Podcast Alert: Gretchen Sheirr – Houston Rockets

Transcript

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[00:00:00] Gretchen: People would say that, they’re gonna play games without fans. It was a pet peeve of mine because we were not playing games without fans. We still had our fans. We were just playing games without a ticketed audience in the arena. COVID and the pandemic showed how much. When times are tough, people rely on their sports and their entertainment to separate themselves from the stresses of the world.

[00:00:45] AJ: Hello, and welcome to the Navigating Sports Business podcast. I’m your host, AJ Maestes. Founder of Navigate a data-driven consulting firm, guiding major strategies and decisions in sports and entertainment. We started this podcast hoping to share the interesting stories and experiences of the amazing people we get to work with at Navigate.

And even though they’re visionaries and famous, in many instances, their true stories aren’t often heard. Since they’re not on the playing field, our hope is you get to know them better and learn from them. As we have

Today I am happy to be joined by Gretchen Sheirr, President of Business Operations at the Houston Rockets. Thank you for being with us, Gretchen.

[00:01:27] Gretchen: Thanks for having me.

[00:01:29] AJ: Yeah. Yeah, and thank you for the opportunity to work with you. I know our whole team. raves about the experience with you. So it would celebration it, Navigate when you were promoted to be the President of the team and earn 20 years, right? 20 years with rockets.

[00:01:43] Gretchen: Yes. It’ll be 21 in a few months, but it’s, I don’t like saying that cuz then I can’t lie about my age.

[00:01:50] AJ: I think you should be proud of it. I think it’s a pretty quick path, right? But also patience. There’s some sort of like longevity in patience you don’t see in the business with sports very often cuz your last couple of moves, I think you’re in the same role for five, five plus years, but it clearly has paid off.

In fact, what lessons can we learn from your rise to run the organization?

[00:02:09] Gretchen: Sometimes there’s great things to learn. Sometimes I can give you what not to do and still survive. It’s really hard in that, in, in any industry, I think when you have a lot of colleagues and you’re close and people advance in their career and you think that it’s something that you want to do or something that you wanna accomplish, whether it’s like fomo or fear of missing out or it’s keeping up with the Joneses, it’s figuring out really what you want to do for yourself and what your own path is.

And so I, I did, I decided to stay in one place and it wasn’t a decision that I made in my twenties when I started working in sports. I just thought it would be a cool job, and it turned out that I had a talent for it. And then it, I got to a certain point in my career where I felt like we had really built something special here at the Rockets.

I felt like I was a part of something that was bigger than myself. My family was here, my friends were here, and we had this life, and so anytime an opportunity came up, but it really had to be something special in order for me to walk away from what I consider unfinished business of things that we were trying to accomplish here as an organization.

And there’s absolutely times that I got antsy and I was ready for something else, and I was super fortunate that every time it got to what could have been a tipping point where I was ready for something different in my life and in my career. Something changed within the organization where I was able to grow and then you blink and it’s been almost 21 years and now I’m in the role that I’m in.

[00:03:35] AJ: You hinted at what not to do there break that kept maybe if you were serious. There’s lessons in that too, right? Think of the young people listening to this that would like to fall in your footstep.

It’s not a well tread path. For a lady, in 20 years to rise from entry level to the top of the organization. So what were the don’t dos if you’re willing to share.

[00:03:55] Gretchen: Yeah, some of the don’t dos are always be aware of your surroundings. Always be aware that you’re a part of a team and that no matter what your role is or what your job is at any point in time, other people are facing other challenges.

So how you treat your colleagues, how you treat folks across the hallway from you. You can’t walk away from that and so that could have been, there’s certainly times where I wish I would’ve handled situations differently. And when you go and you get an opportunity, with a different organization, some of those mistakes that you made, you can lead behind and you can start over when you walk through someone else’s front door.

And when you stay in the same organization, you know all the good, bad, and the ugly stays with you. And so there’s certainly been things that I’ve had to overcome that I wish I would’ve done differently, but also all the things that were done correctly and authentically and for the right reasons stay with you also.

