
(11:08):
so much for you know, the consideration for my own
personal development, I would love to learn like two to
three things that I could essentially go out and work
on so for the next time or for the next season,
I could be in a better spot for consideration. And
I'm not trying to trash like the Warriors like organization
(11:29):
or anything, or even the person that like I was,
you know, response sending this email to because he was
just an HR generalist. It wasn't really a part of
the process and everything like that. But I didn't get
a response, and that was like really like kind of devastating, right,
So I kind of went into fight or flight mode.
Because I was entering my senior year of college. I
(11:50):
really still wanted to work in sports. So I was like, Okay,
what do I gotta do? So I started going on
teamwork online, started to I was literally on there like
every day, just trying to apply to every thing. And
then I got this idea of, like, you know, semester
started taking some business classes, why don't I reach out
to Erica, my first manager, and see what she's up
to in Santa Cruz and like how that whole thing's
(12:11):
going on. So I reached out to Erica, and I
actually made up a fake assignment and said, hey, like
I have to do like an informational interview for this class.
Can you like be the person that, like, you know,
I interviewed because I really want to get in this field,
and she's like, yeah, totally, so God bless her. Like
she was like, meet me here in like Santa Cruz.
We'll get lunch and then we could just chop it up.
(12:35):
So I got brought my notebook, talked to her. At
the end of the whole thing, I was like, look,
they didn't bring me back on, like let me know
how I could help, Like there seems like a lot
of things that that is a lot of good things
that is happening down in Santa Cruz right now, So
would love to be a part of it. And uh,
fast forward a little bit. You know, eventually Erica hires
(12:56):
me on to be her like lead intern at the
Santa Cruise War. So that was an awesome experience to do.
So just working in minor league sports, especially with a
team that you know, really was just starting in Santa
Cruz just right from the get go. I think they
put up the arena in like ninety days or something
(13:17):
like that. It was crazy fast. It exposed me to
the world of sponsorship. It exposed me to just the
hustle that you had to have in the world of sports,
and like the many hats that you have to wear, right.
So I ended up doing that up until about graduation,
and then there are a few other internships that I
(13:37):
try to go out there and apply for. There's one
internship for the America's Cup, one internship for the San
Jasee Sharks, and one internship for the San Francisco forty
nine ers. So I applied for all three of those
at the same time, and they were all in corporate
partnerships because I decided when I was working at Santa Cruz,
(13:58):
I really wanted to get involved in corporate partners I
saw how how many things were sponsored at Santa Cruz
and how vital it was, especially for a minor league
team to have that funding come from external companies to
help them do some some really cool stuff in the community. Right,
So that was just like really attractive to me. So
I applied to all three. America's Cup moves the fastest,
(14:20):
and if you don't know what America's Cup is, it
was like a sailing competition that they did in the
San Francisco Bay. I think it was there here for
a couple of years. It was kind of like you know,
the World Cup of Sailing, right, and it was it
was a really cool opportunity. It was going to be paid.
I think it was going to be you know, fifteen
dollars an hour, which was a lot at that time,
in like twenty thirteen, and I would have been like
pretty much just working like full time. San Jose Sharks
(14:42):
got back to me fairly quickly as well, and I
went through that process and that was unpaid. It was
I think twenty to twenty five hours a week, but
it was essentially team sports. It was what I wanted
to do, right. So I remember being at you know,
San Jose State's graduation and we're on the field like
in all of our departments, and I see my advisor
(15:05):
like on the field and I'd like run up to
her as the ceremony is going on, and I'm like, hey,
I need to talk to you because I have two
offers right now with the America's Cup and the San
Jose Sharks. I don't know which one to take, right
And I laid out like once paid once not you know,
more hours here, but like this team sports blah blah blah,
and she was like, you should just do the Sharks thing,
(15:27):
and I was like, Okay, it's great, but like I'm
about to I'm literally graduating right now, I'm going into
an internship that doesn't pay me any money. I'm still
gonna have to work my restaurant job, but you know,
it was the sacrifice I was willing to take, right
so I'm doing like the I ended up taking the
San Jose Sharks job, and I think in month two
(15:48):
of my Sharks internship, I end up getting a call
from the partnerships department here at the Niners, and I
go through that process and eventually win out that process,
and I had to tell the Sharks, you know, that
I had to leave. But the Niners internship was paid.
I didn't have to work the restaurant job anymore. And
that kind of you know, snowballed into me getting a
(16:12):
full time job, right I think I was doing my
Niners internship for about five months and then they decided
to make a full time position for me being the
first coordinator for the department as we opened up like
Levi Stadium. So again, super long in terms of like
that journey, but like I think there are a lot
(16:33):
of things there that you know, don't necessarily happen, or
like again, my seat, me being here doesn't necessarily happen,
if you know, stuff with the Warriors like turned out
the way it did, right, Like that was really a
big life lesson for me in terms of, like, hey,
I can't go into any team, any role thinking that
(16:55):
I just have it like it's gonna get taken away
from me at any time.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
On two stints with the forty nine ers in between,
one was the Timberwolves. Is there a difference in partnership
sales between the NBA and NFL.
Speaker 3 (17:09):
Yeah, so there's a there's a couple of different things
with the NBA. Right, So one in terms of selling
partnership sales or sell selling partnerships for the NBA. The
big differentiator between them and our league is that the
NBA has TV visible signage, So the next time you
will watch an NBA game, you'll be able to see
(17:31):
different advertisements like on the court or like in that
backs table where the players substituted, or even on the basket, right,
And those are brands that the local team sells, so
they that brand could get exposure not only in that market,
they get exposure for all the other markets that they
(17:53):
play against for that for that night. Right, So let's
take the Warriors for example, if the Warriors are playing
the Minnesota Timberwolves at you know, Chase Center, all that
signage that's down on the court is going to be
seen in the Minnesota market. So it's kind of like
more of a global type thing, whereas in the NFL
we don't really have TV visible signage like that that's
(18:14):
you know, dedicated to trying to get on TV. The
NFL at a league level kind of controls all that.
I will say. Also, the NBA has gotten a jump
start in terms of the international marketing rights for teams
as opposed to the NFL. We've known for a while
that the NBA is really big in China, like the
(18:35):
Philippines are doing some great stuff in India. Now they're
much more known global game as opposed to the NFL
right now. But I do think that the NFL is
starting to trend in that direction. We saw all the
great stuff that they did in Germany this past year,
like obviously the stuff that you all did hit for
for us in Mexico. You know, it's definitely starting to
(18:56):
pick up on that side, right But on the flip side,
in terms of like the advantages that the NFL has,
Like football is king in this country right Like there
is no other sport that has the amount of eyeballs,
the amount of affinity, the amount of recognition than the NFL.
