Podcast Alert: Vince Kozar – Phoenix Mercury

Transcript

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Vincent Kozar: [00:00:00] Because I think we all know, like sports is just shared moments and community, right? These moments that we remember. These things that we share with other people that have attached us to this franchise, friends, family, whomever it may be.

Jeff Nelson: Hello, welcome to the Navigating Sports Business Podcast. I’m your host today, Jeff Nelson, the president of Navigate.

We are a data-driven consulting firm guiding major strategies and. Decisions in sports and entertainment. We started this podcast to share the experiences and the stories of some of the amazing people we get to work with. They’re not the star athletes on the field, but they are the most influential people off of it.

Hopefully you learn a little something about them and a little something from them over the course of our conversations.[00:01:00]

Today I am happy to be joined by Vince Kozar, president of the Phoenix Mercury. This is actually the first time Vince, you and I have had a chance to chat, but a lot of common connections beyond the fact that we’ve done a lot of work for the sons in Mercury over the years. Former Beloved Navigator Ron Li is on the team at Player 15, and then you also know one of the newest additions to our team.

Avery, right? A few common bonds there. I

Vincent Kozar: do. I didn’t realize they were called navigators. I should have. Ron’s a great part of the team and Avery I met during her time at ASU teach a class over there. She was a part of one of the really great student groups over there. So yeah, I’m excited to be here and appreciate the connections.

Jeff Nelson: Oh, we’re talking just as the season gets underway and let’s talk basketball first. You guys were pretty active in the off season. You traded for. A few big name [00:02:00] players. The expectations I think are. Fairly high. I don’t know that you guys like to or want to think about Vegas, but I looked up the Vegas odds and I think you guys are like fifth or sixth win the championship.

What’s it like from a business perspective when the basketball on the court has a lot of excitement and some increased expectations?

Vincent Kozar: The best way to describe it is wind at our backs, right? There are things we have to do. The product is the product. Either way, the great value that we provide to fans, the fan experience, when you’re in the building, the, the affordability of the experience as a whole, like all of those things and the servicemen provide.

All those things really have to be. Independent of team wins, but we see that as wind at our backs. We know that’s people come to see wins, and so that, that really does help us retain fans. It helps us get in front of new fans. But yes, it’s been a, it’s been a busy off season, especially on the basketball side.

And actually I like [00:03:00] to think of us as our off season is a great representation of where the league is at. Like the positive momentum around our off season is really around investment. Mat, HBO taking over. Two years ago, we went and got a senior front office executive from the Golden State Warriors to run our basketball side.

That is step one in the moves that we’re making right now to improve the basketball side. Step two is all, is all the resources and the, the investment that Mat has made. We have a hundred million dollar practice facility that is a capital D differentiator when it comes to having conversations with players and recruiting them here, not just because it’s a great facility.

But because of what it says about what this organization is about. So yes, we were able to, we were able to acquire some really top line free agents, but it really just speaks to where this thing has been headed for the last couple of years.

Jeff Nelson: And then when it comes to capitalizing on that, on the business side, when you think about things like ticketing or sponsorship, how do you [00:04:00] set expectations and then go about achieving those?

Vincent Kozar: Yeah, I think again, you have to have a baseline of what you expect to achieve or how you val value the product you before the season starts. So that’s without knowing how many wins you’re gonna end up with. Every team goes through that. But I think from a business perspective, that investment that’s happened on the basketball side has also happened on the business side.

We’re investing in our staff because really what we’re trying to do is not only accelerate growth. But leverage this moment of interest from the corporate interest, fan interest, TV rating, interest, all of the above merchandise interest. We’re trying to leverage that for not just this season and next season, but the next 5, 10, 15 years of what this league is about.

So we’re really trying to position ourselves staffing wise and resource wise with where we expect this to go. And that coincides in our minds with the rise of the team on the floor.

Jeff Nelson: At the same [00:05:00] time, you have somebody who won’t be on the floor for the first time in a long time. If this is accurate, this’ll be the first season in 20 years without Diana Taurasi on the roster, which I don’t know about you, that makes me feel very old, first of all, 20 years.

But how do you adjust to or contemplate life without her? How much do you think that affects? What the franchise messages, the identity, and obviously how all that ties to the business side.

