
24. The Sports Tickets & VIP Hospitality Market with Brian Basloe, CEO of Concierge Live
About the Farrell Sports Business Podcast
Interviews with news makers from sports business to talk leadership, entrepreneurship, industry news and their unique career paths. Hosted by Matt Farrell, President of Farrell Sports and former Golf Channel, USOPC, USA Swimming and Warner Bros.
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Episode Summary
Episode 23 of the Farrell Sports Business podcast - Host Matt Farrell talks with Brian Basloe, CEO of Concierge Live, to discuss his journey in the sports business, the evolution of ticket sales, and the innovative solutions provided by Concierge Live for corporate ticket management. He highlights the increasing demand for live sports experiences, the impact of cultural icons on ticket sales, most notably Taylor Swift. The discussion also touches on the challenges and opportunities in the hospitality and ticketing industry, emphasizing the need for efficient management and measurement of ticket investments.
Farrell Sports Business (00:00)
Welcome to the Farrell Sports Business Podcast, where I talk to leaders in the sports industry about entrepreneurship, their own career journey, and how they're influencing the sports business. I'm the host, Matt Farrell.
In this week's episode, we're going to talk about ticketing and sports ticketing and hospitality industry within sports, how companies manage their tickets as a part of ROI initiatives around sporting events, the influence of the WNBA on corporate hospitality tickets, and actually the influence of Taylor Swift on corporate ticketing
This week's guest comes from a ticketing and sales background that started in early in his career with the Cleveland Cavaliers senior roles with NFL on location, the Brooklyn nets, the Barclays center, all around ticketing. Now he's in more of a B2B role as the CEO of concierge live. We're going to talk tickets and corporate hospitality.
with Brian Basloe
Farrell Sports Business (01:23)
Well, Brian, welcome to the podcast. really appreciate your time.
Brian Basloe (01:26)
Thanks so much for having me.
Farrell Sports Business (01:28)
So I think what we need to do is start with a little bit of context. Can you talk about your role and concierge live?
Brian Basloe (01:37)
Sure, yeah, I appreciate you asking and thanks again for having me on, Matt. So I'm the CEO of ConciergeLive. So I guess on paper, I'm sort of responsible for everything in the company. But we have a great staff and our company really sort of breaks down into business development, client services, G &A and development. And again, in the end, I oversee the whole project, but my skill set really leans towards the business development end and we have really good
leaders and the other departments that really take on the vast majority of work.
Farrell Sports Business (02:13)
So how long have you been in that role and really what were the moving pieces that and the stepping stones that got you there?
Brian Basloe (02:23)
Yeah, so I've been with ConciergeLive for five years and it's sort of, my first experience typically, you know, and I know as you said earlier, the vast majority of my experience has been on the team side or the property side. You know, this is my first time being sort of in the vendor side in a private business supporting teams and brands and sponsors. So I've been doing it for five years and you know, I'd be happy to answer questions along the way, but you know,
bits of my career have all sort of amalgamated together to make it so that it's a good fit for Conceivers Live and a good fit for our clients and our partners.
Farrell Sports Business (03:07)
It looks like your foundation from even earlier in your career in each step has really been about business development and selling and probably some humble roots of selling tickets from the beginning, I would assume.
Brian Basloe (03:21)
Yes, honestly, it's one of the best experiences you can have in this space. I've been in the business over 20 years,
When I started in the sports business, the vast majority of the entry level jobs in sports were in this sort of inside sales, telemarketing space of selling tickets. And I loved it, I loved the experience. The thing I loved most about it is it's a great training ground for just learning the basics of business development. How do you approach the marketplace? How do you prospect for customers? How do you have an initial phone call?
How do you go to someone's office and have a face -to -face presentation? And how do you take it from the beginning of the sales process to the end? And although maybe the product that I'm working with now is a little bit more sophisticated and it's a different buyer, honestly the journey of the conversation, the journey of the process is very much the same. I'm honestly...
so appreciative of my first couple bosses and the trainers that they had exposed us to. Because again, what I do day to day now is not that dissimilar to what I did when I was 22 years old.