(19:18):
It really does feel more so like a like a
bigger event for any for every NFL game, as opposed
to maybe a Tuesday night you know, in an arena.
And for basketball.
Speaker 4 (19:33):
I didn't know this until this year, but we watch
a lot of NHL hockey in my house, and I
didn't realize that in hockey, like the broadcasts will change
the partners that are visible in certain markets.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
So the virtual assigne thing is is fairly new to
the world of sports right now, and I think it
picked up as COVID happened. I think the NBA started
doing it first with like when when all the teams
were in the bubble. So there's technology now that does
switch out you know, brands by quarter. It could be
(20:10):
you know, in uh in hockey's case, maybe by like
a couple of minutes. It's really fascinating. Unfortunately, we don't
have anything like that in the NFL yet, But you know,
I think there'd be a huge benefit if we were
to go to that certain model going forward.
Speaker 4 (20:30):
I do know I think there have been complaints about
like the viewer experience because it's kind of distracting seeing
something change like that when you're trying to watch the game.
I am curious as a partnerships guy and as like
a consumer products do you ever think like, oh, that's
(20:51):
too much, or like when you see social copy that's
like this, this and this presented by X.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
Yeah, there's definitely a fine line, and there's you have
to find that happy medium of something that you know
is definitely partnered but not necessarily like the door of
a NASCAR car, like you know, and that's nothing against
like NASCAR or anything like that, but like there are
(21:21):
times where it could kind of feel like that and
it feels really forced. Like for me personally, like alignment
is huge for me whenever I try to reach out
to a new company and if there is a certain
platform or video series that our team is doing, I'm
going to try to reach out to brands that could
(21:42):
fit that platform and essentially like the messaging will kind
of tie in together with that with that certain again
video series, Right, So there is like a happy medium
you don't want to you know, I want to say,
like some certain bowl games have started doing that, like
(22:04):
college football bowl games where it's just like X brand,
you know, Texas Bowl presented by X brand, and then
there's other associate partners like under that too, right, But
at the same time, you know, there is a lot
of funding that comes from these brands and to help
with the success of certain events and activations that are
(22:27):
that are needed. So I understand both sides for sure,
but there is that that happy medium. I think on
the fan experience side, I definitely don't want it to
feel more so like a you know, like a magazine
ad or a magaze. Like you know, you open up
magazines now there's sometimes back to back pages of just
magazine ads and not necessarily content because content has to
(22:50):
be the king in terms of like what we do.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
On that we talked about NHL doing virtual signage. NBA
have like tell it like signage around the court so
you can see it on TV. Soccer has partnerships on
their kits. If you could bring one thing over from
another sport that you could actually sell in the NFL
that you can't now, is there anything that comes to mind?
Speaker 3 (23:17):
Yeah, the first thing is Jersey patch. I was there
at the first like kind of in the introductory process
of the Jersey patch with Fibit and the Minnesota Timberolves,
And you know, to the consumer, like a patch might
seem like branding on a jersey, but I think there's
(23:37):
a lot more meeting behind that in terms of like
trying to tie that to overall brand objectives or business
objectives and the things that come along with the patch. Right,
it's not just that signage, but there's a lot of
underlying things that go behind that. Like, for example, for Fitbit,
there was a number of activations and conversations around how
(23:58):
do we get players to actively wear fitbits, you know,
whether they're practicing or where their training. We did a
lot of things as well with the staff by giving
all staff business staff fitbits, so we could create this
(24:18):
corporate wellness program that Fitbit could then go ahead and
sell to other companies. Right. I think a Jersey patch
in the NFL would be kind of like what naming
rights are right now for stadiums. For NFL stadiums, like,
it would be a pretty big deal and it would
be very prestigious to you know, have my name behind
(24:41):
a certain partnership that is tied to like a Jersey
patch for sure.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
What's been your favorite project to work on since joining
the Niners?
Speaker 3 (24:50):
Favorite project, I would say, you know, for my favorite
project was a partnership that we worked with with Incode.
Incode was my first kind of partnership that we did
that I did here, and they're great partners. They are
(25:11):
biometric company based out of San Francisco, and you know,
they had a very big presence in Mexico as well.
They were technically started in Mexico and then brought the
headquarters up here, but we essentially had them buy into
a number of different Mexico activations. So for example, for
(25:34):
the playoffs, we did a couple of watch parties where
Incode was a presenting partner of those of those watch
parties down in Mexico City, and it was great because
they have a huge employee base out there and they
also you know, are a partner of the Mexican soccer
(25:58):
national team there. So it was just a lot of
great alignment and some some awesome stories to tell that
came out of that one.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
You were talking about, like earlier, your process for pitching
and how do you come up or like even when
you said that if we have a cool video series,
like you want it to make sense, what partner is
on it? How do you go about finding companies that
you want to pitch?
Speaker 3 (26:24):
Yeah, that's it's different every single day. Right. My fiance
knows I'm very notorious for, you know, whatever sporting events
or even just like a festival or something like, I
am on my phone on the first five to ten
minutes and writing down every single potential partner that I
(26:45):
could see. Sometimes when I'm driving down one O one
or six' eighty and I see a billboard, like, oh,
I've never seen that company before, let me like dive
into them and reach out to them. Right. The easy
way too is to look on sports Business Journal and
see like, hey, who did X deal with X company?
And you know kind of reach out that way. But
(27:09):
you're kind of late in the game when it gets
to that point. So there's a number of different factors.
And like even another factor too is sometimes what happens
is you know, we keep trying, like we keep on
top of business trends. Right, So we saw about a
year year or two ago, crypto companies started doing a
(27:31):
lot within sports, right because of how much money was
in to cryptocurrency, and obviously with the crypto winter, it's
different a little. It's a little bit different now. But
you try to stay on top of these business trends
to see who are those companies that are going to
emerge out of that certain industry, and then you try
to target those industries. Right. But again it goes for
(27:53):
me personally, and every seller is different. I try to
lean on the alignment piece like a lot, right and
just making sure that it makes sense from that foundational
piece before even reaching out to them.
Speaker 4 (28:10):
I'm curious how often do companies pitch us? I know
one of our tiktoks actually led to a call about
a potential partnership. So I'm curious how that how often
that happens.
Speaker 3 (28:24):
Yeah, it doesn't happen often, to be honest. You know,
we're doing ninety nine percent of the outreach to different companies.
There's a couple of times where we get a company
reaching out to us and saying, hey, we want a partner.
We have an idea of what we want to do,
which is which is great, but it's far and few between,
(28:46):
far and few between, and a lot of the work
has to be done, you know, by myself and my
team to try to find those companies that are going
to just try to do business with us.
