Climbing Mountains, Going For The Try, Finding Purpose, Joy and Belief; Lessons From Columbia Sports Biz Conference…

I had a chance to pull together some takeaways from our Sports Business Conference on campus at Columbia this past Thursday.  With 33 speakers, 11 panels and keynotes covering everything from flag football and collectibles to leadership,  the Olympics, global conversations, cultural connections, big events and what it’s like to parade down the Canyon of Heroes. Almost 500 attendees, it was a great 20th anniversary celebration of our program today.

Six key takeways:

The LA Olympics will be the biggest and the widest, and will be a front porch for those to experience not just what they know but what they may learn about Olympians and Paralympians they were not aware of.

“It’s hard to be a fan of a sport you don’t understand.” LA 28 will serve as a way for the American audience to both learn & grow for a host of sports they may not know today,” was one of the key points USOPC CEO Sarah Hirshland talked about. The Games, which will beading everything from lacrosse to cricket, will expose sports to a global audience on every device possible as well as in person, and could…open up new fans and athletes to sports they didn’t know. Other key points? We may see Paralympians cross over into the Olympic Games in a wider way than ever before, as new technology and training will open doors once thought closed.

In terms of location and numbers, Hirschland talked about how these games will be vast, with competitions ranging from softball in Oklahoma City to all parts of Southern California, with the numbers of participants and sports expected to drop in the Games ahead. The multicity route we see for things like the World Cup will be the norm, not the exception going forward.

“For me the NFL was a megaphone for what I wanted to figure out next that you can’t recreate.” I always learn something when I hear our program alum Andrew Hawkins speak. His deep thoughts, his introspection, and his why is what has gotten him to be a growing force in the entrepreneurial space and the broadcast arena, but it is how he managed his time playing in the NFL and commuting to New York for class remains the ultimate narrative of what it takes to succeed and take advantage of the now. While never slacking in his time with the Clevland Browns, Hawkins, like any good receiver, was looking all around him to make sure he was making sure he grasped the moment while charting the path forward for him and his family. He always took the meetings, found the time to be curious, and built with purpose.  

“What’s the next thing they are going to say we are out of our mind to try.” Danny Zausner,  Chief Operating Officer, USTA National Tennis Center and the US Open dropped that line when talking about how the event has to constantly y re-invent itself by listening and learning to all constituents and then going that much further to expand the reach of the three week event. That challenge and reinvention was echoed by Ed Horne, Chief Operating Officer of OnLocation, when talking about the lessons learned from the World Cup and how mega events like the Super Bowl and the Olympics have become such a communal part of a fan experience that goes way past buying a ticket today. Consumers today crave community, and look for more than just sitting in a seat, and today’s stadia, today’s event planners, and today’s brands have to keep building those experiences by listening to what consumers want and then making sure when they spend, they are getting value.

“Goalies have strange relationships with accountability.”  That line was actually not said by Stanley Cup winning goaltender turned entrepreneur Mike Richter, it was said to him by his moderator, former NBA star Len Elmore. However their talk was entirely about leadership and the role his vast athletic background brought him to be a success in the boardroom. Richter was careful to point out how much trust and integrity are key to his business success, lessons he learned from the leadership of others in building a Stanley Cup winning team…the last one in New York with the Rangers. His key mantra during their session was literally personal… “You have to lead yourself through building discipline before you can lead others.”  It starts with you.

“The blind boxification of everything.” The last panel of the day was a wide-ranging discussion on the collectable business, one with literally endless possibilities, but one that is fraught with peaks and valleys as well. Consumers love the ability to gamble on discovery, hence the growth of investing in collectibles which can literally have massive value or none at all depending on the marketplace. Josh Luber, the founder and CEO of ghostwrite, has built and sold businesses in the speculation and prediction market, and he was careful to point out that the collectable market today is expanding, but at a pace no one is really sure of. It less about cards and remnants anymore, it is about the community that drives passion and scarcity and personal value and storytelling for any number of tangible items. The beauty of collectables today is that the industry is more global, and more multigenerational, than ever before.

“Getting to the summit doesn’t always mean you are ready to come back down.” That was not just a metaphor, but a chilling fact laid out in a wideranging discussion between Scott Rosner and Sheikha Asma Al Thani, Director of Marketing and International Cooperation Sector at the Qatar Olympic Committee and one of the most accomplished mountain climbers on the planet. The Sheikha’s discussion was chronicled by Terry Lyons in this link, but the crux of her learnings, and her talk, was about the building or trust and the belief in oneself, and how the literal mountains we face are overcome in every way when we grow off those two principals.

Those were just a few of the key points, and certainly not all, absorbed from a full day of curiosity, listening and learning.