Transcript

The transcript below has been lightly edited for readability and clarity. Click any timestamp to jump to that exact point in the YouTube video.

Podcast Introduction

[00:01] Don Costante:

Welcome to the Rundown Podcast, hosted by Don Costante, a sports and event management expert with over 25 years experience. This unique podcast provides an opportunity to hear from some of the best professionals in the industry. You’ll get valuable insight and perspective on what it takes to deliver authentic experiences, activate brands, and most importantly, connect with audiences. All on the Rundown Podcast. Let’s get started. The Atlanta Braves have long been known for their success on the playing field, but equally impressive is their game day presentation. If you’ve ever been to a Braves home game, you know exactly what I’m talking about. Today, my guest is Scott Cunningham. Scott is the person responsible for creating the Braves game day presentation.

Scott has over 20 years of live event experience and currently serves as the vice president of fan experience with the Atlanta Braves, where he leads the promotions, entertainment, and special events. Audio and video production and broadcasting departments. Scott and I have known each other since I entered Major League Baseball back in 2008. Over the years, we have shared best practices on a variety of topics. In this podcast, Scott will share his best practices in three key areas of event presentation. The planning process that takes place during the offseason, partnership integration, and mascot development. It’s time to get started. Let’s meet Scott Cunningham. Hi, Scott. Thanks for joining me today.

Meet Scott Cunningham

[01:29] Scott Cunningham:

Thank you for having me. I really appreciate it, Don.

[01:31] Don Costante:

I am excited about having you on the podcast. I think the best way to start off is really to have you take people down the path on how you became vice president of fan experience for the Atlanta Braves.

Scott Cunningham’s Career Journey

[01:44] Scott Cunningham:

Well, I got my start in television. I was a TV producer director in Miami, Florida in my start. So, right out of school, I worked in the TV business, and I just wanted to be a producer director. And I ended up working for this TV station that owned the broadcast rights to the Florida Marlins and the Miami Heat. And I was their sports producer. So, I would actually travel around with the teams and broadcast the games back to South Florida. During baseball season, it was the Florida Marlins. And then during basketball season, I’d travel around with the Heat and do the same thing with them. And then it so happened, I’ve always had a passion for hockey. So, while I was doing that, I was working on the side, just helping out the very new Florida Panthers hockey team. This was back in the 90s when they first started, back in 93.

And I just offered any help that I could give them as far as editing and stuff like that while I was producing games for the Marlins and the Heat. And when a time came where the TV station ended up getting bought out by another network and they were losing sports, the Florida Panthers, you know, had a relationship with me for some of the work that I was doing for them on the side. Actually, just for season tickets, because all I wanted to do was see the games. They were looking for a director of game presentation to produce a broadcast quality program for the in-arena audience. And like I said, this is back in the 90s before game presentation was being invested in by all the teams, like it is today. Back then, there was only a few teams that were really, you know, investing in it like the Panthers were. And I was lucky enough to get the call and got on board with them.

And that’s what started my whole position into game presentation. Worked with them for about four years. And then the Atlanta Braves came calling and that was back in 2005. And I’ve been with the team ever since.

[03:34] Don Costante:

You know, the one thing I love about asking a question like that is I get to learn something new about people that I’ve known for a while. I never knew that you used to work for the Florida Panthers.

[03:44] Scott Cunningham:

Yeah, the Florida Panthers is where it all started. That’s where my love for game presentation started. You know, prior to that, as a TV producer, I was trying to be as creative as I could in producing content for that little box that’s in everybody’s living room. It was at the Florida Panthers that I realized that, oh, my God, there’s so many more tools to your disposal at a live event. You know, other than just the video board that a lot of this stuff is going on. You’ve got the music and you’ve got, you know, visual elements. You’ve got live elements. In live game presentation, you’ve got all five elements that you can utilize to help the fans experience.

The Vice President of Fan Experience Role

[04:22] Don Costante:

So let’s talk about your role. What does being the vice president of fan experience entail for you?

[04:28] Scott Cunningham:

So my job in a nutshell is I’m responsible for the fan experience as it relates to entertainment for the Atlanta Braves. So the audio video department reports into me, the entertainment and events department reports into me, and the broadcasting department reports into me. So all encompassing, aside from the broadcasting, entertainment and special events and audio video, all are tools utilized to help with the game presentation. So my primary function for the Atlanta Braves on game days is to provide the game presentation, the fan experience as it relates to entertainment from the minute they park their car to the minute they get back into it. And then on non-game days, any event presentation that the Atlanta Braves do as well. The broadcasting side is under my purview only because of the background in television that I had.

So it’s in my wheelhouse to help out with the production side of that stuff. I continue to do that on the side, although it doesn’t really relate to the game presentation.

Event Presentation Philosophy

[05:30] Don Costante:

The one thing that I’ve found over the years that is different, although the principles will be the same in event presentation, is really the philosophy. And I know, like I mentioned, teams will differ in their approach. What’s your overall event presentation philosophy?

[05:44] Scott Cunningham:

My overall event presentation philosophy is to be as interactive as possible with the fans as I can without crossing that line of being a nuisance. There are many, many different levels that would define a philosophy for game presentation because it’s very complex. But as far as just a blanket statement, I would say there’s probably three things that I look at. One is being as interactive as I possibly can with the fans. I believe by doing that, the fans are more engaged in having a good time if you’re interactive with them. The show itself, I think it’s important to run a nice, tight, crisp show and actually run it like a show. There’s an opening and a closing and there’s ramping up and there’s just meaning to the overall show. I think the people that are in game presentation that understand that tend to do better at those.

In my opinion, I think their shows are so much better when there’s meaning to it. It’s not just showing up and doing a baseball game. It’s actually a tight show where you’re anticipating things to happen and being ready to go with four or five things that could possibly happen just to enhance that environment. And third is the environment. I mean, it’s all about creating an environment that the game presentation at the pro sports level is about, bottom line, is about creating an environment where the players can perform at their highest level and the fans can make memories for a lifetime. It’s all about memory making in our business and we get to affect that environment. Although we’re not creating those memories, we’re creating a place where those memories can be made.

[07:26] Don Costante:

You know, I’ve been fortunate to attend a couple of your games and so I’ve seen your philosophy in action and I can tell people who might be listening that it’s incredible. If you haven’t been to a Braves game, incredible show. Let’s shift gears a little bit. To get to that point, to implement that philosophy, you have to start with the planning. And the planning in the off-season, a lot of people say, what do you do in the off-season? You know, there aren’t any games anymore, so, you know, are you just taking time off? Well, I tell people that that’s actually my busiest time of year, not necessarily in hours, but in the thinking processes, the implementation and getting everything created. Let’s talk about the planning for you. When does your planning process begin for a season?

Off-Season Planning

[08:10] Scott Cunningham:

Sure. So, the planning process to me is the necessary evil to execute, right? I love execution. I love the season. I love being in the game and stuff like that. But unless you’ve got some really good planning that happens, the execution isn’t going to be, I think, as enjoyable or you’re not going to be as good at it. So, I don’t enjoy the planning process or the off-season, quote-unquote, but it’s absolutely necessary. And you’ve got to be really good at it in order to be good at executing your plans. My process begins literally, I would say, I’m taking notes throughout the year, right? So, if I’m doing something, if an idea pops up for me or a conversation I’m having with either a counterpart like you, Don, or somebody internally in the organization, and an idea pops up, I might jot that down and stick that in an idea folder for the next year. I’m always thinking about stuff like that.

I guess the planning never stops. But September, it seems every year our budget process is being moved up and up and up, you know. Before it was like after the season was over, then you start doing your budgets. Well, now we’re having to figure out our budgets like in August and September. And in order to figure out budgets for the next year, I’ve got to figure out what I’m going to be doing. So, the planning process kind of starts at that point just with budgets as far as a overall, okay, I’m going to need X amount of dollars in order to do this and that. And what exactly do I want to do? So, a lot of that starts in September. The big time planning that I think that you’re getting at happens immediately after the season ends for me. I’ll usually give my team maybe a week to kind of recuperate from the season.

And then we’re, I mean, that’s an everyday, you know, job is until the next season starts is we’re planning that. We’re going through marketing campaigns that we’ve got to figure out. We’re looking at our features, what features are coming back and which ones aren’t. Because a lot of these features are sold in multi-year deals. What new ideas that we can add to that thing? What things do we want to do? The process begins in full force probably about a week after the season ends.