Speaker 4 (28:57):
So, I see you got your bachelor's and can youseology
from SGSU.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
What did you think you wanted to do in undergrad.
Speaker 3 (29:07):
It's funny, Uh, it is a kinesiology but it's emphasis
sport in sport management. But going back a little bit,
I actually declared a major in business management with a
minor in music theory. And the reason why I wanted
to do that is because I was making beats in
high school and I wanted to become like the next
(29:28):
Doctor Dre or Pharrell. And I actually took a music
theory class my first semester and I bombed it. I
think I got like a D plus or something like that,
and it just didn't really vibe with me. I had to,
you know, I had to take a long look at
myself and I was like, Hey, is this something that
I wanted to do? Probably not, So I ended up
(29:50):
changing after my first semester to kinesiology, mainly mainly because
sports was a big part of my life. I loved
again playing basketball. I learned a lot of life lessons
from playing basketball. I like tried to model a lot
of my life behind Michael Jordan's like kind of attitude
and you know, never giving up and you know, always
(30:12):
making things happen. So I was like, okay, well, I'm
five nine, I don't have that much athletic ability, so
I'm not going to be playing in the NBA anytime soon.
What else can I do in sports? And I figured
I could work for a sports team, and that's how
I ended up declaring, you know, kinesiology with the emphasis
(30:34):
sport management. I also did a minor in public relations
because I kind of wanted to see what social media
was going to be all about, and we didn't really
have like social media degrees or anything back then. Obviously
I'm doing a little bit something different now, but you know, again,
all good curriculum that I learned throughout my time there.
(30:57):
I will say though, that s jsu I still had
to take the same classes, same core classes in kinesiology
that the like the nurses majors had to take. So
I had to take Bio sixty five and Bio sixty six,
(31:18):
which is intro to Anatomy and intro to physiology, and
my intro to physiology class that was so hard at
Like I don't know how I passed it, but you
could tell in the I guess in the group or
in the lecture, like who was a nurse who was
(31:40):
an aspiring nurse as opposed to aspiring you know kind
major because of how hard they worked, or like how
much they paid attention to even like study groups, like
I would never be invited to be part of a
nurse's study group because they know that, you know, my
degree doesn't hone in on you know, getting an A
plus in this class, right, So, yeah, it was a
(32:02):
little tough. I haven't had to apply any of that
knowledge now, but it's a but it was a fun
It was a fun degree to work off of. And
you know, my my advisor there, uh doctor Sonya Lilienthal,
she's not there anymore. She was. She was really awesome
in terms of like trying to you know, figure out
how I could get into the sports world, and you know,
(32:23):
was ultimately the one that I talked to at UH
at graduation to set me in the right direction.
Speaker 4 (32:30):
I think this is a great example of like trial
and error. I thought I wanted to minor in political
science and I had to take econ micro and macro,
but the Economic Department was like super impacted, like all
the kids who want to major in econ and so
I also.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
Didn't do well in those classes.
Speaker 4 (32:51):
I got c's and learned quickly that I maybe I
don't want to be a political science major.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
So this is a lesson in.
Speaker 4 (32:58):
Just like this is how you feeligure out what you do,
like what you want to do, right, yeah, and like
you know, we're Asian. We didn't gets like straight a's
and like look at us now, like we're doing okay.
Speaker 3 (33:08):
Yeah yeah, I mean like it's it's it's wild looking
back and you're like, man, I really wanted to be
doctor Dre. Like I really wanted to be the next
doctor Dre. And I had a lot of fun doing it.
But like like the whole uh I guess cliche of
like life isn't you know, Like I guess, uh, like
(33:28):
the graph that just keeps on going up, like it
literally goes up and down, up and down, up and down,
and you wanted to keep trending up, but there's gonna
be times where you just hit rock bottom and you
have to just figure out how to go up from there.
And you know, I I don't regret any of my
experiences to this point in my life, Like it's I
(33:49):
look back and I understand that I'm very like blessed
and I'm very lucky to be where I'm at, And
there was a lot of things that had to line
up for me to be in a job that I
ultimately love and I love being here as much as
I can.
Speaker 4 (34:05):
Like when you told your parents you wanted to be
the next doctor dreer Farrell, Like, how did they take that?
Speaker 3 (34:11):
They were very supportive. They've always been supportive in whatever
I wanted to do, which is which is you know,
awesome for me, and you know, the yeah, I thank
them all the time that like they were able to
like let me just do my thing and just kind
of live through life and like figure out the ups
(34:32):
and the downs right, which is which is a little
tough especially for someone like me, where like I'm first
generation for my family being here and they obviously the
whole reason why they came from the Philippines to America
was you know, for myself and future generations to thrive
(34:54):
in this country. And I was kind of like, I
don't know if like guinea pig is the right word,
but it's like you know, I had to try to
set the tone right, and it's it's awesome that now
they're like kind of bragging to other people about me,
because this is ultimately what they wanted them come to America.
Speaker 4 (35:16):
Do you have any advice to anyone who wants to
get into the industry.
Speaker 3 (35:20):
Yeah, definitely use your resources. That's the top thing that
I say to even our interns that come through our department.
You know, there's a lot of people that could help you,
but they probably don't know that you need the help
unless you ask, right, So making sure that you tap
into your network and try to utilize that network to
(35:42):
open doors for you. Right, Like going back to my
story about how I got to the Niners. You know,
if I don't make that fake assignment for Erica and
reach out to her and you say like, hey, I
want to do an informational interview, I probably wouldn't have
gotten that that lead internship with the Santa Cruz Warriors
and probably would have been in a different field.
Speaker 2 (36:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (36:05):
So I'm always a big proponent of just making sure
that you make connections with people, utilize those connections, and
don't be afraid to reach out. Even now, like I
there's a couple of people that reach out now and
again that want to connect, like and I'm more so
(36:25):
happy to do it. But you'd be surprised how many
of those people don't necessarily follow up with you after
or you know, try to apply for a job and
they don't talk to you about it. And you're just
like I told you when I was doing the informational
interview with you, like I am more than happy to
write a note on your behalf to to go to
(36:46):
you know, if you want to go to a certain
team or get recommended for a certain job, So don't
be afraid to do so. There's there's too many of
us in the sports industry that have gone through a
lot of internships without a lot of help, right that, like,
we can't keep that cycle going, Like we all want
to help in one way or another.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
Yeah, I think I was actually talking about it last night,
the idea that I always felt like I didn't reach
back out or like ask people to be a mentor
because I thought it was an imposition. And now that
I'm in a role where like I am the person
being reached out to, you do that changes where you're like, no, like,
please reach back out to me like I could have
(37:30):
helped you, and like you did not have to do
all of the like hard middle steps that I did.