Farrell Sports Business (04:36)
Yeah. You know, certainly the businesses evolved of tickets and hospitality and all those things. and, know, there's probably more data analytics careers than there were when you started or I started, but really is, that selling tickets still just a core foundational piece of getting into the sports business.
Brian Basloe (05:00)
Yes, it's a huge part of the industry. would venture to say in most, on most teams and venue staffs, it's still the biggest department that any of them have. So still it's a huge part of the business. I will say as time has gone by, and I have gotten older, I think there's been much more of a blend of marketing.
data and then true person to person sales and business development. Whereas when I first started there was a lot of like there was a huge human effort of calling through the phone book and calling through your CRM to try to get prospects. Teams and properties have done a great job of a layering in a much more sophisticated marketing sort of air attack if you will to try to drive more inbound sale or to drive
inbound leads and then you mentioned it but the
the amount of data and strategy that has now been dovetailed into that is night and day to when I started. And so, from the marketing effort, there's a lot more strategy and a lot more focus on who the ideal customer is, how to reach them. And so, the old school, early 2000s have just called as many people as you possibly find and it'll kind of filter down. Now there's a lot more pinpoint accuracy.
and honestly if financial efficiency in getting from and finding these customers and sort of pulling them through the sales process.
Farrell Sports Business (06:43)
So, so now today with concierge live, I would rather hear your description than mine, but it's almost the flip where now I'm a company. I'm a corporation. I've invested in a property, whether it MLB or NBA or whatever. And part of my sponsorship rights and assets is tickets and the management's of tickets and hospitality.
Maybe even go deeper a little bit on concierge live and how did this category really start?
Brian Basloe (07:15)
Sure.
And thanks for that. So at a high level, the way, Concierge Live, we are a corporate ticket management software platform. Ultimately, we are a software system mostly for corporations that have a portfolio of sports tickets, banks, insurance companies, know, large car companies, beverage companies that have portfolios of these tickets. When you have that many, you have some pain points. The main pain points are how do we efficiently have an administration
of these tickets, Internal requests and approvals. How are we getting these customers, how are we getting these tickets out to our customers in an efficient way where we don't need an entire staff of humans just dedicated to doing all this? And then most importantly, how are we getting, we're spending a lot of money on these season tickets and suites. How are we getting some sense of measurement of we spent all this money, are we using the tickets or not? And what is the quality of usage? Who's using them? Is it, are we?
entertaining CEOs or is the janitor using the tickets? So the main parts of the software are just how do we make the ticket management process more efficient and then how do we get really good measurement on the investments that we've made. So that's the high level. How did it come to be? I mean, it's a very organic problem.
Listen, you mentioned my roots as a ticket seller. I remember 20 years ago, same problem as today. You have a couple main objections. There's the, know, tea might not be that good, the price of the tickets, and the main one is like, I like it all, but I don't know. It's like, it's a full -time job just keeping track of these tickets. Man, 20 years ago, 25 years ago, I used to send people a list of a hundred ways to use your season tickets. In hindsight,
Farrell Sports Business (09:02)
That's right.
Brian Basloe (09:03)
That seems insane. And a little patronizing. It was thoughtful and maybe it was a brainstorming session, but ultimately that's not a solution. Concert or Live is an actual solution. Hey, is it very time consuming managing all your tickets? Great. Here's a software that will automate the process of it and give you reporting on your usage.
Farrell Sports Business (09:10)
But you'd be surprised, right?
So maybe let's even play out an example. I'm a national car company XYZ. Ultimately, I want to get people on my lot doing test drives. So does concierge live? OK, my customer might be A, the dealer who might use these tickets, or B, potential customers.
Concierge Live is a helping the distribution and management of that, but there's a tracking mechanism for the car company XYZ after the fact as well.
Brian Basloe (10:10)
Yeah, it's a great one. And let me just pivot the example, just like you're a standard investment bank or you're an insurance company and you do a lot of person to person.
Farrell Sports Business (10:13)
Yeah.
Brian Basloe (10:20)
Your staff does a lot of client entertainment, taking people out to games, right? You're a major national bank. I work for the bank and I'm just trying to use the company assets to try to either find new customers or thank my customers for all the business they do. Where do I even go to ask that question of?