[10:21] Don Costante:

So, you started to talk about some of the things that you start to review. Talk a little bit about that planning process. Does it begin with a brainstorming session or who’s involved with this process?

[10:32] Scott Cunningham:

So, it starts with, in my group, it starts with a recap, right? So, what I’ll do is after about a week after the season’s over, I’ll ask everybody to relax, but start thinking about your recaps. And I have everybody that reports into me send me in a recap of the season. What worked, what didn’t work, what they would bring back, what they would do differently. And just basically giving me recaps of all of their specific areas. Because I’m dealing with event people and presentation people. I’m dealing with audio people and audio and video folks. I mean, the different opinions that I get from the different people is what’s going to create, as far as my department’s mantra and what our focus is going to be. So, I’m very interested in hearing everybody’s opinion of how things went and how they felt things went.

Because I might have felt something was terrible and then the rest of the department was like, oh, no, that was really, really cool. We should really look at doing that again or we could just make a little tweak here and make it even better. So, I’m interested in that’s how my process starts with the recaps. And then from the recaps, we’ll begin creating my goals and objectives. I’ll put together goals and objectives based on recaps that come in that are more specific to, I would say, the overall general goals within all the departments. So that people can have at least some direction of where they’re going. And then from there, we get into the whole promotion calendar process, which has involved a lot of other departments. But like I said, my planning process starts initially, internally, and it all starts with recaps.

[12:12] Don Costante:

When you have the recaps from your staff and then you start going into your goals and objectives, are you involving other departments in the process?

[12:19] Scott Cunningham:

So, with the recaps is just internally, but then all – now, when we start planning for the 2020 season and as far as what we’re going to be doing on a game-by-game basis, you have to involve all the other departments because everybody’s got an area that they’re going to be dealing with. And so, I’ll end up getting, you know, our marketing team together, our community affairs team, our sponsorship team, and our ticket sales, you know, our group ticket sales team. We’ll all get together and get in one room, and we’ll all put together on it, and we’ll get around a calendar, and we’ll all talk about, well, here are our initiatives, and here’s what we want to do. And for me, as game presentation, I need to execute everybody’s ideas, but it needs to make sense.

So, what I’ll do is meet with my group, and we’ll figure out from a game presentation standpoint what it is that we want to do throughout the upcoming year. You know, those are the easy, low-hanging fruits of the Fourth of July, the Memorial Days, the calendar holidays that we’re going to want to build some stuff around. And if there’s anything else that lands on a game day that may be a little unique, we might put that in there like an Army’s birthday or something like that that we – you know, an MIA day. You know, stuff like that that may not be at the top of everyone’s calendar but would make sense because we’ve got a game day and we don’t have anything going on. So, we’ll do a wish list of our calendar, bring that into this bigger group, and then we just start plugging everything in and trying to make things work.

Last thing you want to do is have three theme nights on one night because group sales has got a college hat day ticket package that they want to make a night. On the same night that community affairs has a HBCU type of a night and the same time that we’ve – that game entertainment might be thinking of a rock concert. So, we want to make sure that everything – we’ll plug everything in and then we look at it and just make sure that everything is seamless and jives together well.

[14:20] Don Costante:

So, when you’re going through your process, you brought everybody in. How often are you having these planning sessions as needed? Is it just one meeting you’re able to formulate what you want to do and kind of activate it from that point forward?

[14:32] Scott Cunningham:

Yeah. So, it starts with one big meeting with everybody coming to a meeting that’s prepared. So, there’s meetings that happen within their own groups as far as what they want to do. And then it’s a big meeting of, okay, let’s throw everything on a calendar and start hashing that out. We don’t anticipate that we’re done at the end of an hour or two of doing that. There might be some thoughts. There might be – there’s always a lot of back and forth conversations about, you know, differing of opinions on, you know, what constitutes a theme night and what doesn’t. And so, a lot of times it’ll come into a – you know, it starts with one big meeting and then it’ll go into meetings as needed after that. I’ve got another meeting today, as a matter of fact, where hopefully we’ll be finalizing everything. And we’ve had probably three or four meetings on the topic since the end of the season.

[15:24] Don Costante:

How involved or what’s the process with ownership or maybe baseball upside? Do you need to go through kind of an approval process or do they have the trust in you to just make those kind of decisions knowing that you know what their thinking is?

[15:37] Scott Cunningham:

Knock on wood, there is no approval process with ownership or baseball ops. We make the decisions internally as a team, you know, that makes sense. And then if there’s anything that involves, like, the players, then, of course, we’d go to baseball ops and just make sure that they’re good with it. I mean, but the last thing they want to hear is stuff from us. You know, they’ve got their own full plates to deal with. And as far as – for us, it’s like if it’s an event for me, like we’re doing a – we have a Chop Fest that’s going to be happening in January. And we do a Chop Fest gala the day before. And we utilize the players and the players in a unique, special way that we don’t typically utilize them within the season. So I would go to baseball operations and just say, hey, here’s our plan. Do you see any issues with this?

And, I mean, I’ve never had them say, no, no, you can’t do that, you know, because we, you know, we respect the time and what the players are doing. And we have a pretty good idea of what is acceptable and what’s not.

[16:39] Don Costante:

Well, you’re in a good situation. I’ve seen it both ways. I’ve seen where teams not necessarily have to go to baseball ops or basketball ops or the ops side, more upper management or senior VP of business ops, just because they want to have their checkmark off of it, just to make sure that they’re okay. Sometimes they have a different philosophy maybe than what the director maybe of the event presentation side is. So there’s a little bit of give and take there. Obviously, in what you’re telling me and how you guys kind of go through your process, it sounds like there’s a lot of collaboration that goes on between the departments, marketing, partnerships, social media, et cetera, right?

[17:15] Scott Cunningham:

Exactly. Lots, lots and lots. And that’s where it can get a little bit frustrating is just getting everybody in the room at the same time and making decisions.

Developing New Creative Content

[17:24] Don Costante:

Describe your creative process for generating new content during the planning sessions.

[17:28] Scott Cunningham:

Okay, so for generating new content, that’ll be more of an internal department type of a deal. I don’t really incorporate – I don’t want to say I don’t incorporate like the other departments, but for creating content, I look for our creative group to kind of brainstorm and figure stuff out. So that’s what we’ll do. Throughout the year, I’ll schedule brainstorming sessions within our group. And it’s not just the full-timers. A lot of times, they’ll bring in even some part-time game day help, people that are on our crew to come in and just brainstorm on some ideas, new feature ideas. We’re constantly – for me, what I like to do is – beginning of the season, I’d like to raise the bar from where we were last. And then during the all-star game, I’d like to raise the bar again.

So there’s – to me, there’s two different – there’s two times where I really would like to make a noticeable difference at the all-star break and at the beginning of the season, of each season. And that’s a challenge to do. And, you know, some years I’m more successful at it than others. But that’s at least my goal, and that’s what I try to do. So going into the beginning of the season, I want to come up with some new stuff. And I want – I don’t want it just to be the same old, same old. I’ll never just sit back and rest on the successes of the year before. I’ll try to come up with something that creates something better. And then during the all-star break, I’ll do the same thing. And if I come up with an idea, say, in May, once we’re into the season, sometimes I’ll hold that idea for the all-star break.

Because I really do want to make a – I’d love for our fans to see a difference after the all-star break and not just – I mean, I want it to be a noticeable difference. That’s the goal, at least. So as far as the creative process goes, we’ll create – I’ll have brainstorming sessions probably maybe once a month throughout the season. During the season, I should say. During the off-season, it’s as needed because we become an entertainment company where we’re nonstop all year long. It’s not just baseball anymore. So if I had brainstorming sessions monthly during the off-season, I’d kill these people.

[19:43] Don Costante:

I love how you save some content or you develop content to be different after the all-star break. Certainly, I have the same type of mentality. After going through the beginning part of the season, you want something fresh and different once the midpoint hits just to entertain those fans. I’ve even dabbled with the idea of changing my intro video and just having a totally different look and feel in the second part. So let’s just take one idea. Well, let’s just say you’ve come up with a brilliant idea. You want to implement it. Take me through the inception through production. What’s that process?