Speaker 3 (37:36):
Yeah, and it's it's still wild to me that people don't.
There's there's definitely a couple in my network that have
consistently reached out and I appreciate them and everything, and
you know they're doing great things, and you know it's
it's the sports world is a small little fraternity or sorority, right,
Like it's a small organization. It kind of acts like
(37:58):
a small organization because even if you're not working at
a team or let's say, like if I leave, like
maybe I go to like the brand side or an
agency where they are going to be working with a
team later on in life. Right, So it's all kind
of interconnected.
Speaker 1 (38:16):
The question that we ask on the podcast, I think
for every episode, and it's weirdly become my favorite question.
Every job description has the last bullet point other duties
as assigned. Have you done something with the forty nine
ers that probably you weren't expecting to do was not
on any job description you read.
Speaker 3 (38:37):
Yeah, I mean it's funny because even though I was
an intern here back in twenty thirteen, and breaking down
boxes and like moving stuff into like storage and stuff
like that. There are times where I'm still doing that
to this day, and there's times where you have to
raise your hand to do so, right, and it's you know,
you have to be pretty humble about it. But you
(38:59):
also have to understand that we're not staffed like a
normal like tech company, right, Like we don't have a
lot of resources, So there are times where you know,
people will have to lean on me to move stuff
around or like to help out with an activation, right,
And you have to go with the flow, and you
have to, you know, in the spirit of being a
(39:20):
true team player, contribute in in those ways. Right. So
that is is one of the bigger things as going
back to your question Patty about you know, any advice
for the industry, Like no job is too like small
for you, right, And people have to realize that in sports,
(39:41):
like there's going to be times where like sometimes even
see al or president or you know, brand or our
chief revenue officer doing the same thing. So in terms
of like breaking down boxes or helping package stuff, like,
everyone gets their hands dirty at one point or another,
and we're not all above it.
Speaker 4 (39:58):
True, very true, Well, Thank you so much for joining
the podcast.
Speaker 2 (40:03):
This was fun.
Speaker 3 (40:04):
Thanks yeah, no, appreciate it again. Honored to UH to
talk here and this was a lot of fun. Thank you.
Welcome to the Inside the Oval podcast presented by Dignity Health.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
I'm Hailey Jones and I'm Patty Kwan.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
And today we are joined by Partnerships sales manager Nate Rissala. Nate,
thank you so much for doing the podcast.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
Thank you for having me honored to be here. This
is going to be a lot of fun to start.
Speaker 4 (00:28):
What are your job responsibilities as a manager of partnership
sales for the forty nine Ers.
Speaker 3 (00:34):
Yeah, I would say that I engage and reach out
to companies that want to utilize the forty nine ers
as a marketing platform to solve numerous business objectives, right
whether that is through I guess in Layman's terms like
sponsorship right, like, it could be very cut and dry
(00:57):
like that where we're trying to put their logo like
on a sign But you know, we say partnerships because
we think that it's a little bit more integrated than that,
where for example, like SAP, yes, they have a ton
of signage in our building right now, but we also
utilize their software throughout all of our business subject or
our business operations and things like that.
Speaker 1 (01:20):
Since you've started working in partnerships, do you tend to
find that like partners that you've signed or you work
with a lot, like you actually are using their products,
like you have a brand affinity.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
I try to honestly, I'm drinking an aquafina right now,
you know. I try to wear Levi's whenever I can.
I think that's like the only pair of genes I
really like wear. But yeah, definitely have an affinity to
those brands. And it works both ways too, right because
in my position, I get told know a lot and
(01:54):
if a certain brand tells me no, they probably lost
a customer of that product, like at least six months
to a year.
Speaker 2 (02:02):
That's actually good. Leads me to a good question is
just how do you handle rejection?
Speaker 3 (02:08):
Yeah, no, that's a great question because our or at
least my role is very very different than what would
be like a traditional seller, right, like even in tech
sales or like ticket sales, right, you're expected to sell
a certain amount in a certain quarter, right, which is
three months for us. A partnership typically could take anywhere
(02:29):
from six to nine months, could be a year, could
be two years. That's not a lot of like deals
that are getting done, right. A ticket seller might be
required to sell ten season tickets in a certain week.
We would be lucky to get anywhere from four to
five in a year. So there's a lot of small
(02:52):
things that you have to just count as like wins
throughout the week, right, whether it's a really good outreach
email that you sent out that got a really good
reaction and got a meeting right, or you know, you
did really well on a pitch in terms of trying
to tie in your storytelling with how we align with
X brand and how they align with us.
Speaker 4 (03:13):
Right.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
So definitely have to get really granular to find those
moments because for every you know, one hundred emails, I'm
probably getting you know, five replies, and out of those
five replies, maybe there are you know, one to two
meetings that come out of it. So it's a very
kind of volume based thing from that standpoint.
Speaker 1 (03:33):
You have experience also in partnership services. How do partnership
sales and services differ.
Speaker 3 (03:43):
Yeah, so we actually call it activation now, but partnership
activation is essentially they execute everything that is sold within
a partnership deal. So in my role now, I go
find an X company they agree to do a partnership
with us. I then work with an activation manager to
(04:04):
make sure that everything that I sold to them is
getting executed. So they're really like the boots on the
ground and the one that kind of ties not only
that certain partner together with us, but also internal departments,
if that makes sense, right. So, our activation team is
consistently reaching out to stadium ops, marketing community relations to
(04:28):
try to get everyone on board to get this certain
at marketing asset or activation kind of executed and done.
And also in the activation world presents an opportunity for
either up cells, so additional things that could be sold
to them in the deals or renewals. Right, So if
(04:49):
a certain contract is up after let's say three years,
it's pretty much on the activation manager to lead those
conversations in terms of bringing on them on for another
three years or five years or whatever.
Speaker 2 (05:02):
Right.
Speaker 3 (05:02):
So I would say it's very different in a sense
that you know, I talked about reaching out and to
like one hundred companies and you know, getting like five replies.
It's kind of the opposite in the partnership activation world
because they're getting emails from not only their current partners,
but they're getting emails internally and they're getting pushed and
(05:26):
pulled in different directions, right, because they want to look
out for the best interests of the partner, but they
also want to look out for the best interests of
our team or in this case, the Oval, right and
protecting the oval and making sure that everything that marketing
is doing, everything that stadium ops is doing, everything that
community relations is doing, and their goals are still aligning
(05:47):
with those activations that the partner wants to do.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Right. Can you take us through your path to the
forty nine ers?