[00:04:47] AJ: Oh yeah. If you’re gonna build a sterling reputation as you have, then you you might as well stick around and reap the rewards. Where did you grow up, by the way? Are you from the Houston area?

[00:04:57] Gretchen: So I was born in Louisiana, but I grew up in a suburb of North of Houston. Yeah. I moved here when I was young.

[00:05:03] AJ: I could have known that I, or at least remember that. I’m sure I did it at some point. Cuz you drove for LSU?

[00:05:08] Gretchen: I did

[00:05:09] AJ: For four years. So that’s, Yeah. And I know a lot of LSU kids, they manipulate upwards and onwards into Houston. That’s the marketplace, right? So it’s beyond your pro career. And if you went to high school there, this is almost like a lifetime and a lifetime of the Rockets

[00:05:23] Gretchen: Yes, indeed.

[00:05:24] AJ: What has changed? When you look back and you started in ticket sales, when you look back, I’d love to know the, I don’t know what can we learn from those two decades?

[00:05:34] Gretchen: Yeah. Sometimes it doesn’t deal two decades. I’ll tell a story and I’ll say, three years ago and someone will tell me that it was 12 years ago, but it feels like three years.

So when I first started at the Rockets the referendum had just passed. To build what is now Toyota Center. So the Rockets were actually a tenant in what was Compact Center, which is where, was the summit, which is where the championships. Were earned both championships for the Rockets, but it was a small organization.

Ticketing was really run as almost a box office functionality. It didn’t really have the infrastructure that it has today, and there weren’t very many hospitality spaces and premium spaces back then, in the way that buildings were built. So we didn’t have a suite department. Our partnership team was relatively limited in the areas that we can control.

And so when I joined in 2001 as an account executive, the team was also growing to build Toyota Center, to set up arena operations to build out true sales infrastructures and everything that has to go alongside that. So it’s pretty different than it was then.

But at the same time, my first year, we went through a 15 game losing streak. We drafted Yao Ming the next year, so it was like, this kind of turning point in a rebuild. And that’s a bit where we are right now as well. So I feel we can, it’s all, it all comes full circle at some point. You stick around long enough.

[00:06:52] AJ: Speaking of ticketing, tell me more about that. I’m intrigued. Very literally, from a business perspective. I know that you’ve been known for being innovative and progressive with digital practices that, innovative ticket pricing and other tactics. Do you mind taking us to the evolution of ticketing and in particular where you think it goes from here?

[00:07:10] Gretchen: Yeah. My, my background here was, to, we talked a little bit about to when Toyota Center was opening. So when we opened Toyota Center in 2003, we had made the decision prior to that to go with a white label ticketing company to open the building, which was unheard of at the time. I think we were probably the first team to move away from the big players in the space.

And it, like I mentioned before, we are relatively lean staff, so it was all hands on deck to make that work. So I learned the technology of ticketing. Very early in my career, so sometimes, they say it’s better to be lucky than good. And it’s like I lucked into a few opportunities that enabled me to learn things in a different way than I would have had I been in a different situation.

So we opened Toyota Center with this new ticketing system. I think everybody knows the background five, six years later, Flash Seats in Cleveland had come into play and then they purchased the company and then it became Vertex, and then now it is AXS ticketing.

But all of our crew here, really learned that backend technology of how ticketing works. And so when digital ticketing came into play, we understood kind of the evolution and the barcode and the original version of what will eventually become an NFT, like understanding that path of travel. How that works from the consumer, from the front, from the moment that they decide to purchase the ticket to the end user of the game and being able to follow all of those transactions in a seamless way was something that, that we were able to take advantage of really early on. So it gave us access to data points, whether that’s pricing or consumer knowledge or any of that information at just a much higher and more in depth level than what was available anywhere else because how quickly we adopted digital ticketing and that, that allowed us to learn about pricing trends and all of these things that led to what is the ticketing world today.

[00:09:01] AJ: What year is that, by the way? Where were you pretty much adopted digital ticket?