Can I use the company tickets? What Consolidators Live does, Consolidators Live becomes the centralized request portal to make the request. Again, if you're in a company of 200 ,000 people, this really streamlines that.
And then behind the curtain in the software, when you make that request, it streamlines it so that that request goes up to your manager to be approved, and then it automatically goes up to the events team to be approved. And then the system automatically can deliver the tickets both to you and the customer that you're trying to trying to entertain. And then ultimately, we're logging each of those steps for compliance. And then also we're logging that those tickets were used, the cost basis of those tickets.
and then if you want to connect our system to your CRM system you can connect the revenue from that client to the expense of the tickets and truly get a sense of an ROI of the ticket investment.
Farrell Sports Business (11:44)
That's really interesting. And I just purely thinking about dealing with financial institutions, the whole compliance piece is, is obviously very important and not easy. So, you know, the industry in, in general, this would be my hypothesis. And if I'm wrong, just blow me up, Brian, it's fine. But
Brian Basloe (11:56)
Sure.
It's your podcast. I'm gonna see you right either way, Matt.
Farrell Sports Business (12:08)
But essentially following sports, is harder. I, you almost need that cheat sheet on your arm, like an NFL quarterback to figure out, you know, where my college team's playing, what channel. And so with consumption and maybe being a harder, how has that impacted the hospitality interest because of
Brian Basloe (12:24)
Right. Right.
Farrell Sports Business (12:37)
There's so much of a digital experience these days as a viewer, as a consumer or social, you know, subscription streaming services, the in -person experience is that heightened with some of the maybe digital clutter, if you will.
Brian Basloe (12:54)
Yeah, mean, you know, to the last part of your question, listen, I've like felt the like sort of
digital journey of ticketing. It used to be all physical tickets when I started. Now pretty much all tickets are mobile friendly. And that makes life, you know, in theory that makes life really easy. But every one of these ticketing platforms has their own app. And it can be very disaggregated. And I think it can be a little bit of a frustration to the customer. So again, being able to centralize all your tickets in one place and have one centralized service like ours to sort of hold your hand or you
You want to send tickets to a customer and you want to make sure they have an incredible experience. And if they get a little frustrated with any individual app, they have us as a team to kind of hold their hand, make sure they have a great experience. And so make sure you, you as our customer know that you're going to have a really streamlined experience. Your customer has an easy place to go to make sure once they get to the stadium, like...
They're having a great time. They're in a good mood. And it's on you to do your job. You don't have to worry about ticketing being any part of the friction of it.
Farrell Sports Business (14:05)
So much of any partnership is certainly a brand awareness, some stadium signage. What are you seeing in the hospitality world and ticketing industry? Is interest in in -person experiences going up? Is it about the same?
Brian Basloe (14:22)
Matt, it's a great question and unequivocally the interest in live sports is going way up. The volume of interest, the willingness to pay higher price points are all going in a higher direction. I think in a world...
that is increasingly loud, right? There's TV advertising, there's all kinds of digital advertising, there's messaging going everywhere. I think increasingly companies are looking for how do I break through the clutter? If I'm gonna invest dollars in trying to get customers, how do I make sure that it's really gonna be an impact and how do I know to break through the clutter? And one thing is taking a client and a one -on -one experience to a live event is a really memorable thing.
And so, and I just think people are recognizing that in a big way and leveraging it even more. On the other side, Matt, sports entertainment tickets are more expensive than ever.
And I think that the interest in taking, particularly in a business level, taking clients to games and events is a big deal. think companies need to be very judicious in what they choose. And I think they're being much more strategic. What we're going to, hey, we really want to do this, but we want to invest in certain types of events that really have a high impact versus like a massive volume of just like, we're going to have.
you know, three suites to each of our local minor league teams. think that is, know, companies are being a little bit more mindful of the efficiency of their dollar.
Farrell Sports Business (16:00)
You know, I could see we're now at least a couple of years removed for at least the worst parts of COVID. And I could see an in -person demand coming back there. Do you still see it? Are there other outside influences that have maybe heightened this need for in -person personalized experiences?
Brian Basloe (16:22)
Yeah, it's a great question. mean, like, scientifically and mathematically, the, you know, the, the, the year, the full year after sort of the vaccine came out and COVID had somewhat subsided, that full year was the highest year over year jump in ticket sales ever, both in volume and in, in, total revenue.