Speaker 4 (05:57):
Oh?
Speaker 3 (05:57):
Man, I mean how much time we got? Is this
gonna be It's gonna be a long one. Need Okay, Well,
I feel like I have to start from the beginning,
mainly because it's kind of like a butterfly effect because
if something, if if X experience didn't happen, then I
wouldn't be sitting here on this podcast right now. Right. So,
(06:20):
I was in college, I think it was my junior year.
I was looking for a sports internship and I got
like one of my best friends, Anthony. He sent me
a job description for an internship with Warriors. It was
just a traditional like marketing game day internship. You would
be passing out bobbleheads and stuff like that. But for
(06:41):
me growing up and playing basketball, and like loving the Warriors.
That was like the team I wanted to work for.
And this was I think, yeah, it was like twenty twelve,
so it was the last time the NBA was on
a lockout, so that that season it didn't start until December,
and I think I got the job description and like
October November, right, so they obviously needed to hire a
(07:05):
lot of interns really fast. So I remember seeing the
job description, I applied. I got called in group interview
and it was with the marketing manager, Erica Butler, and
she literally asked all of us. There must have been
like five of us in the room. She asked all
of us one question. We were done with the interview,
(07:26):
and then we left it. I think like three hours later,
we got the email saying that we got the position.
So I was psyched. It was like my dream job, right,
and I was like my dream team. I was like, man,
I'm really going to like just ride this out and
eventually get a full time job, because that's how I
thought internships worked, right. But I remember going through that season,
(07:50):
I was a little starstruck because of just a prestige
behind of working for your favorite team and everything, and
I was just like not really showing up up on time.
I didn't really stay late. I wasn't really networking with
anyone on the business team outside of Erica and like
my kind of like intern cohort. So I just went
(08:10):
through that season and I was just thinking like, all right,
I got it made. I'm gonna, you know, I'm eventually
going to get this full time job, which is very
uncharacteristic of me. But again, I think it was just
that being at Oracle Arena all those games, I was
just like, I got it. So fast forward through the season.
Off season comes up and we get an email, like
(08:33):
all the interns get an email saying that Erica is
moving down to Santa Cruz to work for the Santa
Cruz Warriors and be the director of marketing for the
first season. So they also said that all the interns
from last season would have to reinterview for the upcoming season. Right,
So I was just like, Okay, kind of sucks, but
(08:54):
I'll just go ahead and you know, go in there
and try to kill it again, even though like the
previous interview was one question. So I remember I showed
up to Oakland probably about twenty five minutes before I
was scheduled for the interview, and I had a bunch
of notes on my phone and I was just reading it,
and I had a coffee in my hand. It was
(09:15):
a cup of Pills coffee in my car, and as
I take a sip, I noticed that, like I spilled
a good amount like on the right side of my shirt.
And I wasn't wearing a suit, right, I was too
poor to like before a suit, so I was wearing
like a just a shirt and a tie. And I
started freaking out. Right by this time, it's like twenty
minutes before the interview, and I'm like, I have to
(09:37):
go somewhere and find a jacket or something like that.
So I found a tailor that was like down the
street from the offices where the Warriors used to be.
I run in there, I'm like sweating, and I'm like
there's this old lady at the front, and I'm like,
I will give you my wallet and my phone right now.
I just need a jacket for this interview. They're like,
(09:59):
can you please help me me out? And she just
told me no. And by that time, it was you know,
maybe ten five minutes before the interview, and I was like, okay,
I just had to go in there and like rock
with it, but obviously like it like messed me up
in my head. Right, So I go in, say, with
the interview, same setting as before, but obviously different people
that are running the interview. There's three people on the
(10:20):
panel now in terms of the group interview, there was
like five others that I worked with in the previous season.
And I could just tell right away that it was
very different than the previous year in terms of those
interview questions because they actually asked us questions, pointed at
us to answer certain questions, and I was just not
in the right mindset. And I remember walking out of
(10:44):
that office and I was just like I'm not going
to get this, Like this sucks right, Like this was
the team I wanted to work for and everything and
lo and behold. Like after that weekend, I got the
rejection email from someone in the HR department, and I
was just like, you know what, I maybe there's a
way I could say this. So I came up with
this response and I was like, hey, like, thank you
(11:08):
so much for you know, the consideration for my own
personal development, I would love to learn like two to
three things that I could essentially go out and work
on so for the next time or for the next season,
I could be in a better spot for consideration. And
I'm not trying to trash like the Warriors like organization
(11:29):
or anything, or even the person that like I was,
you know, response sending this email to because he was
just an HR generalist. It wasn't really a part of
the process and everything like that. But I didn't get
a response, and that was like really like kind of devastating, right,
So I kind of went into fight or flight mode.
Because I was entering my senior year of college. I
(11:50):
really still wanted to work in sports. So I was like, Okay,
what do I gotta do? So I started going on
teamwork online, started to I was literally on there like
every day, just trying to apply to every thing. And
then I got this idea of, like, you know, semester
started taking some business classes, why don't I reach out
to Erica, my first manager, and see what she's up
to in Santa Cruz and like how that whole thing's
(12:11):
going on. So I reached out to Erica, and I
actually made up a fake assignment and said, hey, like
I have to do like an informational interview for this class.
Can you like be the person that, like, you know,
I interviewed because I really want to get in this field,
and she's like, yeah, totally, so God bless her. Like
she was like, meet me here in like Santa Cruz.
We'll get lunch and then we could just chop it up.
(12:35):
So I got brought my notebook, talked to her. At
the end of the whole thing, I was like, look,
they didn't bring me back on, like let me know
how I could help, Like there seems like a lot
of things that that is a lot of good things
that is happening down in Santa Cruz right now, So
would love to be a part of it. And uh,
fast forward a little bit. You know, eventually Erica hires
(12:56):
me on to be her like lead intern at the
Santa Cruise War. So that was an awesome experience to do.
So just working in minor league sports, especially with a
team that you know, really was just starting in Santa
Cruz just right from the get go. I think they
put up the arena in like ninety days or something
(13:17):
like that. It was crazy fast. It exposed me to
the world of sponsorship. It exposed me to just the
hustle that you had to have in the world of sports,
and like the many hats that you have to wear, right.