[00:09:05] Gretchen: 2007, 2008 season.

[00:09:07] AJ: Awesome. Good for you. Way out of the curve. Where was the rest of the NBA at that time?

[00:09:11] Gretchen: Not there yet. So yeah, they got there quickly. They definitely got there quick, more quickly than other, than others in the space.

So again, like I would love to say it’s because we were brilliant but some of it was a little bit happenstance for us, but we took advantage of it.

[00:09:26] AJ: And you mentioned NFTs and I would love your opinion on this. I don’t fully understand the use cases of blockchain technology. I certainly see how useful it’d be in ticketing as far as uniquely identifying it, et cetera.

But as far as crypto, NFT, blockchain, any predictions for the future on what ticketing looks like? And exactly how that impacts our world.

[00:09:46] Gretchen: I don’t, I wish I could give you a really brilliant answer. I don’t have one. I think at the end of the day, customers expect slow friction transactions and ease of use and almost anything that they do now.

So whether that’s coming to a game, whether that’s an airline ticket, whether that’s buying your groceries, whether that’s your banking. You name it, they expect to be able to do it at their fingertips and be able to do it relatively quickly with full control. And I think that, Blockchain technology will absolutely add to that.

I just can’t predict in which form and how quickly and nor how to monotize it yet.

[00:10:18] AJ: I don’t either. Otherwise I wouldn’t ask the question, I promise.

Any chance you are doing anything really cutting edge with ticketing, and I promise this is my last ticketing question, but anything is with AI or any predictive work that might be ahead of the curve right now?

[00:10:32] Gretchen: I think that we’re, I don’t know if it’s it, if any of it’s ahead of the curve, but really learning every piece of consumer insight that we have and applying that to, to bringing people into our building, whether that’s for rockets or concerts, is something that we’re always

doing.

[00:10:45] AJ: Yeah. Yeah. Fair. We have the chance to interact a little bit with your owner over the last couple years and work we were doing for the University of Houston, and he’s a major donor there, on the board talking about Tilman Fertitta, of course you certainly must have had exposure to him.

I’d love to know. Tell me about the experience. What has he as an owner, what has your experience been working with him?

[00:11:04] Gretchen: Yeah, so Tilman Fertitta and the full family is fantastic. So they are obviously living and from Houston they are here a lot and. I’d been with this organization for a long time.

So when Tilman purchased a franchise, and I think it closed October of the 2017, 2018 season, but prior to that, he had literally been one of our longest tenured season ticket holders and had floor seats, dead center court that were next to the previous owner’s seats. And his company had always had a suite here.

They had always had a sponsorship through the Landry’s restaurant. So at one period of time during my career, I actually managed the account. So I knew him, I knew his company and his directors and VPs over there pretty well. So when he purchased the team, it was great to have a Houstonian like in the backyard to be the next steward of this franchise.

Having someone who knows hospitality and understands, the mind of the consumer and making sure that experience that they have every time they interact with your brand and your franchise is first class is something that’s pretty cool and not always common in ownership.

So I think that’s what I really like about it and I think that’s what our fans really love and enjoy as well is that he wants people to come to this building. He wants ’em to have fun while they’re here.

[00:12:24] AJ: It’s pretty cool that he’s a fan and cares and lives locally. And obviously I know through the Houston relationship, very generous with his alma mater.

I think that matters a great deal, right? There’s a different vibe to an owner that doesn’t have to listen to fans on a day-to-day basis, and their investment is beyond that. That’s pretty cool. Plus very cool that you got to know him when he is a sponsor. Yeah. And a ticket holder. You had head start on everybody.

[00:12:47] Gretchen: I did. So I must have done a decent job because you know.

[00:12:50] AJ: Yeah. You would not be sitting in your seat if he, if you just take kindly of you, obviously.

Any lessons we can learn from the Covid 19 experience?

[00:12:58] Gretchen: What lesson can we not learn from the Covid 19 experience?

Yeah, you wanna be more specific in that lead in?

