NE Immersion Day 2: State6, Celtics, Bruins, and TD Garden mixed with a little sightseeing

By: Sara Tumminia and Drew Meyer

State6, Boston Celtics, Boston Bruins, and more!

Day two started bright and early, after enjoying a breakfast filled with omelets, waffles and assorted fruits, we made our way over to visit Syracuse alum Kelly Downing and her marketing agency State6. Her position title is Co-Managing Director, a role she made after leaving the New England Patriots. One major takeaway from Kelly was her advice. She said, “You have to be committed for sure.” I think this is an extremely powerful statement, as simple as it is. The sport industry is definitely one that rewards hard work.

State6 was an extremely insightful experience. We learned about everything from working at a bigger organization such as the Patriots to the inner workings of a smaller start up company. Kelly was joined today by her business partner Aaron Sells who also worked at the Patriots, where the two met. Sells' title is Managing Director and his expertise is in selling major sport sponsorships. Aaron has been overwhelmingly successful as selling major sponsorships with both the Patriots and the New England Revolution. Although his background was in psychology at Bates College, he worked his way into sports utilizing his relationship with the Kraft family. As we have talked about more times than anyone can count it is all about networking. 

View from State6

State6 is really a full service creative marketing firm, an agency that sees "beyond the bowl." Kelly and Aaron both elaborated on this message, saying to think outside the box and see where the industry is going rather than do everything in a more traditional style. Their ideas are not boring, but rather they become limitless, influential, and powerful in a way that builds the brand organically. One of their main challenges includes building their brand, being a company that is only about one year old. In addition, their small staff of about 12 is very concerned about maintaining the positive relationships with their current clients that sometimes they find it hard to focus on them and really try to branch out and find new clients. Luckily, both Kelly and Aaron are extremely intelligent and have a ton of marketing experience. State6 is Aaron’s third marketing agency that he has worked for, and he brings a lot of experience and knowledge to the new company.

One thing that really stood out to us was their use of analytics. Kelly talked about how the future of sport is changing because of analytics, and how companies and organizations should be using it as much as possible. By knowing what your customer needs and wants, you can really leverage your brand in a way that benefits not only the customer, but also you as the organization as well. State6 is definitely a fun and energetic company, one that will grow significantly in the next five to ten years.

TD Garden

After meeting with Kelly and Aaron, we headed over to TD Garden. First we met with the Celtics and a few Syracuse alumni. We had the privilege of meeting with: Chrissy Cronin ‘10 (Manager, Group Sales,) Katie Punda ’12 (Account Executive,) Justin Brown MA ’15 (Sr. Insider Sales Representative,) Matt Reynolds ’10 (Video Assistant,) Jill Paine (Director Insider Sales,) and Kara Hutchinson (Director of Marketing.  Everyone shared their stories about navigating through the Syracuse SPM curriculum and how they have utilized their Sport Management degrees both during and after their time at Syracuse. They each highlighted their Senior Capstones and various internships that they have had since. Katy and Chrissy initially had the opportunity to Capstone with the Celtics which eventually lead to their current full time jobs, while Matt and Justin both took longer journeys and experienced a lot of “bouncing around” before they arrived at the Celtics organization.

Boston Celtics Front Office

We had the opportunity to hear the sales team talk about various strategies they had when approaching potential season ticket members or a group for a “game day memory.” Some of the highlights were hearing the Celtics new and innovative initiatives to reach out to groups. Those include: 500 Club for Girl Scouts, High Five Kids Tunnel, Anthem Buddies and more! Additionally Chrissy and Jill highlighted some of their various strategies on theme nights, such as Asian American Night or Black History Month. An interesting fact that Chrissy shared with us is that of the 18,000 capacity of TD Garden, about 2,100 tickets are sold from group sales every game, which amounts to an average of 24 groups per game. They also talked about the on-going difficulties with secondary ticket markets, the complexities of pricing a ticket, what an average day consists of during the season and off-season as well as characteristics of what constitutes a great salesperson.

Matt told us about his job and his various responsibilities as Video Assistant. He opened by talking about his excitement about the future practice facility that will be built about 15 minutes from TD Garden. Like everyone else, Matt’s schedule is a lot different during the season as opposed to offseason, but he has to work very closely with the coaching and front office staff in order to dissect upcoming game preparation tape, past game tape, and prepare tape about possible future draft prospects.

Boston Celtic Locker Room

Finally, we were fortunate to hear Kara talk about her daily schedule as well as the various marketing strategies of the Celtics Organization. She emphasized the impact that social media has had on marketing and how the organization has prominently used hash tags on social media to promote their brand. Some of the key campaigns that the Celtics have run the past couple years include: #GreenRunsDeep, #WeAreOneSuperstar and #LoyaltyRunsDeep. She echoed the positive effect that these hash tags have had on promoting the organization. In addition, Kara has the responsibilities of coming up with several promotions throughout the year round to keep fans excited about Celtics basketball. She discussed some promotional campaigns and sweepstakes such as #________Runs Deep, where fans input their own slogan, as well as Celtics Night at Fenway Park, the night before the NBA Draft. Everyone we met stressed the importance of getting involved in as many activities as possible and the significance of being a hard worker and always trying to go above and beyond what is asked. After this truly informational meeting that was clearly valued by all students, we headed over to meet with the Bruins and walk around TD Garden.

We met with Syracuse alumni Kevin Stone ‘10(Season Ticket Account Executive) and Tom Brewster ‘10 (Client Service & Sponsorship Activation Administrator, Corporate Partnerships.) After taking pictures on the main floor and in front of the Celtics locker room we congregated in the Legends Club, and Tom and Kevin shared their stories.  Kevin, who was joined by Ticket Sales Manager Doug Fowler, immediately re-emphasized the importance of finding extra-curricular activities, such as volunteering for a minor league team. Kevin continued to discuss his daily tasks and how he takes a different approach with possible clients when the Bruins do not have a successful year. He shared that the ticket sales department is trying to focus on and understand the answer to the questions “Why are people coming out to games?” and “What does the team mean to you.”

 One interesting fact that Kevin and Doug shared is that Ticket Sales focuses 60%-90% of its attention on new business as opposed to existing clients. While on the flip side, Tom focuses nearly 100% of his time and attention on existing clients and making sure they are satisfied with all that they are receiving. Tom’s job relationship does not end when he sells to a company; in fact, his job really just begins. During their partnership, Tom makes sure to continuously check in with sponsors making sure they know about upcoming events at The Garden.

After an amazing tour of TD Garden, we were able to sightsee a little around the city. We went to the Quincy Market in Faneuil Hall, where we walked around and were able to shop. We then went over to The Fours Restaurant where we were joined by a lot of our alumni that we met earlier in the day. Being able to talk to professionals in the industry that were in our shoes not too long ago in a laid back setting is a one of a kind experience. They shared with us how they got to where they are, and provided us with even more advice. Overall, a great day!