So I ended up doing that up until about graduation,
and then there are a few other internships that I
(13:37):
try to go out there and apply for. There's one
internship for the America's Cup, one internship for the San
Jasee Sharks, and one internship for the San Francisco forty
nine ers. So I applied for all three of those
at the same time, and they were all in corporate
partnerships because I decided when I was working at Santa Cruz,
(13:58):
I really wanted to get involved in corporate partners I
saw how how many things were sponsored at Santa Cruz
and how vital it was, especially for a minor league
team to have that funding come from external companies to
help them do some some really cool stuff in the community. Right,
So that was just like really attractive to me. So
I applied to all three. America's Cup moves the fastest,
(14:20):
and if you don't know what America's Cup is, it
was like a sailing competition that they did in the
San Francisco Bay. I think it was there here for
a couple of years. It was kind of like you know,
the World Cup of Sailing, right, and it was it
was a really cool opportunity. It was going to be paid.
I think it was going to be you know, fifteen
dollars an hour, which was a lot at that time,
in like twenty thirteen, and I would have been like
pretty much just working like full time. San Jose Sharks
(14:42):
got back to me fairly quickly as well, and I
went through that process and that was unpaid. It was
I think twenty to twenty five hours a week, but
it was essentially team sports. It was what I wanted
to do, right. So I remember being at you know,
San Jose State's graduation and we're on the field like
in all of our departments, and I see my advisor
(15:05):
like on the field and I'd like run up to
her as the ceremony is going on, and I'm like, hey,
I need to talk to you because I have two
offers right now with the America's Cup and the San
Jose Sharks. I don't know which one to take, right
And I laid out like once paid once not you know,
more hours here, but like this team sports blah blah blah,
and she was like, you should just do the Sharks thing,
(15:27):
and I was like, Okay, it's great, but like I'm
about to I'm literally graduating right now, I'm going into
an internship that doesn't pay me any money. I'm still
gonna have to work my restaurant job, but you know,
it was the sacrifice I was willing to take, right
so I'm doing like the I ended up taking the
San Jose Sharks job, and I think in month two
(15:48):
of my Sharks internship, I end up getting a call
from the partnerships department here at the Niners, and I
go through that process and eventually win out that process,
and I had to tell the Sharks, you know, that
I had to leave. But the Niners internship was paid.
I didn't have to work the restaurant job anymore. And
that kind of you know, snowballed into me getting a
(16:12):
full time job, right I think I was doing my
Niners internship for about five months and then they decided
to make a full time position for me being the
first coordinator for the department as we opened up like
Levi Stadium. So again, super long in terms of like
that journey, but like I think there are a lot
(16:33):
of things there that you know, don't necessarily happen, or
like again, my seat, me being here doesn't necessarily happen,
if you know, stuff with the Warriors like turned out
the way it did, right, Like that was really a
big life lesson for me in terms of, like, hey,
I can't go into any team, any role thinking that
(16:55):
I just have it like it's gonna get taken away
from me at any time.
Speaker 1 (17:00):
On two stints with the forty nine ers in between,
one was the Timberwolves. Is there a difference in partnership
sales between the NBA and NFL.
Speaker 3 (17:09):
Yeah, so there's a there's a couple of different things
with the NBA. Right, So one in terms of selling
partnership sales or sell selling partnerships for the NBA. The
big differentiator between them and our league is that the
NBA has TV visible signage, So the next time you
will watch an NBA game, you'll be able to see
(17:31):
different advertisements like on the court or like in that
backs table where the players substituted, or even on the basket, right,
And those are brands that the local team sells, so
they that brand could get exposure not only in that market,
they get exposure for all the other markets that they
(17:53):
play against for that for that night. Right, So let's
take the Warriors for example, if the Warriors are playing
the Minnesota Timberwolves at you know, Chase Center, all that
signage that's down on the court is going to be
seen in the Minnesota market. So it's kind of like
more of a global type thing, whereas in the NFL
we don't really have TV visible signage like that that's
(18:14):
you know, dedicated to trying to get on TV. The
NFL at a league level kind of controls all that.
I will say. Also, the NBA has gotten a jump
start in terms of the international marketing rights for teams
as opposed to the NFL. We've known for a while
that the NBA is really big in China, like the
(18:35):
Philippines are doing some great stuff in India. Now they're
much more known global game as opposed to the NFL
right now. But I do think that the NFL is
starting to trend in that direction. We saw all the
great stuff that they did in Germany this past year,
like obviously the stuff that you all did hit for
for us in Mexico. You know, it's definitely starting to
(18:56):
pick up on that side, right But on the flip side,
in terms of like the advantages that the NFL has,
Like football is king in this country right Like there
is no other sport that has the amount of eyeballs,
the amount of affinity, the amount of recognition than the NFL.
(19:18):
It really does feel more so like a like a
bigger event for any for every NFL game, as opposed
to maybe a Tuesday night you know, in an arena.
And for basketball.
Speaker 4 (19:33):
I didn't know this until this year, but we watch
a lot of NHL hockey in my house, and I
didn't realize that in hockey, like the broadcasts will change
the partners that are visible in certain markets.
Speaker 3 (19:50):
So the virtual assigne thing is is fairly new to
the world of sports right now, and I think it
picked up as COVID happened. I think the NBA started
doing it first with like when when all the teams
were in the bubble. So there's technology now that does
switch out you know, brands by quarter. It could be
(20:10):
you know, in uh in hockey's case, maybe by like
a couple of minutes. It's really fascinating. Unfortunately, we don't
have anything like that in the NFL yet, But you know,
I think there'd be a huge benefit if we were
to go to that certain model going forward.
Speaker 4 (20:30):
I do know I think there have been complaints about
like the viewer experience because it's kind of distracting seeing
something change like that when you're trying to watch the game.
I am curious as a partnerships guy and as like
a consumer products do you ever think like, oh, that's
(20:51):
too much, or like when you see social copy that's
like this, this and this presented by X.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
Yeah, there's definitely a fine line, and there's you have
to find that happy medium of something that you know
is definitely partnered but not necessarily like the door of
a NASCAR car, like you know, and that's nothing against
like NASCAR or anything like that, but like there are
(21:21):
times where it could kind of feel like that and
it feels really forced. Like for me personally, like alignment
is huge for me whenever I try to reach out
to a new company and if there is a certain
platform or video series that our team is doing, I'm
going to try to reach out to brands that could
(21:42):
fit that platform and essentially like the messaging will kind
of tie in together with that with that certain again
video series, Right, So there is like a happy medium
you don't want to you know, I want to say,
like some certain bowl games have started doing that, like
(22:04):
college football bowl games where it's just like X brand,
you know, Texas Bowl presented by X brand, and then
there's other associate partners like under that too, right, But
at the same time, you know, there is a lot
of funding that comes from these brands and to help
with the success of certain events and activations that are
(22:27):
that are needed. So I understand both sides for sure,
but there is that that happy medium. I think on
the fan experience side, I definitely don't want it to
feel more so like a you know, like a magazine
ad or a magaze. Like you know, you open up
magazines now there's sometimes back to back pages of just
magazine ads and not necessarily content because content has to
(22:50):
be the king in terms of like what we do.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
On that we talked about NHL doing virtual signage. NBA
have like tell it like signage around the court so
you can see it on TV. Soccer has partnerships on
their kits. If you could bring one thing over from
another sport that you could actually sell in the NFL
that you can't now, is there anything that comes to mind?