[00:13:05] AJ: When you look back right now, I can, I’ll share one as an example. We had a lot of clients leagues, we worked on a lot of rescheduling. There’s renegotiations on media fields, media right fields, sponsorship fields.

Looking back, I personally feel that, people would say this is our budget cycle, this is the cycle of decision making. The network can’t work this way. We can’t possibly do this. And there’s some cool things we’ve explored with the leagues on creative schedules and all kinds of stuff, right?

And there would be this long planning cycle of approval of the players and association, and then everyone was able to do everything in a matter of weeks and then they did it again and again as things continue to change. So I know in my personal experience, it always felt do we really need that level of cost?

And we’re just putting on sporting events here. I feel like we’re all gonna be a lot more innovative going forward because it’s bullshit to say that you can’t be creative and quick. But I don’t know. I only ask just in case there’s something to share with the people who are listening on your experience, the NBA, the arena, the city of Houston.

[00:14:00] Gretchen: I think for us we learned a lot, right? I think the first thing from a relationship standpoint that we learned is, this is always, particularly in sports particularly when you have that relationship with your fan, where you have people who are waking up every day and like putting their brand on your body, like wearing clothes, and the first thing they do when they wake up is check their social media to see what is happening with our team.

But that amount of loyalty and dedication for from a fan is impressive. And when what we do holistically, which is put on live sports and entertainment, literally gets taken away from you. How strong is that foundation? So how strong is the relationship that you have with your brand? How strong is the relationship that you have with your partners and your suite holders, when you have to renegotiate contracts and you don’t know what the next six months is gonna look like, or maybe even the next month. And you have to work on trust and trust in each other and trust in the partnership that at the end of the day, you’re gonna get through this together.

You learn how strong some of those foundations really work, and you learn that there were cracks in some that you didn’t know were there. So I think that was a really important, reminder for, for everyone. And then secondly, like it drove me nuts full during the pandemic and every single time someone would say this, I would try to correct them, whether it was the media or people would say that, they’re gonna play games without fans.

It was a pet peeve of mine because we were not playing games without fans. We still had our fans. We were just playing games without a ticketed audience or without a live audience in the arena. Cause I felt like that was dangerous, saying the words without fans. Cuz I think that, COVID and the pandemic showed how much, when times are tough, people rely on their sports and their entertainment to separate themselves from the stresses of the world.

And then in Texas it was different, like we were in a different situation than. And a lot of my colleagues in a lot of different cities and states, we were in situations where whether it was a concert or the NBA, sometimes the traveling restrictions for that event may have been stricter than what our local market or government required and so balancing that out was certainly a challenge and an opportunity.

On May 15th, 2021, we hosted UFC and we were the first full capacity live events indoor event. At least we think we are. We haven’t found anyone else that went prior and it broke every record we had outside of a non playoff game.

In Toyota Center, they were just here recently and they broke that record again. And so the importance that live experience has for people has not laed at all.

[00:16:36] AJ: That’s good to hear. Congratulations. I didn’t know that. I should have been paying attention to that, very cool.

[00:16:40] Gretchen: It was cool, but also, in, in that time when you talk about like the lessons that, that you learned, it’s the league and I think our industry does a really good job, like sharing best practices and learning events and doing advanced notes when, when concerts are on tour and sharing what you learn with other buildings.

And, for us going first, we didn’t have a lot of that. There weren’t a lot of places you could lean on. To learn how to do this as safe as possible in the environment that we were in. And so the fact that our team was able to do it and pull it off is something that we’re pretty proud of.

[00:17:10] AJ: If not you, then who, the NBA is your point. Great information sharing. Very good. Staying progressive and on the front edge, if not the nba, then who? Who would’ve voted that first one? It’s hard to see anyone else, to be perfectly honest.

Earlier you referenced the Toyota deal before the building was even named. That reminds me to thank you for allowing us to work with you on your naming rights, and I’m grateful that we’ve gotten to see that firsthand.