[20:17] Scott Cunningham:

Okay. Mine will probably be a little more unique than most people because you hit it on the head before. Not everybody has the same freedom as I do with the Atlanta Braves. And I know it because I’ve got buddies of mine throughout the industry and I hear the pains that they go through with, like, ownership and approvals and senior management approvals. And there’s just approvals up the wazoo. It’s very hard for a lot of teams to really get those creative juices going and actually try stuff out. I’m blessed where I don’t have those restrictions. And I can’t tell you why. It’s something I’ve never had those here at the Braves. Luckily, I guess I’ve gained their trust and I haven’t ruined it yet, thank God. But the process that I go through is either myself or my team will come up with an idea.

And whenever that is, like I said, I might, we’ll hash through that idea in like a brainstorming session. And if I feel that it’s something that’s worth trying out, I won’t be afraid to try it. And that’s part of the process of bringing it to fruition is going through a trial stage. So during our inventory during games, I’m not afraid to, if I’ve got an open inventory in the middle of the season to try an idea, I will. And sometimes you throw it up there and see if it sticks and sometimes it doesn’t. But in my mind, there’s a certain, you know, for my own personal approval process, there’s a certain level of comfort that I need to have that, yeah, I think this can work before we go out there and just try it out. But we’ll do that. So, Jordan, I’ll give you an example. I guess it was last year. Well, shoot, here’s a feature that maybe some of the listeners might be aware of.

We did this feature called Beat the Freeze. And a few years ago, it went viral around the globe because of this. One of the contestants was really, you know, hamming it up and he ends up biting it. And it was just a really funny piece. But that feature there was an idea that I came up with back in like 2000. I guess it was the it was the winter before the 2016 season. And it was it was something that I figured that I knew that, you know, what I needed a new feature. And I was thinking what feature works and comedy and competition. Those are the two things that really work in with with features at the pro sports level. And I was thinking about, OK, comedy is, you know, competition. I started focusing on the competition. I was like, what could I possibly do that would be competition that people would like? And immediately started, you know, thought of we’ve got this tool race.

We’ve got this, you know, stolen base challenge, you know, that are very popular because there’s competition to it. The fans get behind it. And I was thinking whether else what other thing could we possibly do. And we had been for years doing this fastest man in Braves vision competition, which just on the side. So where we come to a game, you know, a couple of games in the summer, you know, before the game started. And there’d be people in our production crew that would race each other from foul pole to foul pole. And we keep clock times on them. And then we just do all these different heats so that everybody goes and it comes all the way down to the fastest two. And then those two would race each other. And whoever won it was to claim that they’re the fastest man in Braves vision. And it was a lot of fun for the production team. And it’s something we were doing for years.

And I said, well, how can I turn that into a feature? Because it’s a lot of fun. But just pulling two fans out and having them race against each other, it wouldn’t be, you know, that exciting. How can I make that more exciting? And ended up with this whole idea where we get somebody that was super fast and have a fan, you know, get this ridiculous lead. And then that fast person would just gobble up the lead and win or almost win. And so I came up with the idea during the offseason. I wanted to call it Beat the Fox. And it was back when that song, What Does the Fox Say, was real popular. And I was thinking I could change the music as soon as we released the Fox. And I’d put some fast crack star in like a leotard suit with a foxtail and he’d be the Fox. And so I figured, OK, you know, in 2016, I’m going to try this out.

And it was the last year of we were closing down Turner Field that year. And it just seemed every homestand there was some big event that we were doing. And so I held off from the beginning of the season and figured, OK, during after the all-star break, we’ll try it out. And the level of events that were coming at us during that season, closing down the stadium, was just too much to really put the effort into making this Beat the Fox work. So I held it off for another year. And that’s when a sponsor, actually, in 2017, when we opened up the new stadium, I figured, yeah, I’ll try it out then on some open inventory. And I got invited to a sponsor meeting with RaceTrac. Our partnership group brought me in. RaceTrac was looking for a feature. It was a race feature that they wanted. They wanted to do like another tool race, but they had this frozen drink section they wanted to produce.

And they were thinking that they could have frozen drinks, you know, costumed frozen drinks racing each other. And I was like, we’re not doing that. I’ve already got a tool race. We’re not going to do another one. Then I threw out that idea to them. And it took some convincing because they looked at me like I had three heads in the beginning. But they ended up agreeing to do it. And then they’re extremely happy now, especially after the thing went viral and they’re getting all this publicity to do it. So that’s how that all came about was just an idea. I was literally going to, I typically, what I would do is I’d do it in game. I’d just try it out in game just to see how the fans react to it. And then, and then from there, the next season, I’d present it to the sponsorship group and see if they can get a sponsor behind it.

How Beat the Freeze Was Created

[26:41] Don Costante:

Well, I loved it. I think, you know, things like that are, that are unique and not typical of the individual sport. You never saw that in baseball before, right? Baseball is very traditional and going outside the box. And that’s the way you think, which is incredible. And that’s what makes you so successful was enlightening. It was, it was fun. It was definitely something that definitely went viral. I enjoyed it. So great job with that.

[27:07] Scott Cunningham:

Thank you. Thank you.

Testing Ideas and Learning from Failure

[27:08] Don Costante:

Wrapping up the conversation on, on planning. Is there anything that you wanted to try with your planning process that you just haven’t implemented yet that you’re looking at doing?

[27:19] Scott Cunningham:

You know what, I guess the answer to that question would be no, because anything that we do come up with, we haven’t really, anything I’ve wanted to do, I’ve been able to do. I’ve been able to just to try it out just because of the freedom that I’ve been given. So there’s nothing out there that I’ve been told, hey, you can’t do that, that I really wanted to do. Because if I wanted to do it, we’d do it. We’ve tried some stuff out that I thought would really work well that hasn’t worked out well that we’ve stopped doing. We had a, we had just this year, last year actually, I started doing it and then I actually got a sponsor to buy it. I guess 2018 we had it and 2019 a sponsorship bought it. But then we had some issues and we had to stop it. And it was what we called the big, the face race. You know, those, like those fat heads that were popular of the players’ faces?

What I had these players, I had like three players’ faces created that were about eight feet tall by about four, five, six feet wide. So these huge fat head of just their faces. And it was created on a type of a foam core. And then I put them in the stands, similar to, I got the idea from when I was looking at soccer games and they were passing around flags and stuff around the audience, you know, around the stadium. I figured I’d get these gigantic faces, these heads, and we’ll race by having the fans pass the head from one section all the way over to, you know, in the outfield all the way to the other end of the outfield. So it was multiple sections that would be involved. Again, engaging our fans and making strides. It was hitting all the boxes that, for me, I was like, yeah, let’s give it a shot. And so we did, and it turned out to be pretty successful.

With anything new, you’ve got to do it maybe once or twice just to make sure that, you know, sometimes people need to be trained on how to do things. And then once they get it, it just takes off. And if it doesn’t take off after a few times, then maybe it’s not working. So we did this a few times, and then it ended up taking off and loved it. And, again, I just instituted it on – I just put it in where inventory that was available. So it wasn’t happening all the time. But when I did do it, fans loved it. I liked it. It was getting a lot of talk about it from our broadcasters and stuff like that. So I figured it was successful enough to where we could put a sponsor to it. And we did. Delta ended up sponsoring it the next year, which is in 2019. But halfway through the season – and it was one of my concerns, too, is that these big, huge heads,

although they’re foam core and stuff, if the fans get too raucous with it, I could see somebody getting hurt. And sure enough, somebody’s wrist got dinged with it, and it became a concern. And so we ended up pulling that – you know, we ended up pulling it from our repertoire right away, and it’s just bonusing Delta with another feature. And that’s one of those things that where I’m looking back, it’s like, well, if there’s some other type of material that I could find, because it was a successful feature, if there’s another material out there that I could find that would definitely prevent people from getting hurt, then I’ll actually look at it.

Partnership Integration

[30:36] Don Costante:

Let’s shift gears. Let’s talk about partnership integration, which is a huge topic. It’s vitally important. Discuss your relationship and how it’s set up between your department and the partnership department.

[30:51] Scott Cunningham:

Yeah. So partnerships, you know, in our business, a lot of people are looking at them as the evil empire. There’s constant head-butting that happens between game presentation and partnerships, because we both have two completely different initiatives in what our jobs are. You know, partnerships, they need to go out there and they need to get people to sign the bottom line and get a lot of money in sponsorships of everything. And for fan experience, we’re just looking to make sure that the fan has a good time, so they’re going to want to come back again regardless. I mean, we’re all in competition for that same entertainment dollar, and we want to make sure that people are having a great time here, not just, you know, seeing a winning product on the field, but when it’s not winning, we want them to come back again. So the two kind of butt heads, and it makes sense that they do.