Speaker 3 (23:17):
Yeah, the first thing is Jersey patch. I was there
at the first like kind of in the introductory process
of the Jersey patch with Fibit and the Minnesota Timberolves,
And you know, to the consumer, like a patch might
seem like branding on a jersey, but I think there's
(23:37):
a lot more meeting behind that in terms of like
trying to tie that to overall brand objectives or business
objectives and the things that come along with the patch. Right,
it's not just that signage, but there's a lot of
underlying things that go behind that. Like, for example, for Fitbit,
there was a number of activations and conversations around how
(23:58):
do we get players to actively wear fitbits, you know,
whether they're practicing or where their training. We did a
lot of things as well with the staff by giving
all staff business staff fitbits, so we could create this
(24:18):
corporate wellness program that Fitbit could then go ahead and
sell to other companies. Right. I think a Jersey patch
in the NFL would be kind of like what naming
rights are right now for stadiums. For NFL stadiums, like,
it would be a pretty big deal and it would
be very prestigious to you know, have my name behind
(24:41):
a certain partnership that is tied to like a Jersey
patch for sure.
Speaker 2 (24:45):
What's been your favorite project to work on since joining
the Niners?
Speaker 3 (24:50):
Favorite project, I would say, you know, for my favorite
project was a partnership that we worked with with Incode.
Incode was my first kind of partnership that we did
that I did here, and they're great partners. They are
(25:11):
biometric company based out of San Francisco, and you know,
they had a very big presence in Mexico as well.
They were technically started in Mexico and then brought the
headquarters up here, but we essentially had them buy into
a number of different Mexico activations. So for example, for
(25:34):
the playoffs, we did a couple of watch parties where
Incode was a presenting partner of those of those watch
parties down in Mexico City, and it was great because
they have a huge employee base out there and they
also you know, are a partner of the Mexican soccer
(25:58):
national team there. So it was just a lot of
great alignment and some some awesome stories to tell that
came out of that one.
Speaker 1 (26:07):
You were talking about, like earlier, your process for pitching
and how do you come up or like even when
you said that if we have a cool video series,
like you want it to make sense, what partner is
on it? How do you go about finding companies that
you want to pitch?
Speaker 3 (26:24):
Yeah, that's it's different every single day. Right. My fiance
knows I'm very notorious for, you know, whatever sporting events
or even just like a festival or something like, I
am on my phone on the first five to ten
minutes and writing down every single potential partner that I
(26:45):
could see. Sometimes when I'm driving down one O one
or six' eighty and I see a billboard, like, oh,
I've never seen that company before, let me like dive
into them and reach out to them. Right. The easy
way too is to look on sports Business Journal and
see like, hey, who did X deal with X company?
And you know kind of reach out that way. But
(27:09):
you're kind of late in the game when it gets
to that point. So there's a number of different factors.
And like even another factor too is sometimes what happens
is you know, we keep trying, like we keep on
top of business trends. Right, So we saw about a
year year or two ago, crypto companies started doing a
(27:31):
lot within sports, right because of how much money was
in to cryptocurrency, and obviously with the crypto winter, it's
different a little. It's a little bit different now. But
you try to stay on top of these business trends
to see who are those companies that are going to
emerge out of that certain industry, and then you try
to target those industries. Right. But again it goes for
(27:53):
me personally, and every seller is different. I try to
lean on the alignment piece like a lot, right and
just making sure that it makes sense from that foundational
piece before even reaching out to them.
Speaker 4 (28:10):
I'm curious how often do companies pitch us? I know
one of our tiktoks actually led to a call about
a potential partnership. So I'm curious how that how often
that happens.
Speaker 3 (28:24):
Yeah, it doesn't happen often, to be honest. You know,
we're doing ninety nine percent of the outreach to different companies.
There's a couple of times where we get a company
reaching out to us and saying, hey, we want a partner.
We have an idea of what we want to do,
which is which is great, but it's far and few between,
(28:46):
far and few between, and a lot of the work
has to be done, you know, by myself and my
team to try to find those companies that are going
to just try to do business with us.
Speaker 4 (28:57):
So, I see you got your bachelor's and can youseology
from SGSU.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
What did you think you wanted to do in undergrad.
Speaker 3 (29:07):
It's funny, Uh, it is a kinesiology but it's emphasis
sport in sport management. But going back a little bit,
I actually declared a major in business management with a
minor in music theory. And the reason why I wanted
to do that is because I was making beats in
high school and I wanted to become like the next
(29:28):
Doctor Dre or Pharrell. And I actually took a music
theory class my first semester and I bombed it. I
think I got like a D plus or something like that,
and it just didn't really vibe with me. I had to,
you know, I had to take a long look at
myself and I was like, Hey, is this something that
I wanted to do? Probably not, So I ended up
(29:50):
changing after my first semester to kinesiology, mainly mainly because
sports was a big part of my life. I loved
again playing basketball. I learned a lot of life lessons
from playing basketball. I like tried to model a lot
of my life behind Michael Jordan's like kind of attitude
and you know, never giving up and you know, always
(30:12):
making things happen. So I was like, okay, well, I'm
five nine, I don't have that much athletic ability, so
I'm not going to be playing in the NBA anytime soon.
What else can I do in sports? And I figured
I could work for a sports team, and that's how
I ended up declaring, you know, kinesiology with the emphasis
(30:34):
sport management. I also did a minor in public relations
because I kind of wanted to see what social media
was going to be all about, and we didn't really
have like social media degrees or anything back then. Obviously
I'm doing a little bit something different now, but you know, again,
all good curriculum that I learned throughout my time there.
(30:57):
I will say though, that s jsu I still had
to take the same classes, same core classes in kinesiology
that the like the nurses majors had to take. So
I had to take Bio sixty five and Bio sixty six,
(31:18):
which is intro to Anatomy and intro to physiology, and
my intro to physiology class that was so hard at
Like I don't know how I passed it, but you
could tell in the I guess in the group or
in the lecture, like who was a nurse who was
(31:40):
an aspiring nurse as opposed to aspiring you know kind
major because of how hard they worked, or like how
much they paid attention to even like study groups, like
I would never be invited to be part of a
nurse's study group because they know that, you know, my
degree doesn't hone in on you know, getting an A
plus in this class, right, So, yeah, it was a
(32:02):
little tough. I haven't had to apply any of that
knowledge now, but it's a but it was a fun
It was a fun degree to work off of. And
you know, my my advisor there, uh doctor Sonya Lilienthal,
she's not there anymore. She was. She was really awesome
in terms of like trying to you know, figure out
how I could get into the sports world, and you know,
(32:23):
was ultimately the one that I talked to at UH
at graduation to set me in the right direction.