Vincent Kozar: Yeah, it’s a great question because look, it’s not just that she was the greatest player of all time, and it’s not just that she led us to multiple championships and that her gravity on the floor was so great.

I tell people this all the time, or I said it last year during what was her farewell season though in true Diana fashion, she wouldn’t tell us it was her farewell season. But, so all franchises have faces of the franchise and all of those people are people who have played 10 or [00:06:00] 15 years for a, for an organization that’s been around for 50 or 60 years.

We’re talking about a player who played one tee of the 28 seasons in the history of the franchise. We’re talking about not only a foundational part of our franchise, but the lead. Most people think she is the logo, right? This isn’t just. The best player in your team’s history, retiring. This is even bigger than that.

And so there’s there, there are a couple things I think that go along with it. One, she played into her forties, so I don’t think anyone was caught totally off guard in terms of our fan base or the business side. I think they, there’s so much respect for what she does. I still think she could play tomorrow, but again, I don’t think anyone was blindsided by it.

And then the first indicator is for us is season ticket member renewals. Last year, those folks knew that this was probably the end for her, but have we created a vision for what the future can be on the basketball side with players like Kahleah Copper, who we acquired last year? Is there a vision for the future behind Nick [00:07:00] U’Ren and our GM’s leadership and Nate Tibbetts of its our head coach.

Because if you can ship that, and that’s not just necessarily organic, right? You have to put those folks in front of people. You have to help them see the vision in order for them to have a great deal of bulk in, I think we sort of position those folks could copper on the player side and the other folks on the front office side as this is what the next iteration of the Mercury looks like.

And we had a great season ticket renewal campaign. The other pieces of it is. What is our organization about outside of a singular player? We’re about the impact we make in the community. We’re about the experience. When you’re in the building. We’re about how we treat our fans, whether you’ve been with us for one day or for 30 years.

And so all of those things I think we’ve been really laser focused on for the last half decade to a decade, and especially under Mat Ishbia’s leadership. Those things allow you to get to that next step. And then I think the off season additions we made. To your point, now there is that vision. We are taking a [00:08:00] step forward and then it’s our responsibility to make sure our fans get introduced to and get accustomed to and grow, to love and see the personalities out.

All of these players who are not replacing D but have moved into those roles, those central roles, as the faces, as the new faces of the franchise.

Jeff Nelson: You’ve announced that you’ll retire her number next season, and you mentioned that you have, you have championships in the past, but now you’re turning that page.

How do you put together a strategy that kind of balances celebrating the tradition, the past, the history? But also, right. Looking ahead, turning the page, focusing on this next generation of players and who the mercury are gonna be going forward, not just who you’ve been.

Vincent Kozar: Yeah, I think it’s a balancing act because, and I think there’s no either or.

I think it’s always yes, and I just think you have to be [00:09:00] targeted with the times and places that you choose to do that storytelling. You can be a hundred percent invested in the future. You can have championship aspirations. You can do everything that Mat has said, we’re going to pursue a championship at all costs.

You can also do the things that Mat has talked about in terms of honoring our paths. We didn’t have we last year, just like the sons, we created a brand new Ring of Honor to honor the people in our organization’s history who have made that difference. And so I think you can do both things, right? You can celebrate the past, especially as you’re contextualizing.

Your franchise and the success of your franchise for new fans while also staying laser focused on this team this season and the new faces. So I think to maybe get a tiny bit more specific though, keeping it high level, like any marketing that you see in any advertising or marketing that you see in market during the season designed to sell tickets or attract new fans that’s around [00:10:00] this team’s performance.

The faces of this team, our expert our expectations of this team. When you’re in the arena, when you’re on social, when we’re storytelling what this organization has historically meant to the league, to this market, to this community, you can pull in those faces and those stories and those moments.

Because I think we all know like the sports is just shared moments and community, right? These moments that we remember, these things that we share with other people that have attached us to this franchise, friends, family, whomever it may be. And so I think you can do both things. You just have to be really strategic with, but it is important.

The hype videos, the things that are get you gonna get you excited. They’ve got our fans excited on opening night. You know, those things aren’t, for the first time in 20 years gonna feature Diana because she’s not a part of. This specific team, so I just think you have to do both.

Jeff Nelson: You mentioned there’s the high level strategy.