Since then, there's been some mild increase, you know, sort of a healthy graduated curve. That being said, it is a little bit content specific. There is a performer named Taylor Swift who has sort of changed the game in hospitality and literally like her tour alone.
has affected the hospitality market in a very positive way of just just her tour alone in the industry has raised all boats as far as the amount of revenue and the amount of tickets being sold and just kind of the visibility of like what a cultural icon can do and what the demand is like.
Farrell Sports Business (17:30)
We've kind of seen her influence in so many other ways. I didn't see that particular piece coming on tickets and hospitality.
Brian Basloe (17:37)
It's truly incredible that one person can affect an industry so much. If I could be the Taylor Swift of anything in my life, it would be amazing. the way she's affected the ticket market is something to be seen, really.
Farrell Sports Business (17:54)
So you that that trickle down effect, there's a Taylor Swift impact on the MLB playoffs or college football or not, not that far.
Brian Basloe (18:06)
No, I'm just more saying in the aggregate. Hey, if you look in the aggregate of tickets sold and the amount of revenue from tickets sold from both the primary and secondary market, know, her tour, there was a big Beyonce tour, you some of these just like anchor events, because, you know, sports is, sports, again, has a healthy graduate curve, but it is,
Farrell Sports Business (18:08)
Got it.
Brian Basloe (18:29)
It's pretty consistent, the growth. The lumpiness in the aggregate ticket sales and ticket revenue market is like, what variable content is out in any particular time? And when Taylor Swift and Beyonce, two of the biggest artists in the world, were having large stadium tours at the same time, the aggregate market really sees the effect of it.
Farrell Sports Business (18:53)
So are there any segments of sports in particular that you're really seeing exploding or for example, it's college football on the rise is MLB on the rise, MLS, any macro trends of sports that you see?
Brian Basloe (19:14)
Yes. So there's sort of the big anchor sports.
keep on getting bigger. some degree, there's also many more incremental tickets you can sell to NFLs, obviously the most prominent, but NBA, MLB, NHL. think the volume of tickets sold there is staying relatively consistent because you can't go beyond capacity. But I think the amount of revenue, the prices increase every single year. And I think they're so the amount of revenue you can draw is even bigger. of the most domestically, of the biggest growth areas
the WNBA.
this year particularly has been incredible. You saw it last year, the New York Liberty and Las Vegas Aces, both were very popular teams. think the consciousness of women's basketball has gone way up. then then there's the obvious Caitlin Clark has like truly changed the game. You saw it in her. You saw it in her collegiate run. I mean, two record years in the two years that she was in the Final Four.
I mean like massive year over year increases and now her impact in the WNBA is so noticeable. She is a unique type of star that the biggest stars particularly in sports are the ones that can bring in the casual fan base and she has done that.
Farrell Sports Business (20:49)
Well, I, you know, maybe in our last few minutes here, I just want to go back to a little bit about you and your, your career development. you know, I'm, it's always interesting whether breaks that you got along the way, whether they were lucky, whether they were self -made as you look back and plot your career of jumps you made and opportunities, any
key pivot points that came up that were just like, aha, that was really changed my course.
Brian Basloe (21:22)
Yes, yeah, that's a really good question. And I honestly have had a mix of lucky and intentional breaks in my career. I think one that's a bit of both was,
When I, you know, my first job, I started working in inside sales for the Cleveland Cavaliers. So all of my best breaks, whether lucky or not, have been people that I've been able to interface with in particularly a big way.
And my first job, my first two bosses were Chad Estes and Mike Andrago, then at the Cleveland Cavaliers, now they're principals at Legends. And just the influence that they had on me, both from a tactical matter in business development, and then what does successful business culture look like? I mean, that is an incredible sort of break that I got.
introduced me to a couple of sales trainers that to this day what they taught me is part of my repertoire. There's a man named Charlie Cieslagi and then another named Lance Tyson who again I just think about a presentation I did yesterday and the bones of that are truly the same as what I learned over 20 years ago in Cleveland. So that's a big pivot point.