For me here at the Braves, the relationship that you have with the partnership group is absolutely crucial to your success, because where it’s not, I’ve seen it with my counterparts and with many people throughout the years, that if there is a, if there’s not a relationship between the two groups, then it’s an uphill battle for both. I think it’s a good thing. I think it’s a good thing. I happen to have a really good relationship with our senior vice president of sponsorships here at the Braves. He’s a really good friend of mine outside of the office and inside of the office that I met just here, and it’s important. I completely understand what his challenges are, so that when we do, you know, meet where we both stick our heels in the ground, we’re able to find, more times than not, we’re able to find some common ground that we can give and take a little bit,

knowing that, knowing each other’s challenges. So our relationship with them is really, really good here. And, and just to, to all your listeners, a message to them is, if you don’t have a good relationship with your partnerships group, work on it.

[33:04] Don Costante:

Great advice. How often are you communicating with your partnership sponsorship department during the off season and in season? And what type of information are you guys discussing?

[33:16] Scott Cunningham:

So I don’t set up any formal meetings with that group, like ongoing meetings. Some teams do, some groups. I’ve heard my counterparts that have done that. I personally don’t. I’m just open and available to them anytime that they need me. I let them know, hey, listen, if there’s ever, if you’re going on a sponsorship call, and you know, you’ve got this client that is interested in, you know, anything that, that touches my world, you know, whether it be, you know, basically it’s a lot of it. A lot of the times I get called in on in-game features because I’ve got a pretty strong philosophy on the in-game features needing to be entertained. They need to have some entertainment value to them or we don’t do it, you know, entertainment or educational value or we don’t do it.

So a lot of times they’ll bring me in and I can talk to the, to the client and, and instead of them being the go-between, they’ll, they’ll bring me in. So they, they know that they, they, they have access to me in meetings. My door is always open whenever they’re, if they’re on the middle of the day and they’re on a call, they just get off the call with somebody. They can run over to my office and, hey, I just got a call and I want to put this, you know, with a certain client and I want to put this proposal together. What do you think about, you know, X, Y, Z? And, and I’m happy to have those conversations with those guys all the time. Or if they have something they really need to sit down and spend some time with me on, they’ll schedule an appointment and, you know, and I’ll meet with them.

It’s normally them setting up meetings with me and me servicing them and helping them out as they utilize me as a tool. Then us be setting up meetings and saying, hey, here’s our philosophy. Because I’ve already done that. When I started back in 2005, one of the first things I did was meet with the sponsorship group, their salespeople and their servicing people. And just kind of explain my philosophy on, like I said, like the entertainment value to it. We’re just not interested in doing commercials here. And we’re not interested in just selling, doing 81 game features. You know, let’s sell 81 game sponsorships, but let’s, let’s sell, you know, three or four features in that sponsorship. So they’ve already got that understanding from me. And so I’m literally just a tool in their shed to use, to get to close, close clients.

[35:34] Don Costante:

I think the, the one thing I love the most of what you just said is either has entertainment value or we don’t do it. And, and I think that, you know, our role is really a filter to the fans. You know, we want to make sure that everything that’s coming through, we know that we have to work with the departments, but we need to make sure that we’re looking out not to jeopardize or sacrifice the entertainment experience. So I, I think that’s amazing. Knowing that you have that type of communication, are there any kind of communication documents or any kind of document that is specific to the partnership department that you’ve created just to an ongoing, maybe you share online, maybe not.

[36:11] Scott Cunningham:

Yeah. Yeah. So I do. There’s a, one of the first things that I created when I first started with the team is, you know, an inventory chart that I call the game chart. Cause it’s really important. There was, there was never, you know, anywhere I’ve worked with Panthers and also here, there was no process for inventory. Corporate sales would go out there and sell something. And then they’d come to the game presentation folks or the game entertainment and say, fulfill it. And there was just, there was no back and forth. There was no like, well, Hey, how am I supposed to fulfill that? We were full, you know? And they’re like, Oh no, you’re not. You can just make that 30 seconds. And then they, you know, so there was, there was no real process. And so the first thing I did 15 years ago was build this game chart where it was a document for inventory.

And basically in baseball, there’s, you know, there’s nine innings. So there’s 18 half innings. And as a home team, you may not be, if you’re winning, you’re not going to play that last half inning. So I look at 17 half innings is our inventory. And then inside those 17 half innings, I just divvy up the time by 30 seconds slot. So in baseball, you’ve got about a minute and 40 seconds before you have to announce the batter. So 90 seconds worth of time that you can utilize to entertain your fans.

Managing In-Game Inventory

[37:35] Don Costante:

Right.

[37:36] Scott Cunningham:

And so if you take those 90 seconds and split them up into 30 second, you know, increments or units, I call them, then you’ve got three units per half inning. And so basically I’ve come up with a chart that’s got 48 units of inventory. And of those 48 units, I give 36 of them to corporate sales. I designate 36 of them to be sold. And then I keep 12 units just to entertain if ticket sales has something that we need to do or community affairs has something that we, I try to take care of the rest of the organization. But game presentation and the rest of the organization with those 12 units. And so I will assign a unit number to each feature. And so for me, most of them are three unit features, like your kiss cams and your, any of the races and stuff like that.

You know, I could knock those down to a two unit feature, meaning 60 seconds, or just keep them at three, three unit features being the whole minute 90. You need that minute and a half to really, if you’re entertaining and if you’re entertaining and, and, or informing, you need that minute and a half to really get that thing done. If you’re doing it in 30 seconds, it’s just not enough time to really entertain. That’s, that’s the time for like spots and you’re not entertaining in a 30 second bit. I’ll keep some of those around for just to inform people like, Hey, if the Braves hit a home run in this next inning, then everybody gets a, whatever that feature is that our corporate sales sold. Those will be my one unit features. And then I’ve got to squeeze a, you know, a two unit feature right in after that.

So that document, which is, which I call the game chart, I’ll have listed all of the features that we, that we do. And I separate that per servicing person and per, per salesperson. So I know who sold them and who’s servicing it. So if there’s any questions I can go right to them. And then I, then I create just pages. It’s a, it’s a Excel spreadsheet. And I have all these pages that basically will outline the entire season. So I’ll have 81 games. And so I’ll assign of those 36, I’ll assign the entire season. So before the season even begins, I’ll know exactly what we’re doing sponsorship wise, what we’re committed to and how we fulfill those commitments for every single game before we even begin. And it’s just a matter of rearranging it to keep the games fresh and the show fresh. We won’t do the same feature in the same inning every single game.

We’ll, we’ll flip that up, switch that up a bit. Just a, the smoke and mirror, give it a different feel.

[40:15] Don Costante:

How, how are they getting this documentary? Is it a hard copy? Are they getting it? Are they looking at it online through a shared form?

[40:22] Scott Cunningham:

Yes. So we, we use SharePoint. And so we’re sharing it on SharePoint. I, I kind of lock it just to make sure that nobody can, uh, can add to it. I’ll lock it for myself or my.

[40:30] Don Costante:

Read only.

[40:31] Scott Cunningham:

Yes. And that way they can, they can, they can look at it. You know what these guys never do? They end up calling me on the phone saying, Hey, how much room do we have? And this isn’t just the in-game features, but it’s also every other LED board that we’ve got. So they’ll be selling an LED board and I’ve got 17 slots per LED board. They’ll ask me how much inventory we have left on things. They’ve got it right at their fingertips, but they typically will end up calling me up and just going, Hey, where are we at with this?

[41:00] Don Costante:

You know, I think the important point here is that you control your in-game inventory. And there’s a lot of places that I’ve visited or people I’ve talked to. You’d be shocked to hear that they’re not controlling it. Your particular case, you’re isolating a specific number to partnership that they get. And you’re maintaining a certain number to ensure that there’s entertainment still. In your particular case, 36 for corporate and 12 for yourself. Lots of people think, and their mindset is we have to sell everything. Everything needs to be sponsored. And you’re bombarding your fans at that point and not giving them an opportunity to breathe, nor have that sort of entertainment that is so desperately needed. So in your particular case, you don’t have to worry about upper management or ownership because they’ve given you the green light to make these types of decisions.

What happens in a lot of cases, you’ll get corporate partners saying that you say no because it doesn’t bring any entertainment value. They go running to ownership or not ownership, but upper management. And they’ll say, we have to do it because it’s a dollar figure. So it’s a horrible cycle, but that’s kind of how sometimes it goes.