One thing I’m curious about, for a long time, [00:11:00] most WNBA teams were run with a really slim staff. You mentioned obviously that. Right. Under Mat’s leadership, you’ve been able to do some hiring, increase that staff, but you’re still, I would imagine, in a place where a lot of people have to wear multiple hats, and I, that’s honestly true at the biggest NBA teams.

But as we get into the season, team president, WNBA team, can you give us a window into. What does the day to day look like for you? How much do you have to get into the weeds? How much there’s the strategy and the tactics. What is everything that’s on your play?

Vincent Kozar: Yeah. I think the funny thing is I mentioned that the, that I teach a class once a week at a SG, and one of the things I tell my students, I’m not a business expert like you are, Jeff, but one of the things I tell my students is, [00:12:00] at least when I was in college in my head, a company that was worth four or $5 billion had thousands and thousands of employees, sports organizations that are worth multiple billions of dollars have 2, 3, 400 full-time employees.

Like they are just. Small. I don’t know the literal definition of a small business. Again, you’re the business guy, but these feel like small businesses that just have these massive valuations because of who we are and what we do. So I say all that to say yes, everybody’s lean and everybody’s wearing multiple hats across the board.

It’s just the nature of the industry. I will say the one thing that’s incredible about our setup is we’re hybrid in the sense that we have more dedicated WNBA Mercury employees than we’ve team members, than we’ve ever had. But we also live within the ecosystem of Player 15 Group, which is the Suns, the Mercury, RG lead team, the Valley Suns, and then we operate our arena.

So we have the resources of this much larger [00:13:00] organization. So there are people, a ton of people who may not be dedicated Mercury employees who touch the business every day. And so that sort of leaves to my answer to your broader question about the day to day. For me, step one of the day to day is around communication, and I came up through comms.

That’s where my, that’s where my study was. My, my degree is in, it’s where I got my infants into the league. But I tell people all the time that everything I do is communications. Whether we’re communicating with the new fan or we’re communicating with members or telling stories to, or for partners or external media or whatever.

It’s all one. It’s all our message. And so the internal message is important too. I have to, my job is to try to lead people, some of whom eat, sleep, and breathe this every day, and some of whom only touch it during the season or other times. And so can we, number one, set out a high level roadmap for what we’re trying to accomplish in given season, any [00:14:00] given month, any given week.

The second piece is can we help different departments and different people? Again, high touch or low touch. Understand how, what they do plugs into what we are trying to accomplish as a group. And third piece is, can they, can we help all those folks understand what success looks like for us and for them?

And if we can do all of those things, then one, we can get people, I hate this metaphor, but we can get people rowing together. And number two, we can have a ing of accountability, what’s expected of you, how it plugs into the, to the larger piece of what we’re trying to accomplish. So when we do it and we do it well, we celebrate it.

And when we fall short, we can have a measure of accountability and we can fix it, and we can move on to the next thing. So for me, whether it’s leading a small group, leading a large group, whether it’s anything from revenue goals, to a marketing plan, to our community impact plan, all of those things are centered around what I just described,

Jeff Nelson: the comms background.

You [00:15:00] started in, I think 2006 as a communications manager, 2006. Seems like a long time ago. Yeah. And now team president, pretty good rise up the ranks. Can you walk us through how that path unfolded and the moment that you look back on as being pivotal to you being able to go from the bottom rung of the ladder, or at least one of the bottom

Vincent Kozar: rungs to the top?

Sure, and please feel free to interrupt at any time if this turns into a full on filibuster. I started as an intern in 2004, which was actually the first year of Steve Nash coming back to The Suns and just this massive explosion of the Suns back onto the NBA scene. 2004 was also the year that the Mercury drafted Diana Razzi.

So you talk about turning points and pivotal moments for an entire franchise. That would be the year. So I started as an intern [00:16:00] on the comp side. And you know what I got to do was were an industry that I barely knew existed before I applied for the internship, right? Like I just knew that this posting that I saw on a bulletin board, and it was an actual bulletin board.

I don’t know if those exist. And by the way, I tore it down ’cause I thought that would increase my chances, like then no one else would be able to see it. Full disclosure. Where was this, where was the bulletin board at a SU? It was at the software hall on Tempe campus, which is not where the journalism school is anymore.