That that I really think is helpful and then you know with concert is live That one has been a big one as well Again, it probably the biggest leap of faith Matt going from these really known brands backed by you know sports teams or sports leagues to like a private business and and you know, say concert is one of most fulfilling experiences I've had a little bit because
there's no guardrails. know, like we are, we're a privately owned business. And there's, yeah, there's, there's not a huge margin for error, particularly in the beginning. Thankfully we've been pretty successful recently, but like, you know, I think the experience of running a small and now sort of medium sized business has been a great experience and just not to be too long winded, Matt, but you know, for, some of the audience I've been saying recently of just like,
I wish I took more risks in my journey so far. think strategically, you know, I saw very successful people and I tried to just like sort of copy their career development route. And also the fastest point between, you know, your first job and the head of a business is...
just really do well at your job and then you can get promoted to whatever the next level. And I think there's a lot of merit to that path. But I think just as from a human experience, I think...
trying experiences that are a little more unknown, trying new things, particularly early when there is a little bit more margin for error if you made the wrong decision, I would highly recommend it because I think the fulfillment that I'm getting in my 40s is from the differences of experiences, not like, hey, what's the fastest I could become like a high level executive at a team?
Farrell Sports Business (24:50)
It's great advice. And sometimes this is a topic for another day, Brian, sometimes I was in my early 50s and taking risk and change was forced upon you and you just, but the skills you get of trying to figure things out, it can actually be invigorating in many ways. So it's like 50 % bust down the locker room doors excited, 50 % scared to death is a pretty good mix sometimes.
Brian Basloe (25:20)
I love that. This could be a teaser for like Brian and Matt season two. But I truly, I love that concept, this 50 -50 concept. I think that's a really good one.
Farrell Sports Business (25:25)
You
Yeah, I usually phrase it a little less PG, but last one for you, anything about Concierge Live, where can people find it, anything on your radar that maybe I didn't ask you.
Brian Basloe (25:35)
Hahaha!
No, thank you. mean, and listen, you've been very solicitous in the whole conversation. Yeah, mean, the concert is live. We're at concerterslive .com. And listen, for your audience and any sort of brands or sponsors that are seeing just the ticket, the ticketing process is a pain point of either being too manual, being frustrating that it's taking too long, or that they don't feel like they have their sense of their measurement of like, hey, we have all these ticket investments. What are we really getting?
out of it, Concerts Live is a, you know, we're a good solution for that. And then just as a larger sense for the audience, I just, love the sports industry so much. And I just, you know, whether you're looking to get into it or you've been in it and listening to as far as like where you're to go from here, I just think people that have been in sports for a while just continue to really appreciate it. You know, I have a lot of friends and family that aren't part of the sports and
And, you know, although we might get a little jaded, you know, by the experience of, got to work another game or you got to go on another trip to a conference, you know, to like meet all the 30 other teams.
Farrell Sports Business (26:56)
Ha
Brian Basloe (27:00)
That's a pretty cool experience. think there are a lot of people just clocking in and clocking out nine to five wishing that they could be part of this sort of small ecosystem. know, just really take a step back and appreciate it because it's a pretty cool journey we're on.
Farrell Sports Business (27:16)
you're so right. In, in, my, my other free time, have a tick tock account that answers people's questions about working in the sports business. And it's amazing how many people just really want to be part of it. So I think you've, you've, you've nailed it. So Brian, thanks so much for your time. I greatly appreciate you joining.
Brian Basloe (27:32)
Yeah, thank you so much.
Matt, I really enjoyed it.
Farrell Sports Business (27:39)
That conversation with Brian was great and I appreciate him joining. And I promise you, I had zero intention of that conversation leading to Taylor Swift, but sometimes a gift lands in your lap. If you like that conversation, there are a few more recent that I think you'll enjoy as well. Last week's episode with Lou DePaoli with the clubhouse talks about getting jobs in sports
And then whether you like to play pickleball or not, there's a really good conversation about technology investing in the business side of the booming pickleball, industry with Amitabh Jain And so if there's a topic you want to hear, please let me know, give this a like and a great review. And if you're watching on YouTube, please subscribe and we'll talk to other industry leaders.
Thanks for tuning in to the Farrell Sports Business Podcast.
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