I don’t even know if they’ll remember this, but just as you said before, sometimes you’ll pay three or four years ago and it’s 10 or 12 years ago, somewhere in the eight to 10 years ago range. Your client summit trip was to Phoenix and I got to meet up with you all out here for a thumbs game and all that good stuff. And a bunch of the dealers were there. They put it in perspective for me because they were so happy with their relationship with the team. It made it very clear to me that the Toyota dealers that are so important to the brand, were all in.

It’s a shame that I even have to ask or feel compelled to ask this, but I think it’s relevant. When you look, at the landscape of those and leadership roles in sports, you don’t see a lot of women, you don’t see people of color. I would love your perspective on your path and what you see out there as far as peers and the path and the opportunity for people to follow in your footsteps. It feels like it’s changing. Do you feel it? What are you seeing?

[00:18:22] Gretchen: Yeah, first of all, we’re having the conversation, so that’s. Absolutely a start in, in a good place. I think people would love for us to be in a more progressed state where it’s not obvious that I’m a female in this world and that I’m just, that I’m just in the role.

But you’ve gotta build the pipeline and a development arm and a development path and development, and you have to prioritize it. So it’s really hard to say that you want to progress at the ranks of a president role or a CEO role if you don’t have people. That it progressed to the next level.

That’s a lot of work that we’re doing and our organization is making sure that we have clear development paths so that when these opportunities open, that there’s a full slate of diverse candidates that are ready to take them on. And I think we’re definitely at that point now as an industry, so I’m excited about the future.

[00:19:08] AJ: I would love for you to share how you do that. The SBJ has done a really good job with thought leaders. We’re fortunate to get to go to that cuz of 40 under 40 and all that stuff. And they brought in some pretty incredible speakers almost every year, the last five or six years on the subject of diversity, way ahead of, the current social movement and where the current marketplace is at.

But it’s always harder that first step of how you build that funnel of candidates, and what actions people are taking to create that path for other people. I think the NBA from an outsider’s perspective does as well as any league. How are you all doing that? How do the Rockets do that?

[00:19:40] Gretchen: You had mentioned earlier about budget timelines and things taking a long time and how COVID proves that you can move faster right when you need to, and sometimes it means you need to slow down. And so in this instance, I think a lot of times when people are hiring for positions, they go within their network. They go with referrals, they go with people that they’ve worked with before, and really taking your time and making sure that you get a diverse slate of candidates, whether that is people of color, whether that is by gender, whether that is by industry and diversity of thought, really taking the time that when you’re hiring for a position or a role, you’re really trying to figure out what you’re trying to accomplish from that role and take the time to make sure that you look at all possible angles on who can fill that role.

And so when you do that in a hurry, my personal opinion is that you tend to go back to the same well. And if that well hasn’t created opportunity in the past, why would you think that would be, that would be different in the future?

[00:20:36] AJ: Yeah, that’s fair. That’s good actually. They say HR 101 is hire slow, fire fast, and even head hunters, I’ve noticed that it’s been an ask for at least a decade at Navigate, where we pay please represent diversity, on these candidates.

And it’s unbelievable. What we get, is referrals. Like the first bullet when I put something out now says that, and. And the load void of referrals for that. So that’s actually a good point. Moving fast inside your own circle clearly doesn’t work. I have some rapid fire questions for you, just

[00:21:03] Gretchen: Sure.

[00:21:04] AJ: Just to get to know you a little better. Okay. Favorite place to travel?

[00:21:07] Gretchen: Oh, that one’s easy. We go to Cozumel pretty often.

[00:21:10] AJ: Yeah. I just had to fly through Houston to Costa Rica. You are so fortunate to have that airport and that airline. That is a gift.

[00:21:18] Gretchen: I can leave in the morning and I can be at the beach by lunch.

[00:21:21] AJ: Lucky you. We saw that the Rockets unveiled a new food option a couple months ago at the Toyota Center, the jumbo mac and cheese hotdog with fruit loops, and bacon. Have you had a chance to try it yet?

[00:21:35] Gretchen: I actually did not try it cuz I had a client dinner that night and Levy’s been doing a really fun job with our fans.