[42:04] Scott Cunningham:

Well, and let me tell you, I mean, that sometimes happens with me as well because the corporate sales groups, there might be a client that comes to them and says, this is what they want to do. And they want to do it here. And they want to do this specifically because they’re doing it in six other stadiums around the country. So they want to be consistent with the stadiums that they’re doing it in. And so those are the tough ones because our sponsorship group might lose that sale if we don’t bet. So that’s where discussion comes in with me. And I mean, I’m not getting everything that I want all the time. Let me tell you that. I mean, I have to, again, understand what they’re trying to do. And sometimes I have to sacrifice my feelings and my opinions and my philosophies a little bit. I’ve got to allow them to be flexible in order to accommodate them.

And they need to be flexible in order to accommodate me. That’s how the relationship works. So I’m, by all means, I’m not winning on all grounds. And I’m not saying, hey, we’re not doing this because it doesn’t fit my description. Sometimes I’m doing things that I don’t want to do because there’s more to it than just the entertainment.

Turning Sponsor Ideas into Fan Entertainment

[43:14] Don Costante:

So let’s talk about some of those ideas that might come about from the client. In your particular case, when partnership goes out and they’re pitching features or promotions or contests, are those ideas coming from you? Are they coming from the partnership group or from the client themselves? Or is it kind of a mix?

[43:32] Scott Cunningham:

Yeah, so it is. It’s a mix. It’s sometimes they’re for me. A lot of times they’ll come to me and say, hey, I’ve got a client that’s looking for an in-game feature. Do you have anything you two want to do that you want us to sell? I love those the best because I’ve already got those. Those are the those are the that’s the stable of stuff that I may have tried out the season before or during that season that I’m just I’m comfortable with that. I’m like, oh, yeah, I’ve got this. This, you know, here’s some great stuff that I want to do regardless. Let’s get some money for it. And then there’s the other times, like I said, where the agencies that will come and say, well, we’re doing this in six other stadiums. We want to do the exact same thing here.

And then that’s when I start working with them going, OK, so let’s really dive in a little bit, see what the client themselves, not just the agency, what they’re trying to get out of this thing. If it’s a messaging or something like that. Let’s see if we can come up with something creative that we want to do that also speaks to whatever they’re trying to do. Those are the those are the tough ones to try to get when they come to you with an idea that you don’t like. It’s how do you turn them into how do you turn that idea into something that works for your fans? Because not everybody understands it. And this is the truth everywhere. Just because something happens at the Atlanta Braves and works really well here doesn’t mean it’s going to happen, you know, work really well out in San Francisco or Chicago. I mean, every fan base is different.

And what works in one place doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to work in another. And so just because the client says that we’ve been doing this in six other stadiums and everybody know what nobody else has a problem with it. Why do you guys? Well, our fan base may be different than those six other fan bases. And we’re real concerned about how our fans, the entertainment of our fans. I mean, the fan entertainment is something that, like I said, that we’ve invested in and it starts the senior level on down. So we’ll look at that and try to get those guys to turn a little bit to see if we can tweak it a little bit to make it make sense for our fans. And then there’s others that, you know, that clients will come saying, hey, like a pesticide company, they want to do something with pests. And they want to get their message involved in it.

What kind of a feature can we come up with that relates to that client, right? So those are the other things that we’re, first and foremost, I’m just looking for entertainment value. What’s cool that our fans would like without thinking of sponsorship? I just want to come up with really cool things that our fans might like. And then let’s tie sponsorship to it. And then there’s the other ones that come where the sponsor wants to have their message tied to whatever it is that needs to make sense. And then that’s another way that we’ll come up with creative content for that. And then the other ones are the, hey, we’ve done this in all the other places. Can we do it here as well? And we try to tweak it to make, I try to make everybody happy. It’s just, it gets ugly when we just can’t budge on some things.

[46:35] Don Costante:

Has it happened where your sponsorship partnership, maybe corporate manager takes liberties to create their own kind of creative without really coming through you first to talk it through and they pitch the idea?

[46:47] Scott Cunningham:

Yeah. Bad things happen when that happens.

[46:50] Don Costante:

Yeah.

[46:51] Scott Cunningham:

And yes, that has happened before. And those, those are, again, those are the, that’s, that’s the type of the relationship that I’ve got with the group where I try to, um, which whenever that does happen, I address it. So that it hopefully doesn’t happen again. Uh, and I tell them, I’m like, look, the last thing that you guys want is to promise a sponsor something. And then you got to go back and tell them you can’t deliver on it. So a lot of times sponsorship will use it as well. I promised them already. We have to do it. And luckily I get some support. We’ve lost, uh, a sponsorship deal before because we just didn’t want to do what they wanted to do. And it was the very first time that the rubber met the road with the executive team. And they actually supported the fact that it was a really bad idea and we were not going to do it.

So I, I stuck to my gun saying, well, we’re not going to do it. And then sponsorship gets said, well, we’re going to lose X amount, all this, all this money. And I’m like, well, that’s your concern, not mine. My concern is how we entertain our fans, you know? So I’m not going to budge on this because this is just a terrible idea. And, uh, luckily the ownership actually backed my play on that one. So I actually saw the, uh, like I said, I saw the rubber meet the road on one of these. And those are the types of interactions and instances that you want very, very few of those. I don’t, I don’t want to have to get down to, to that because it hurts the relationship I’ve got with, with our corporate sales department. I really want us to be partners, not, not, not emissaries.

[48:19] Don Costante:

So true. I hate having those types of conversations. I’ve actually, uh, I’ve just, I’ve established a set of criteria. Basically it’s like 14 different points that a promotion or contest needs to meet in order for it to be successful. And I try to educate our corporate group on that just so that when they’re thinking about coming up with an idea and not coming through me first, at least they’ll have this list of criteria in front of them. Knowing that if they don’t meet all of that, it’s not going to get past me.

[48:48] Scott Cunningham:

So that’s a great idea, man. You, could you mind sharing that with me?

[48:51] Don Costante:

I will do it. I will send it to anybody else who’s interested listening. You can just email me for it. I will send that to you.

[48:57] Scott Cunningham:

Yeah. I’d love to see that. That’s a, that’s a great idea, Don.

[49:00] Don Costante:

Thanks, Scott. The biggest roadblock or downfall that you’ve seen other organizations struggle with in their relationship between the event presentation production department. What have you seen out there as the biggest downfall?

Building Strong Department Relationships

[49:12] Scott Cunningham:

I think it’s just the relationships between those two groups. Like I said, I can’t emphasize that enough. It’s important to build a good relationship with those guys. And, you know, the organizations that allow the sponsorship to dictate what the game presentation is, is what I call the tail wagging the dog. They’re, they’re not experts in how to entertain fans. And there’s teams out there that still operate that way. They’re like, they’re, they’re corporate sales groups will manage their, their game presentation. And they, and they’re, I mean, when, when you do that, they’re going to be looking first and foremost is their roles in the organization is to bring in money. And what’s secondary is going to happen is the fan experience. I mean, not saying that they don’t care about the fan experience, but it’s going to fall second seat to what their main role in the organization is.

And I think the biggest downfall, I think, for groups that, you know, have issues with corporate sales folks, again, it’s just the relationship. I think that trying to understand each other’s jobs is important. And I think that that’s where there’s these walls that get built between the two departments and they just don’t get along. And I was in that camp for so many years, I can’t tell you that I’ve learned where, hey, you get so much more accomplished that you want to get accomplished by tearing those walls down and just really trying to understand what they’re trying to get done. And then making them aware of your roles and responsibilities, similar to your 14 points of what makes sense in a promotion. I mean, you’re educating them on what works for you and the fan experience.

And where a big downfall in most organizations, they don’t even go, they don’t go through those, you know, through those steps. They just complain and they fight and they complain and they fight and they never do anything about it.

[51:05] Don Costante:

All right. One more question pertaining to the partnership integration topic before we move on. What advice would you give somebody who’s struggling right now to maintain control of their inventory with their partnership department?

[51:19] Scott Cunningham:

That’s a tough question right there, Donnie. You know, I guess the advice I would give is try to spell everything out to them. So when I came up with those 36 units, that was a very useful tool for me. I broke the game down and I showed, okay, here are all these half-inning breaks that we’ll assign to corporate sponsorships. But again, it’s not so much assigning to them. It’s just you’re still entertaining with we’re selling those things. Spelling all that stuff out and allowing them to see, oh, yeah, this is a lot of content that we’ve got. And, oh, and these 12 units that I’ve left out, well, those are for, like, amping the crowd up with the first time that your guys come to the bat. You know, the seventh-inning stretch. These are some of the traditional entertainment values type stuff that happens during a baseball game when the closer comes in.