That’s how long ago that’s been. Yeah. I, I just knew that internship posting was an intersection of two things that, that I really liked comms and basketball. I didn’t know what the role actually was. And so, excuse me, to fast forward a little bit. I think the greatest lesson I learned in that whole period from 2004 to now is that it takes a ton of luck, and I don’t mean that in a way of diminishing personal accountability, but sometimes luck is, especially in the small businesses like sports that we’re talking [00:17:00] about.

Sometimes luck is required for upward mobility because there just aren’t that many people and not that many roles. So if the person above you isn’t going somewhere themselves or finding a new opportunity, or there just may not be anywhere for you to go. I think the second piece is that I always found bosses along the way from when I worked in comms to when I moved back and forth between the sons and the Mercury.

I always found bosses and leaders along the way who wanted to empower. And not micromanage people who wanted to see me grow and to help me grow and to help me learn things versus wanting to keep me in a very specific role. Not that I didn’t have a clear scope of responsibility versus wanting to keep me in a very specific role that could have been really limiting.

And so I think between the lot and the, the really good bosses along the way, I think the only other piece of it was just wanting to learn as much as I possibly could. So I went from intern. To Communications Manager for the Mercury. [00:18:00] And you know, in that sense, by the time and maybe still today, we were able to use our W team as a proving ground for younger.

Called Up and coming staff members. Team members. And so I got to cut my teeth on things that I wouldn’t have been able to do on the NBA side. And that was in 2006. And in 2007, we won a championship as the Mercury in 2007. And I have this. And these incredible memories. But I also have this incredible bond from that time period with Diana Tara and Penny Taylor, her wife, and a lot of the other players.

And so I moved back to the sun side. I worked on that side for a number of years and met incredible people. And then leadership on the mercury side, holding me back to work on a broader scope of things, oversee comms, marketing, community, social, those kinds of things. And I was able to learn a lot of the revenue pieces at the time.

You, again, you either had people who were threatened by you or and wanna micromanage you or wanna keep their area territorially, or you have people who want to teach and wanna empower. [00:19:00] And I’ve always wanted to be the latter because I received the latter. So I learned as much as I could about the revenue side.

We have incredible people internally then and now. Who really oversee those things and helped me learn. And so I think between the learning, between the comms background, between wanting to be a certain type of manager and lastly, I just care a ton about the product. I tell people all the time, the NBA is this unbelievable machine.

It is an inner, international force for good. And it’s incredible. I just don’t personally feel like the NBA needs me. It’s got a ton of smart people and a ton of people who wanna work in it every single day. And. I have always felt that the w and the Mercury in this organization has needed what I can bring to it.

And so between that and the personal relationships and wanting to inspire and lead over time, that has gotten me to where I am right now.

Jeff Nelson: We’re talking a lot about your viewpoint as a leader, but you had losses. [00:20:00] Sure. What you’ve already talked about with Mat. Coming in, all the investment that they’ve made, both in people, facilities, and those really incredible changes.

What was, what’s it like to go through an ownership change? When you’re at the level you’re at, are you wondering if you’ll have a future with the organization? Are you trying to get a read on how the culture is gonna change? What are all the experiences when you’re at the top, but now. Your bosses, the owner changes.

Vincent Kozar: Yeah. I think that the truth of the Mater is anyone would tell you that there’s just, there’s a certain level of uncertainty and I tried not to let that bother me or get wrapped up in that because that was made easier by Mat coming in saying. There’s incredible potential here. There’s been incredible success here.

That’s why I wanted to buy these teams. So I’m not coming in to turn everything on [00:21:00] its head. I’m coming in to make this better and I make it better by making your experience better, by making our fan experience better, and by investing in this place and really prioritizing what this, what these brands are about.

And so that made the, on using this a little easier. I think the other piece of it is how do you. Without constantly trying to pat yourself on the back or constantly answering questions that aren’t being asked, like how do you demonstrate, Hey, I do think I have some level of experience and expertise here.

I do think I’m an asset to you in this organization. Like how do you say that to a person who isn’t necessarily asking you that? Because he is not going person to person saying, defend your job. Of course not. Of course there was a certain level of uncertainty there, but matches came in with. He was so focused on people.

He was so focused on investment and he was candidly so focused on winning that we were able to of navigate that as best we could. I think look candidly, it was also [00:22:00] coming on the heels. Hmm. Of a difficult period prioritization of an investigation and of change being necessary. It wasn’t, it wasn’t necessarily out of the blue, right?