Just testing. Different items, each game at a different stand. And that one just blew up the social media world. And it went a little viral, but it was actually just a test. Like it’s not on the menu every game, but it did sell out that night. So apparently it was good enough.

[00:21:58] AJ: Good enough for one night. I didn’t know it was regular on the menu, but I have this immediate thought of if there’s a city that would eat this, it is Houston.

[00:22:05] Gretchen: It’s Houston for sures. Exactly.

[00:22:07] AJ: What do you do to relax and recover?

[00:22:09] Gretchen: I don’t.

Yeah. I am really bad at that. I schedule our vacations. Like even if on vacation we’re like not gonna do anything. I have to know that on Thursday is the day that we’re not gonna do anything, so that I can mentally prepare myself to know that I’m not gonna do anything so that I can relax.

So it’s not normal. It’s definitely a problem. I am working on it, but I do enjoy a nice glass of good red wine and a little binge watching with my husband on particularly stressful days.

[00:22:38] AJ: Is there a show that you’re willing to share?

[00:22:41] Gretchen: Right now, we just finished Ozarks last night, so we’re into 1883.

My personal I don’t do a lot of reality TV or hardly any, but I’m obsessed with this show, Married At First Sight. I think it’s one of the best shit ever on Tv. It’s awful. It’s a horrible show, but it is. But it is amazing at the same time. So they basically put people together and they, it’s almost like an arranged marriage.

So they put you together and you literally get married at first sight. And they follow you and whether or not they stay married. It’s awesome.

[00:23:12] AJ: And they, so they’ve agreed in advance, I’m going to marry this person.

[00:23:16] Gretchen: I’m gonna, I’m gonna legally marry this person. Yeah.

[00:23:20] AJ: These are the things that someone will bring up when you’re overseas. No, that show doesn’t exist. But it does.

[00:23:25] Gretchen: It does. It does.

[00:23:26] AJ: Okay. Good to know. What’s the most innovative or exciting project you’ve overseen in the last year?

[00:23:32] Gretchen: I don’t know if it’s a project or what to call it, we’ve had, we’ve obviously had a ton of change in our organization, both on and off the court coming out of a pandemic and then the change that we’ve had, both in the front office and on the court.

And so just building what this vision is gonna be for this next chapter of Houston Rockets basketball has been pretty exciting. We’re getting to be creative and try different things and tell different stories and work on different promotions and bring in new and exciting partners and expose the world to, I used to say all these 19 year old guys, but they’re all like turning 20 in the next couple of months, so they’re moving out of the teenage world.

So that’s the, that’s been the most exciting thing this year for sure.

[00:24:15] AJ: Young teams to turn into mature veteran teams real quick in the NBA. And I can hear the excitement in your voice. That makes me really happy, genuinely excited about what’s coming next. Cause it would be difficult, in my opinion to maintain that sort of energy and excitement about what’s next after, as you mentioned, 21 years.

So good for you. That makes me really happy.

[00:24:35] Gretchen: Yeah, it’s been fun and I think for, at least for me, everyone likes to win and likes to win quickly, for sure. But after being here for as long as I have and to be in my first season in this role, but to have it look so different than it had, the previous eight to 10 years prior has been exciting, rejuvenating, reinvigorating, right? So I think we’re for our whole team here. So we’re certainly stoked about the future.

[00:25:00] AJ: Oh, I’m really glad to hear you say that cause you’ve been at championship contender here for a number of years the team maintaining that excitement.

But you have great longevity in your team too. You have incredible tenure of service, right? On what is your revenue team? So obviously they’re there for more than just wins and rings. So good for you.

Thank you, Gretchen, for joining us. Super grateful to have you here today.

If anybody out there has any questions or comments, feel free to reach out to us. My email is aj@nvgt.com, and you can also connect with us on my personal LinkedIn or the Navigate LinkedIn page. Again, this is AJ, with Navigate, joined by Gretchen Sheirr. Thank you for joining us on Navigating Sports Business and please stay well.