These are things that we’ve looked at as, you know, as, you know, sacred to the experience that we don’t sell those things. So we’re not selling our seventh-inning stretch where some teams do. We don’t sell the closer coming in, the experience of the closer coming in or that first at-bat music, you know, hype video. These are things that we, for us, we don’t want to inundate our fans with just a bunch of logos. And it just doesn’t seem sincere that way is our philosophy. So we’ve made those moments sacred, and those are the moments that come, that go into that 12 units for me. And it allows you to kind of breathe a little bit so you’re not constantly hitting these people.

Once you put that all down on paper, you know, maybe have a meeting with the, you know, the corporate sales executive vice president and just explain to them, like, hey, here’s the philosophy of wanting to entertain the fans and why we’re doing it, and this is what it looks like as far as inventory goes. If they see it on paper, they’re able to kind of capture it a lot better than just complaining about it on the phone or in a meeting.

[53:24] Don Costante:

Well said. Recently, you just had the wonderful experience of developing a mascot, a new mascot. And, you know, I’ve been down that road a couple of times. I’ve actually had the privilege of doing that when I was with the Spurs, doing it for our WNBA team as well as an AHL team.

Developing the Braves Mascot Blooper

[53:41] Scott Cunningham:

Holy smokes, you did it more than once, huh?

[53:43] Don Costante:

Yeah, I did it twice. So I’ve been down that path. Tell listeners a little bit about the new character that you just made and how long have you been really trying to get that pass through to create this new character?

[53:55] Scott Cunningham:

So I’ll try to keep it short because it’s a long story, man. But our new mascot is two years old now. His name’s Blooper. And he is a, he’s kind of a what’s it type of a furry, what’s it type of a character. It’s not an animal that you would know what it is. It’s just a furry, lovable, little, mischievous little character that our fans have just grown to. They’ve endeared themselves to him over these past two years. So it’s been a huge success. It’s been a long time coming. I tell you, the first time, I started with the Braves back in 2005. And I started petitioning for a real mascot program in 2006. And then it came to fruition in 2018. So that’s what, 12 years of every year trying to get a mascot. And it was one of those things where, you know, with the Atlanta Braves, we didn’t have a true mascot program. We had a baseball head guy we called Homer.

And that a game day employee would get in and act the part like in our plaza. But he wasn’t, when I started in 2005, he wasn’t allowed inside of the bowl. He could only be out in the plaza. And I think we had a partnership with Turner, Turner Broadcasting owned the Braves back then. And they, we had other characters that they would show on TV, like Scooby-Doo and Powerpuff Girls and stuff like that. So when I, when I came on, we had like Scooby-Doo and the Powerpuff Girls and this baseball head just dancing about in the plaza. And it just didn’t make any sense at all. And there was, and that’s, that was it. It was just a game day type of a thing. So I believe in the asset of a mascot for a sports team. It’s a huge marketing tool utilized not only in game, but during, I mean, in season, but also outside of the season.

And it really, it’s a, I think it’s a benefit to every organization to have a mascot. And just as a, as an entertainment tool and a marketing tool and a corporate affairs tool and a, you can name all the departments. It hits, it, it, it helps them. So I was a big proponent of creating a real program, which to me included hiring a professional mascot guy full time, having the resources to really invest in their props and in the programs, like school programs. And, and, and everything that goes into the mascot costumes and all that stuff and the development of, and all that stuff, I felt it was important to, I didn’t want to do it unless the organization got behind it a hundred percent and said, yeah, let’s, here’s X amount of dollars to invest in it. And that’s what I was asking for every single year.

And I’d get denied every year up until a certain point, 2000, I think seven or eight, finally, they agreed to greenlight the program. And that’s when the market completely just crushed and we all had to go back into our, our budgets and, you know, start cutting stuff out. So there, there went the mascot program. And then, you know, it took a while for the organization to finally agree to invest again, back into those dollars back in. And when they did, we had already announced that we’d be opening up a new stadium in 2017. So I kind of sat on it, you know, probably 2014, uh, is when they were agreeable about to doing it again. And I was like, yeah, let’s wait until the opening of the new stadium and then we’ll do it. So it was a really, really long time coming. The process was a lot harder than I expected.

And we didn’t end up opening it up until 2018 season, but, uh, yeah, it’s a, it’s, it’s a great program, a great mascot and just a long time coming.

The Mascot Approval and Creative Process

[57:43] Don Costante:

Who was involved with the process and specifically who was also involved with improving it?

[57:47] Scott Cunningham:

So I took the lead on spearheading the whole program. My boss, which was the, is the currently the president of the company and the chairman of the company was in it. Well, shoot. Back in those days, my boss was an executive vice president. We had John Sherholtz, who was our president. And then we had the chairman, Terry McGurk of the organization. So that was my approval process. So for me, it was keeping my boss, Derek Schiller, you know, completely involved in our, at least updated in the process of, you know, where we’re at. Last thing I wanted to do was get so far down a road and then have that executive team look at it and go, we don’t like this at all. All that hours of work just goes right out the window. So every, every aspect of the development of the character, I would make sure that Derek was looped in. John Sherholtz was looped in.

And, uh, I think we brought in Terry McGurk a little bit later. Uh, but he was very, very interested in, you know, every aspect of the mascot. I was, uh, I was a little surprised, uh, how involved he wanted to be in it.

[59:02] Don Costante:

What was your creative process going through the development stages of this mascot?

[59:07] Scott Cunningham:

Well, for me, I had, I had some opinions. We, uh, met with other departments and just to get there, Hey, if we had a mascot, what would you guys want it to be? And got opinions from other people in the organization. Uh, obviously Derek Schiller had some opinions and I wanted to make sure he was happy with that. And what I ended up doing was taking all, getting all that information. And then I, I ended up hiring a creative, the creative director of the cartoon network was a guy that he was, he was no longer there when I hired him. He was out in LA, but he’s a guy that used to work for the cartoon network that had created mascots from the cartoon programming that they, that they’ve had. And he helped create those programming. He’s a real creative guy.

And so I ended up, you know, enlisting him to help me work through the whole creative process with me just explaining, Hey, here’s what we want. And then he would actually put that into drawings and, you know, there’d be hundreds and hundreds of different drawings that we’d look at and go, not quite there. Or give me a five or six different examples of a nose, you know, or it turned out to be 25 different examples of a nose. I mean, that whole aspect, I worked with this guy named Ed Murrieta was a, was a big help with me on just developing the whole look of the mascot.

[1:00:29] Don Costante:

What are some of those details that you guys had to consider going through that process that maybe most people don’t even realize?

[1:00:36] Scott Cunningham:

First of all, you got to figure out what it is that you want.

[1:00:38] Don Costante:

Yeah.

[1:00:38] Scott Cunningham:

I guess I was most impressed with the Philly Phanatic as far as a baseball mascot. And that’s the first thing I did was, well, one of the things I did throughout this whole process was study other mascot programs because I want our program to be the best program out there. And so this is all new to me. I started, you know, calling, contacting other teams and asking them their, you know, how they’re set up structurally organizational wise, how their mascot departments are, you know, structured as far as what types of programs do they do? How does their appearance structure work? I mean, I had to educate myself in these, and I had a couple of years to do it, but I had to educate myself on, okay, how do, what does a successful program really look like? So that’s where it starts, starts there with the detail.

Then as far as going into creating it, you got to figure out what it is that you want first and foremost. And I, like I said, I thought the Philly Phanatic was, was one of the better mascots that are out there. It was the, the decisions and stuff that I made. I was probably most influenced by the Philly Phanatic. So Blooper has a shirt and no pants like the Philly Phanatic does. And that, that was, I didn’t under, I did not expect to have that issue at all, but that became, that became a discussion point, you know, within the organizations. Like, well, why doesn’t he have pants? And is this a good thing? And it’s like, it’s a mascot, you know? So, so little things like that, you’ve got to, you’ve got to take into consideration the, and then just designing the whole character.

I mean, I was, I started with what I wanted the character to be like, and then I tried to create the look around that. If that makes sense.