It was change that needed to happen. And then what I would say to summarize is it was all communication. It was all people who were having direct conversations about this is what, this is my vision for what I wanna do. This is how you fit into it. This is how I see your impact in what you’ve done.

Showing a level of not only knowledge, but appreciation, and so all of those things made what could have been a really difficult situation much, much easier.

Jeff Nelson: With Player 15. As that broader umbrella organization, you get to tap into more than just Mercury employees. How do you balance, or how do you know how often you can tap those other people on the shoulder or [00:23:00] what their bandwidth is?

Yeah. Or what’s going on in the world of somebody that’s spread across the suns and Mercury and, oh, maybe this isn’t the right time. Can you gimme an idea of how organizationally you manage that?

Vincent Kozar: Yeah, I think there’s a couple ways. Like first is, is really process heavy, right? I think five years ago we didn’t have a single project manager.

Now I think we have eight or nine. And that in and of itself not only gets projects from start to finish, but it the connecting piece between these departments that is also tracking bandwidth and it’s also tracking how much people have left to give. So I think some of it is like literally we had to develop processes.

And we as a team of Mercury have our own dedicated project manager. We had to develop people and processes that that really help us determine when we can and can’t ask for things. I think there’s also just the human element of it, like you have to have some level of [00:24:00] intuition and instinct when you talk to people.

You also have to be able to read a calendar. If the sun, if the sun season is seven days away, maybe that’s not the time to ask for or start a giant Mercury project, right? All of those things fit together. I think the third piece of it is we’ve really resourced ourselves in a way where we have the dedicated staff to get us to really drive us and get us through.

And the shared staff can be amplifiers or the shared staff can, when they do plug in, can really raise us instead of us relying on them to be our lifeblood. I think as a general point, but the last thing that I would say is Mat came in and he has, I have never heard him say sons without saying Mercury.

I can’t tell you the kind of seismic shift that is from the very top. Then people see it happening. They see new mercury team members popping up. They see the investment. Everything from additional resources to a hundred million dollar facility to the hotels we stay in for the players [00:25:00] to anything you can think of across the board.

So we have two floors for the Mercury, no other WNBA team has two floors. So like they started to see, oh yeah, wearing it hugely valuable, but we’re actually doing it too. So that coming from the top saying we’re all invested in it. Now those shared resources aren’t feeling like. Suns are my responsibility.

When I get to Mercury, I’ll get to Mercury. This is, oh, this is our whole organization’s list

Jeff Nelson: of priorities. So top down and an interesting distinction to remember too is they did this bef right? This was before last season, and I think all of us look at last season in the WNBA and Caitlyn Clark and Angel Reese and like that was the moment that it seemed like, oh, now everybody is saying.

Their WNBA team is just as important, but they were doing it before that. You’re a hundred

Vincent Kozar: percent right and I will tell you the first time I ever spoke to Mat and his brother Justin, [00:26:00] when after their introductory press conference, we had like a lunch. ’cause Mat’s big on now, like he has lunch at UWM with his team members up there.

The main thing I remember him saying, aside from my love, Diana Tara, was the Mercury and the WNBA is our biggest growth opportunity. He said that, and that’s knowing that. Now, of course, that’s not surprising. You wanna talk about seeing growth opportunities where other people don’t match. The king of that?

From what I’ve seen from the outside, that in and of itself was him saying, yeah, he saw it before. To your point, all of that, and by the way, we had been growing, right? This has been happening really in earnest since the bubble, but the explosion that you’re talking about coming last year is something that has really shifted it for everyone in every market.

Jeff Nelson: You have an event that is non WNBA related also coming next year, the Women’s Final Four, and again, women’s basketball writ large exploding right [00:27:00] now. How much role do you get to play in that event and being the host? City and arena.

Vincent Kozar: Yeah, so I, I don’t wanna oversell my role, like our organization was in the room with masks on during the bid process, meeting with the ncaa, virtually doing our presentation virtually.

So we have the assistant general manager of our arena has been central to that bid process and she has done a fantastic job and she pulled our. The Mercury and to be a part of the bid. And so for us now, it is, we will be the best host we can be. It’s in our venue as well as I do. It’s a, it is an NCAA event and the NCAA owns NCAA events.