Speaker 4 (32:30):
I think this is a great example of like trial
and error. I thought I wanted to minor in political
science and I had to take econ micro and macro,
but the Economic Department was like super impacted, like all
the kids who want to major in econ and so
I also.
Speaker 2 (32:49):
Didn't do well in those classes.
Speaker 4 (32:51):
I got c's and learned quickly that I maybe I
don't want to be a political science major.
Speaker 2 (32:57):
So this is a lesson in.
Speaker 4 (32:58):
Just like this is how you feeligure out what you do,
like what you want to do, right, yeah, and like
you know, we're Asian. We didn't gets like straight a's
and like look at us now, like we're doing okay.
Speaker 3 (33:08):
Yeah yeah, I mean like it's it's it's wild looking
back and you're like, man, I really wanted to be
doctor Dre. Like I really wanted to be the next
doctor Dre. And I had a lot of fun doing it.
But like like the whole uh I guess cliche of
like life isn't you know, Like I guess, uh, like
(33:28):
the graph that just keeps on going up, like it
literally goes up and down, up and down, up and down,
and you wanted to keep trending up, but there's gonna
be times where you just hit rock bottom and you
have to just figure out how to go up from there.
And you know, I I don't regret any of my
experiences to this point in my life, Like it's I
(33:49):
look back and I understand that I'm very like blessed
and I'm very lucky to be where I'm at, And
there was a lot of things that had to line
up for me to be in a job that I
ultimately love and I love being here as much as
I can.
Speaker 4 (34:05):
Like when you told your parents you wanted to be
the next doctor dreer Farrell, Like, how did they take that?
Speaker 3 (34:11):
They were very supportive. They've always been supportive in whatever
I wanted to do, which is which is you know,
awesome for me, and you know, the yeah, I thank
them all the time that like they were able to
like let me just do my thing and just kind
of live through life and like figure out the ups
(34:32):
and the downs right, which is which is a little
tough especially for someone like me, where like I'm first
generation for my family being here and they obviously the
whole reason why they came from the Philippines to America
was you know, for myself and future generations to thrive
(34:54):
in this country. And I was kind of like, I
don't know if like guinea pig is the right word,
but it's like you know, I had to try to
set the tone right, and it's it's awesome that now
they're like kind of bragging to other people about me,
because this is ultimately what they wanted them come to America.
Speaker 4 (35:16):
Do you have any advice to anyone who wants to
get into the industry.
Speaker 3 (35:20):
Yeah, definitely use your resources. That's the top thing that
I say to even our interns that come through our department.
You know, there's a lot of people that could help you,
but they probably don't know that you need the help
unless you ask, right, So making sure that you tap
into your network and try to utilize that network to
(35:42):
open doors for you. Right, Like going back to my
story about how I got to the Niners. You know,
if I don't make that fake assignment for Erica and
reach out to her and you say like, hey, I
want to do an informational interview, I probably wouldn't have
gotten that that lead internship with the Santa Cruz Warriors
and probably would have been in a different field.
Speaker 2 (36:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (36:05):
So I'm always a big proponent of just making sure
that you make connections with people, utilize those connections, and
don't be afraid to reach out. Even now, like I
there's a couple of people that reach out now and
again that want to connect, like and I'm more so
(36:25):
happy to do it. But you'd be surprised how many
of those people don't necessarily follow up with you after
or you know, try to apply for a job and
they don't talk to you about it. And you're just
like I told you when I was doing the informational
interview with you, like I am more than happy to
write a note on your behalf to to go to
(36:46):
you know, if you want to go to a certain
team or get recommended for a certain job, So don't
be afraid to do so. There's there's too many of
us in the sports industry that have gone through a
lot of internships without a lot of help, right that, like,
we can't keep that cycle going, Like we all want
to help in one way or another.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
Yeah, I think I was actually talking about it last night,
the idea that I always felt like I didn't reach
back out or like ask people to be a mentor
because I thought it was an imposition. And now that
I'm in a role where like I am the person
being reached out to, you do that changes where you're like, no, like,
please reach back out to me like I could have
(37:30):
helped you, and like you did not have to do
all of the like hard middle steps that I did.
Speaker 3 (37:36):
Yeah, and it's it's still wild to me that people don't.
There's there's definitely a couple in my network that have
consistently reached out and I appreciate them and everything, and
you know they're doing great things, and you know it's
it's the sports world is a small little fraternity or sorority, right,
Like it's a small organization. It kind of acts like
(37:58):
a small organization because even if you're not working at
a team or let's say, like if I leave, like
maybe I go to like the brand side or an
agency where they are going to be working with a
team later on in life. Right, So it's all kind
of interconnected.
Speaker 1 (38:16):
The question that we ask on the podcast, I think
for every episode, and it's weirdly become my favorite question.
Every job description has the last bullet point other duties
as assigned. Have you done something with the forty nine
ers that probably you weren't expecting to do was not
on any job description you read.
Speaker 3 (38:37):
Yeah, I mean it's funny because even though I was
an intern here back in twenty thirteen, and breaking down
boxes and like moving stuff into like storage and stuff
like that. There are times where I'm still doing that
to this day, and there's times where you have to
raise your hand to do so, right, and it's you know,
you have to be pretty humble about it. But you
(38:59):
also have to understand that we're not staffed like a
normal like tech company, right, Like we don't have a
lot of resources, So there are times where you know,
people will have to lean on me to move stuff
around or like to help out with an activation, right,
And you have to go with the flow, and you
have to, you know, in the spirit of being a
(39:20):
true team player, contribute in in those ways. Right. So
that is is one of the bigger things as going
back to your question Patty about you know, any advice
for the industry, Like no job is too like small
for you, right, And people have to realize that in sports,
(39:41):
like there's going to be times where like sometimes even
see al or president or you know, brand or our
chief revenue officer doing the same thing. So in terms
of like breaking down boxes or helping package stuff, like,
everyone gets their hands dirty at one point or another,
and we're not all above it.
Speaker 4 (39:58):
True, very true, Well, Thank you so much for joining
the podcast.
Speaker 2 (40:03):
This was fun.
Speaker 3 (40:04):
Thanks yeah, no, appreciate it again. Honored to UH to
talk here and this was a lot of fun. Thank you.
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