[1:02:28] Don Costante:

It does. Yeah. Yeah. The name Blooper, how did you come about the name?

Choosing the Name Blooper

[1:02:34] Scott Cunningham:

So let me tell you, that is the absolute hardest part of this entire process was to come up with a name. Blooper was not the first name. The first name that, the name that I definitely wanted after, oh my God, I can’t tell you how many meetings and how many, I mean, this is where legal gets involved because it’s all copyrighted stuff. So everybody copyrights their names and every, I mean, I, I didn’t think, I came to a point where I was like, I don’t believe there’s a name out there that’s not copyrighted. We’re not going to have people to find a name for this thing. And the first name that I really, really wanted was Boomer, but Boomer is the mascot’s name of the Indiana Pacers. And I was like, ah, well, we’re a different sport. This is going to work, can’t it? And of course, that’s not the case. It does not work like that.

So our legal group said, nope, you know, you can’t because the Pacers had the copyright of the name and they could easily tell us, even if they gave us permission to use Boomer. Or 10 years from now, it could be a completely different group running the, the, the Indiana Pacers. And they could tell us, hey, cease and desist. You can’t, you know, name your mascot. The last thing you want to do is change the name of the mascot after it’s been out there and about. So it took forever for us to come up with something. And you know what? Blooper was, I love the name Blooper now, but it was, we, we did a search on it and the search came back that there was a mascot out there that had the name Blooper. And I was like, oh my God, which is because it was finally that name resonated with a lot of different people. So I was like, this has got to be the one. Hopefully it’ll clear the legal process.

And when it came back that there was a mascot out there that had it, I was like, okay, well, who’s, who’s was it? It turns out it was one of ours.

[1:04:18] Don Costante:

Oh, wow.

[1:04:18] Scott Cunningham:

From our minor league system.

[1:04:20] Don Costante:

Great.

[1:04:20] Scott Cunningham:

So there’s a Danville Braves, which is a rookie league team of the, of the, the Atlanta Braves. We own all of our teams, our minor league teams. And it’s a rookie league in Danville, Virginia, that has a green pairing that they named Blooper. And he’s been around for, I didn’t even realize it. It wasn’t like our single A, double A or triple A teams. It was, it was our rookie league teams. They play a couple months out of the year, I think they had it. So I called up the general manager there and said, Hey, this is what we’re thinking about doing. What are your thoughts? And he was, you know, really great to work with. He’s like, Hey, whatever the team needs. And, you know, like I said, we’re all one big family. We’re one big team. So he was very accommodating. We were able to get that name.

Finding the Right Mascot Performer

[1:05:06] Don Costante:

You know, when I was going through the process, one of the things I had to keep in mind was the type of person that was going to play that role because in basketball, we wanted a character that could, while they’re in costume, could still do certain athletic moves. Did you have to give any thought to the performer when you were developing this character? Or did you just kind of frame it around what you wanted first? And then the character was, or the person to fit that role was somebody that you’re going to find.

[1:05:32] Scott Cunningham:

Yeah. So I think a lot of the decisions we made stemmed from how I saw the character of this mascot already. I wanted a mischievous, but an innocently mischievous character that was fun loving, that was, you know, getting into trouble, but very innocently type deal. I didn’t, as we created, I didn’t see it being a character that did flips, you know, that did these extreme acrobats and stuff like that, which some mascots do. I didn’t see it happening. So a lot of my thought process was really dialing in on what the character was. And again, a lot of the decisions I made in how it was even in how we were developing the look of it was based on this character. And so when it came to hiring a mascot performer or a coordinator, I based it first on the character. And I expected the character, the performer or the person that would be inside the suit to bring it to life.

So I wasn’t out there just looking for, well, I guess I was, I was hiring specifically for how I felt the character would be. And then I was really relying on them to kind of take it to the next level and really bring this thing to life and create even more, you know, expand on that, that character even more in ways that I hadn’t even thought of yet.

[1:07:00] Don Costante:

How did you ultimately find the right person then for that role?

[1:07:04] Scott Cunningham:

So we ended up doing a nationwide search and there’s a lot of professional mascots that are out there. And I can tell you starting a program at a professional team level is unique, right? So it’s a pro sports team. Most pro sports teams already have their mascots, right? So as a character performer or mascot performer, you know, seeing a team like the Atlanta Braves starting a brand new mascot that’s going to last for the next hundred years is a real enticing thing. You know, career wise, you’re able to start that program and you can develop that mascot for years to come. How you influence that character or whatever is going to be, you know, you’re going to put your fingerprints on it. And so because of that, we had plenty of really qualified people apply for the position.

So we narrowed it down to about three or four people, brought them in, had them go through a whole litany of different exercises. We didn’t have the costume even created just yet at that point. So we had borrowed another costume from, you know, a local, just a mascot costume. It wasn’t another sports team, but it was just a mascot costume from a company that we allowed them to get into a fur suit and just kind of see how they looked and acted within it. How they portrayed that, how they were able to portray that personality that we were kind of like, you know, that we wanted birthed.

[1:08:31] Don Costante:

And when you finally did bring on that one person, you said you didn’t have the costume created yet. Did they have any input into the final development of the costume?

[1:08:39] Scott Cunningham:

Well, we were way down the road in that. So the development of the costume, we were already there. So one of the last things we did was hire the mascot, but we didn’t want to finish the whole costume without having that person hired. So they could be measured and fitted specifically for their bodies. So there are some things, yeah. I mean, they were, they were in the very end where when you start thinking about, okay, what are the interactive things that the costume can do? Our mascot coordinator was involved in that. We ended up having like these little blowers that come out of bloopers ears, you know, and then the whole design on how that would work. Our mascot coordinator was involved in.

Using a Mascot on Game Days

[1:09:12] Don Costante:

So mascots are so important. You’ve already talked about how you feel about mascots and the importance of utilizing them to enhance the experience. What’s your philosophy in terms of how they should be utilized on game days?

[1:09:23] Scott Cunningham:

So I think, like I said, I think mascots are an important tool for an organization, not just game day wise, but also marketing wise and all that stuff. So I expect our mascot to be visual, right? And I want them to be seen. And it’s not like, it’s not the mascot show, right? It is the way that I program them is pregame. I don’t do a big intro introduction of the mascot every game. I actually thought about that. And I was like, well, maybe we should do an introduction every game. And it allows for us to do a skit at that time. On big games or theme nights, we might do that just to kind of play to the skit and the theme night. But typically, I just have them out there interacting. And some of the great personality stuff that really comes out of this mascot is when he’s interacting with players. So I really, really push up the player interaction with the mascot.

So our mascot will be out there and messing around with the visiting team players while they’re stretching out or doing BP. And a lot of the gold content that we get is during that time pregame. So for me, it’s a time where the fans are just kind of coming in. We’re creating an environment. He’s doing some really funny stuff. But he’ll be out there for 30 minutes, 45 minutes. In-game, I’ll schedule, you know, like on weekends and stuff on bigger games, we’ll schedule skits. Provided we’ve got the inventory available to us, we’ll go ahead and do a skit on the field. And again, if it’s a theme night, obviously, it’ll play into that. If not, it’ll just be something that, you know, the fans can go back home and be like, you’re never going to believe what Blooper did. Our whole business is about making memories. And I believe that the mascot is such a really keen tool to help create memories.

And so I’ll utilize it that way. I’ll schedule him to be at certain places throughout the game so that he can be seen. Otherwise, he’s just going in and around different sections on his own. And at the very end of the game, he’ll always come out with a giant Braves flag when we win. And he’ll run out to second base and wave that flag.

[1:11:29] Don Costante:

You know, Scott, as you were talking about how you incorporate Blooper into your event presentation, something came to mind that I think is important to share with those listening. And that is when you have entertainment resources, it’s important to keep in mind impact versus quantity when you’re incorporating them into your event presentation. And what I mean by that is you don’t want your resources in front of your fans 100% of the time, because let’s face it, people will get tired of seeing them and they’ll be turned off by that, which is a bad thing. The second reason is that the performers themselves, it’s virtually impossible to stay mentally focused and in character all day. So give them a break, let them recharge and let them be the best character that they can be when they get in front of your fans.

[1:12:12] Scott Cunningham:

Exactly.

Communication and Mascot Appearances

[1:12:13] Don Costante:

So, Scott, let’s shift gears for a moment and talk about the communication aspects. Once your performer steps into that costume, how do you communicate with them throughout the game?