But our responsibility is really to elevate it for the entire community here at Phoenix to make folks feel that one of the largest platforms in women’s sports is coming to the Valley. Our responsibility is also to, to bring it to our fans. So how are we using that weekend to host our [00:28:00] partners to drive new business, to get in front of new companies?

How are we leveraging it to meet new fans, to provide experiences to our current fans that’s deepen their affinity for our organization? So I would say like we are involved. It’s a, it’s an NCAA event. It’s a huge arena event for us, but our focus specifically on the Mercury side is around how we use a, to elevate women’s basketball as a whole and drive our business forward.

Which is similar but not identical to what we did last summer when we hosted the WNBA All-Star game. Now we were the hosts for that. We did everything for that, including incur most of the expense for it, which was Mat said, let’s do that. Make it bigger and better than it has ever been. It doesn’t Mater what it costs, and it’s not an accident that, that when media landed, every tweet was about all the signage at the airport.

At the end of the weekend, the trophy presentations on court. And Holly Rowe, ESPN sideline reporter said, I have no hesitation saying that this is the best all-star we can in WBA in history. Like [00:29:00] those things are meaningful, but they also come from very specific intention. And that was Mat’s intention, and that’s exactly what we as an organization did.

So we’re gonna do the same thing, need with a little less control, but we’re gonna do the same thing for the women’s file forum 26.

Jeff Nelson: That, that’s great. I have one more question before I ask you a few rapid fires to close this out. So much focus on women’s sports, WNBA, I’m curious if there’s anything, when you think about the Mercury that is interesting, unique, a differentiator when, I hope this doesn’t come across the wrong way, but when you don’t have Kaitlyn Clarke or Angel Reese, and you certainly, as we talked about earlier, you’ve acquired some big name players, but.

So much of the like casual fan or the brand decision maker. Yeah. Who doesn’t really follow closely, like those are the first names we always hear. Of course. Yeah. Can you give us, when you think about the Mercury, what is [00:30:00] the differentiation? What, what stands out to you about the organization that is gonna help you capitalize on this hockey stick moment for the WNBA?

Vincent Kozar: Yeah. First of all, I think it’s a really, I think it’s a great question because look. Only one team has Steph Curry and only one team has LeBron James. Right? But that doesn’t mean that 28 NBA teams are struggling for relevance or struggling to sell partnerships and all those kinds of things. So I think you know, first and foremost, I have always told our team in this era, in previous era, our challenge has never been to get people to come to their second game.

Because when we get people in the building, when they experience the product, they see the players, they see the environment, the atmosphere, the show. They’re instantly converted to fans. Like genuinely it’s not, and that’s not, that’s not ego. Like it happens. I’ve seen it over the course of the last 10, 15, 20 years.

The challenge has always been how do we get people to their first, whether it’s because they need to put aside preconceived [00:31:00] notions about what the product is, or what the brand is, or whether they just are aware. And the great thing about this era that we’re in now is that it’s lowered the barrier to getting people to come to their first game.

If the reason you were one of the 15, 18 million people that watched the Women’s Championship game two years ago was Caitlin, fantastic. But you live in Arizona, fantastic. Come to our arena whether to see Caitlin or to see someone else and experience this team, these offerings, this product. If you see us on TV and the reason you stop scrolling is the player that a team we’re playing against or because, hey, why don’t I give it a try?

It doesn’t Mater. Whatever gets you to experience the first time I think is a good thing. We wanna be in the room, we wanna be having the conversations because we have a level of confidence in who we are and what our brand is. I think what distinguishes the mercury? I would just say it sounds cheesy, but there’s just [00:32:00] so much heart to the organization.

The league itself is about so many things off the basketball court, and I don’t, not, that doesn’t take precedence from the basketball. The product is incredible, right? The product is incredible. It’s never been better. The players coming in have never been better, but a league of women a, a viewed as a startup, even as entering year 30, finally getting the media attention that it’s, call it dessert for so long.

That is, this is a really important moment and so there’s all this heart that comes along with the organization in terms of what we do off the court. In terms of last year, we started a girls only youth lead in this state that had never existed before. The first session last January had 80 girls in it.

This, the session we’re in right now has 500. We’ve served over 2000 girls in the six sessions that it’s been open. There’s a need there. There’s a demand there. And we know what participation in forest does for boys. We know what it does for [00:33:00] girls. You don’t have to go pro, right? It’s a life experience.