[1:12:23] Scott Cunningham:

So he has a radio in his ear that my director of entertainment, the mascot coordinator reports directly into him, and he’s able to communicate with him on radio throughout the game. So if he needs them to be somewhere, and he’s cognizant of not always being in his ear, but if he needs them to be somewhere, he can chime in and get a hold of him. And then he also has a handler as well. And everywhere he goes, he’s got a handler with him that can help if there is any miscommunication or he’s not hearing the radio for any reason. Or if he needs some help, you know, clearing an area, the mascot’s not the bad guy. And it’s going to be the handler that helps out with all that stuff.

[1:13:00] Don Costante:

Who handles all the appearances? Is it the same person or is it a coordinator or a different person?

[1:13:05] Scott Cunningham:

It’s a mix between, so I’ve got entertainment coordinators on our staff that the mascot coordinator works with. So he’ll book his, he’s responsible for most of his appearances, but the majority of them. But he has, we have a trainee in that department that he works with that will help him book those appearances. Especially when he starts getting busy and out and about and on appearances that the administrative stuff can go to the trainee or the other coordinators.

Challenges and Lessons from the Mascot Launch

[1:13:32] Don Costante:

So this was a big project. In the end, what was the biggest challenge in the development of your mascot?

[1:13:37] Scott Cunningham:

Oh, that is a good question, man. Because it did not come easy. I would say every step of the way seemed, well, I guess it seemed difficult because I didn’t, I had no expectation of it being so difficult. So, you know, the naming, I think was probably the biggest hurdle to get through. And then just unveiling it. We were, I had a mascot coordinator hired to open up the stadium in 2017. And we just weren’t able to, just the approval process at the executive level kind of affected that reveal in 2017. And it pushed it all the way to, well, it wasn’t going to happen in the beginning of the season. So we do it during the All-Star break. And then at the last minute during the All-Star break, it was decided to push it until the next year. So it was just like, what? We’re all ready to go. And we’re not, it was just one of those things where everybody needed to get on board.

Anything that’s brand new like this, and especially something as important as creating a mascot for an organization, there is a lot of opinion. And there’s a lot of thought that needs to be, you know, everyone needs to be on the same page. You can’t have something created that you’ve got any part of your groups that aren’t on board with. And so that was, I think, one of the biggest issues was just, one, getting everybody on board at the outset when we finally got it out there. And then creating its name was huge, too. And I got to tell you also, after once the mascot was created, getting the team, the organization to stay behind it. I knew that with anything brand new, there was going to be some negative feedback. And so, and I knew it with, you know, and that’s just the way social media works, right?

You get people that, you know, if they don’t like something, they’re going to jump on it and they’re going to tell you what they don’t like about it. If they like something, not everybody jumps on it and says, oh, I really like that. They just let it go. And people that say they don’t like something, then they’ll kind of troll other people to jump on and try to get funnier and funnier and funnier on how they hate that thing, whether they hate it or not. So I expected that with something as new as a mascot and a pro sports team, traditional baseball, you know, baseball team, I figured that initially we’re going to get some negative responses from the traditionalists. And I figured that people weren’t going to be able to fall in love with this thing until they actually got to see it in action and they got to see the character.

And sure enough, as soon as it was revealed, it was a bunch of pictures that were taken by the media and that was what was put out there on social media. So, of course, you know, there’s some negative comments that came, you know, in the beginning and they quickly turned to positive stuff. But I warned everyone in the organization about that, thought everyone had it, you know, okay, yeah, yeah. It’s like, don’t worry about this. We just got to stay to the course of promoting this thing and getting and keeping behind it on all of our aspects. And as soon as the negative comments started, we had some of our teams, our marketing teams and digital teams starting to back down from it pretty quickly. Because that’s what they do. They’ve got to manage those negative things. And it was just, it was a tough, it was a tough time to get them to come back without seeing this thing created.

So, it was a slow process. But by the end of the first year, I mean, fans loved it. Our marketing team loved it. And he’s just been growing leaps and bounds ever since.

[1:16:57] Don Costante:

Now that you’ve been through the process, is there anything that you would do differently?

[1:17:00] Scott Cunningham:

Yeah, I’m never doing this again.

[1:17:05] Don Costante:

I hear you. Well, last question for you on mascots. What advice would you give those that are now looking to create a mascot for their team?

[1:17:15] Scott Cunningham:

I would say just be prepared for the, I wasn’t prepared for how difficult it was going to be. And I think, I think it was probably so difficult for me because I really, I honestly didn’t, I felt it was a lot easier to do than it was. And so, it was kind of a shocker to me. So, maybe it’s not that part of a topic. I just thought it was going to be so much easier. But just realize that it’s, when you’re creating a mascot, you’re creating a personality and you’re creating a brand. It’s going to be with your team for years and years and years to come. So, with that, there’s a lot of, there’s a lot involved in that other than just thinking, hey, this is kind of cute. Let’s do this. Realize that there’s the amount of work and the amount of collaboration that needs to be involved in something like that.

From the very beginning, understand that, you know, finding a name for that mascot is going to be probably one of the hardest things you’re going to do. Just because of the copyright issues and all that stuff. But just realize that it’s something that doesn’t happen overnight and to plan for it. Make sure that you’re ready to go. One of the things I love, I’m really glad that I was able to do is find the funding for it before I even started thinking about what this mascot was going to be. I kind of put the foundation for the program together before I even started thinking about what mascot we’re going to do. That right there is important, I think.

[1:18:32] Don Costante:

Well, that’s great advice. If you’re a team out there right now looking to create a character, make sure you’re listening to what Scott’s telling you. So true to build that foundation first financially. Final thoughts, Scott, for those people listening today to our discussion, what are your final thoughts?

Final Thoughts

[1:18:47] Scott Cunningham:

Well, in the world of game presentation, it’s all about details and it’s all about creativity and having to have that, you know, left, right brain mentality. There’s a lot of issues and a lot of problems that tend to come up from day to day and from meeting to meeting and from event to event. And it’s a lot of long hours and a lot of hard work and collaboration. But my thoughts, I guess, for everybody in our industry is just always remember when things start getting tough, you know, what we do. I mean, we are blessed to be able to create an environment where memories get made and we get to play that little bit of part in people’s lives where we can affect an environment in such a way where they will take those memories for years and years and years to come. And we get to play that little, little part in it. And I think that is very, very cool.

So my final thought is just remember that when things start getting hectic, remember the cool jobs that we all have.

[1:19:43] Don Costante:

Well, I can tell you the cool job that I have is the opportunity to speak with you today. One of the best in the business. I can’t thank you enough for chatting with me and allowing people to listen in on your knowledge and expertise. Well said. And thank you again for everything.

[1:19:59] Scott Cunningham:

My pleasure, Don. You’re one of the best also out there, man. You’re one of those guys in my inner circle. And that’s another piece of advice I’d have for your listeners is to find that inner circle of people that are like-minded that you can feed off of, that you can go to and ask for ideas. You can share ideas with. And Don, you’ve always been that to me and I appreciate that. And thank you for inviting me to your podcast.

[1:20:21] Don Costante:

Thanks, Scott. I appreciate that. And your advice of finding people to share ideas with is great advice. Best wishes to you, Scott, and your family, as well as many more years of continued success. Having been in the sports industry for over 26 years, it’s always exciting to hear different perspectives from successful people on how they approach and accomplish core event presentation tasks. Today, I really enjoyed my conversation with Scott. Scott detailed several practices that highlight just why the Braves are considered among the best in class within the event presentation industry. Throughout our conversation, there were several points that were made that really hit home with me. First, Scott talked about giving meaning to your show. Create a tight show. I truly believe that we’re all storytellers.

So having a beginning, middle, and an end mentality to the execution of promotional content being delivered is very important. Also, don’t be afraid to try new ideas. Be strategic and calculated in your approach, but most importantly, try. Build that relationship with your partnership department. It’s vital to success. Otherwise, it’s always going to be an uphill battle. Control your inventory. Create the necessary documents to communicate the availability and the proper protocol for acceptable features. And finally, find an inner circle of people that you can share ideas with. I’m constantly doing that. Those are just a few things that really stood out to me. And I hope there were a number of things that stood out to you as well. I want to thank Scott again for being on the podcast and for sharing his best practices with us. That wraps up this episode of The Rundown.

As always, I encourage you to reach out to me. Share your thoughts and questions at TheRundown@CostanteGroup.comEmail The Rundown. And until the next time, I’m Don Costante.