It’s about how you handle adversity. And we like to save women, girls who play sports, become women who lead, all of those things. This is transformational. Sports is transformational across the board. It should be for girls and it should be for boys as well. I think distinguish the thing that distinguishes us is just all the other things we’re about, and it doesn’t Mater to me what gets you into the arena because I know once you get there or for whatever reason you come, that you will be hooked.

Jeff Nelson: Your comms background is shining through here. Your, your ability to evangelize the mercury and women’s basketball is. Evident I wanted, I wanna wrap up with a couple more questions, rapid fires, just so we learn a little more about you.

Vincent Kozar: Yep.

Jeff Nelson: Who would be your dream dinner guest? Living or dead? Anyone in the world?

All of history. Who are you getting

Vincent Kozar: dinner with? I’m so bad at these. I’m glad you guys sent ’em over ahead of time and I still didn’t know. I still came [00:34:00] to know like conclusions on who I should answer because. I’m definitely the guy that vacillates between, do I say an answer that makes me seem really deep or just like a truthful answer?

Truthful. Truthful. The truthful answer is some of the best dinners I’ve had have been with Diana Razzi. She’s one of the funniest people in the entire world. She’s one of my closest friends. I get to see her win a sixth gold medal in Paris this past summer, which no team athlete had ever done in the history of the Olympics.

Wow. And she is hilarious and she is smart, and she is as candid as you think She is watching interviews with her, so it might be her, but if it’s not her, there’s a picture right behind me right there. In 2015, after we won a championship, I got to meet former President Barack Obama, and it happened to be, we were out.

He was late to meet us because the day we were at the White House, he happened, it happened to be the day of a shooting in Virginia. And so the, Hmm, one of. [00:35:00] Gravity and the weight of that day and being in that building and seeing him the same day, like I can’t really comprehend the office or the role. And so just to sit there and talk to am mere Mortal who had to do all of those things, and I’ve read the books.

You talk about community teams, I think great writers and great speakers, regardless of politics, great writers and great speakers are people who I gravitate towards. So those would be my two answers.

Jeff Nelson: This is great. Now you can tell Diana that it was her Barack Obama and it was like a total toss up. Do you have a TV or So?

I would be in my comfort zone.

Vincent Kozar: Yeah.

Jeff Nelson: Yeah.

Vincent Kozar: Yes.

Jeff Nelson: Do you have a movie or TV show recommendation, but we just wa

Vincent Kozar: No, I use, I, I grew up watching, again, great writers. I grew up watching the West Wing. And I think Darren Sorkin’s like the greatest writer for TV or movies. So I will watch a few Good Men all the time.

I’ll watch The West Wing all the time. I re The Steve Jobs movie he did. I [00:36:00] recommend anything Sorkin has written, the social network, any of those things.

Jeff Nelson: What are you most excited for in the next year? And I might add an asterisk not related to stuff we’ve already talked about. Not

Vincent Kozar: related to stuff we’ve already talked about.

We, the suns are planning to go to, to, to Macau for preseason to play the nets. Wow. And I’m, we’re scheduled to go on that trip and I’ve never been in the region at all. So I’m really looking forward to seeing Macau and I’m not the things we’ve already talked about, but I’m really looking forward to seeing the direction this business goes and this team goes for sure.

Jeff Nelson: Vince, I really appreciate it. Very exciting times, obviously for you, for the team, for the league. I think my one big takeaway here from your origin story is that you don’t just seize the opportunity by pulling the tab off the bulletin board, [00:37:00] but you sabotage the competition. You remove the bulletin board altogether, and that is the key to success.

If I. Heard you write in this conversation? Nothing. It’s not an overshare. Oh, I’m kidding. I really appreciate it. Best of luck this season. Looking forward to hopefully the next time and I’m in Phoenix, being able to either attend a game and or grab a beer, grab a drink. But Vince, I really appreciate it.

Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. For our listeners, if you have any questions or comments, please feel free to reach out to us. My email is JEFF@NVGT.com You can also connect with us on my personal LinkedIn or the Navigate page. Again, this is Jeff Nelson from Navigate Joined by Vince Kozar from Phoenix Mercury.

Thank you for joining us on Navigating Sports [00:38:00] Business.