Connected fan experiences for success – Patrick Hooper, San Jose Sharks

This transcript has been transcribed by Riverside.fm, no edits (please excuse any errors)

Sean (00:01.515)
Very happy to welcome Patrick Hooper. He's the Director of Digital Experiences, Integrated Marketing at the San Jose Sharks. Patrick, welcome to the podcast.

Patrick Hooper (00:10.242)
Yeah, hi Sean, thanks for having me

Sean (00:12.607)
Not a problem at all. I always start off the podcast asking people how they got their start in sports. What about yourself? How did you get your first break in the world of sports business?

Patrick Hooper (00:21.816)
Yeah. You know, everyone's got those fun history stories and everyone seems to come about it through all walks of life in different angles. Mine was, you know, sports has been a passion of mine my whole life. You know, I transitioned from thinking one day I was going to be a professional athlete to one day thinking, hey, maybe I'll be like a sports journalist and writing in sports for a career. I went through grad school right around, or undergrad school right around that time when maybe…

print journalism and online media was transitioning and quickly discovered this space that was a hybrid of marketing and content and online media and dabbled a little bit of it at school at my university before I was able to graduate and eventually apply for internships, which is quite a traditional way for people to get there, put in the door and was able to get a role with the San Francisco 49ers, which brought me out to California for my first time ever. it was a marketing internship with them for, for just training camp. know, as the story goes with those intern roles, you come in, show up on time and press work hard. they tend to find a way for those types of people to stick around. And that's kind of what I did. I toured around and did three or four different internships with the Niners, found some opportunities down the road at the San Jose sharks, my current employer

That's kind how I was able to kind of move laterally across the board there. And eventually a full -time opportunity opened up in a digital marketing space, know, one that certainly evolved over the last decade plus, but that was my first real -time pro gig handed to me. And, you know, I kind of took the keys and ran with it from

Sean (02:02.295)
And so, yeah, so you've been at the Sharks over 12 years now. How has that, you know, from that initial role, how has that role changed in both scope and what you were tackling?

Patrick Hooper (02:16.492)
Yeah, totally. mean, it's been fun. It's been a great journey because I feel like as I've matured in my career and had my hands in different roles of the business and supporting in different areas, so too have I seen how it's evolved across the social landscape. That first gig I had was really one that interested me to be the one publishing content on the social handles, me and another counterpart. And we were really given some direction on strategy and we're really interested to kind of run with it grow with it.

A lot of fun memories from those early days, a lot of trial and exploration. you know, over time we found kind of our niche and the ways that it worked for us and worked for our fans and our customers. And over time the digital space grew. You know, I think at the time we were hired, there was maybe a staff of two people doing it. you know, over the years we were able to add resources and it's been fantastic to see where there's now like a carved out full production team producing video content, photo content, graphic design.

And on my side, on the digital side, we've been able to grow to have more content producers on the social space. We've added resources to support us across all of our digital experiences, whether it be the mobile app or the websites. It's really evolved and been certainly at times, especially recent times, a signature component of how we engage and communicate with our fans and customers. So it's been great that we've been able to add resources as we go.

Sean (03:43.775)
And so one of the things I wanted to ask you, because you've got a pretty common trajectory of that early time of that early social, I remember talking to Dewayne Hankins ****, infamously tweeting as the Kings and that banter and that early social when over Twitter and banter was popping off to moving into content production, app development, and sort of that natural progression. And now your title, which I find

It's pretty unique, asking people what their title is of digital experiences in integrated marketing. What does that title mean? the bit that I was focusing on was that experiences piece. I don't see that in many titles. I know a lot of people are tackling it. What does the title mean? And why is it important for you at the Sharks?

Patrick Hooper (04:33.09)
Yeah, I think it's an exclamation point on what matters to us in our business. The experience of our fans and customers needs to be at the forefront, even if it's just reminders internally of how we want to put customers first, make sure that a lot of our decisions and strategy is rooted within customer centric approaches. I think it also is inspiring to me to be in this role and have that as part of my title

Because I feel like there's a lot journey and leeway for what that means in terms of my own career growth and opportunity going forward. it kind of serves a multi -purpose, you know, it's a name and it's a title. And I think the roles you do in the organization sometimes supersede the title, but it's, important to have that in there. And, and maybe just again, echoes where, you know, we as, as Sharks Force Entertainment want to make sure that, Hey, it's not just deploying a social strategy or building, you know, a great app experience. It's, or sorry, a great mobile app.

It's how did these platforms and technologies work to provide the experience that would be deemed necessary for our fans and guests and customers?

Sean (05:38.527)
And like you said, it sort of does give you that scope and leeway, you know, not having to go, don't make me tap the sign that says my job title was like, hey, if we want to, you know, improve the app experience or improve things, like, it's in the it's in the title, whereas sometimes, you know, you hear people internally fighting that they want to improve something, it's sort of, you know, if this is the mantra of the organization, it's something that you really want to be able to, you know, keep doubling down

Patrick Hooper (05:45.29)
Yeah

Patrick Hooper (06:05.036)
Yeah, totally. I think something that is kind of common as a plague across probably all business, but, my history is with sports is this, this term of, you know, internal silos and siloed departments. And, and, and we were, you know, certainly victim to it and it still isn't completely conquered internally, but, know, prior to the pandemic period, and then certainly accelerated by that.

We fought really hard internally to try to break down those barriers and make sure that everybody had better scope and access and transparency across roles. And I think it allowed for people to start to, again, not stay in your lane so much, be a little bit more aware of what other people's objectives were and how they were contributing to the benefit of the whole organization.

And it allowed for kind of freedom and leeway to maybe get involved in a lot of different projects and tasks. And, you know, just because I'm the director of digital experiences doesn't mean this is mine, right? It's just, I'm the steward to help lead it for the organization. But many of my colleagues have stakeholdership within the, you know, the platforms that I help manage and I need to make sure that it's serving across the whole business. So that's, that's kind of the philosophical perspective we try to have on it all. and again,

I think I'm biased, but I think that's a great way that people should want to be in the roles. That way they don't feel really cut off from the rest of organization.

Sean (07:30.599)
Definitely, I mean, it leads into to me talking about, you know, a couple of your colleagues that have been on the podcast in Neta, you know, looking after all things from a data and analytics point of view. And then, you know, the passion of Stacey in that customer experience and bringing joy. And yeah, you're you're you're a big part of, you know, delivering that. So how have you how have you like, tried to, you know, break down those silos, but realize the opportunities that come, you know, working with colleagues like

Patrick Hooper (07:59.692)
Yeah, I again, I don't want to sound like we've solved it all, but I think we've seen some success where it is trying to develop some strong processes internally that allow for great declaration, documented declaration of what you're trying to solve and then good sharing and transparency of how you're trying to get there. It seems so easy to point out the faults of the past where you could see misalignment even kind of some ways competitive nature when these goals and objectives weren't shared.

So we do some things through the strategic planning phases and maybe even just person to person like Stacey and I or Neda and I, where we're actually collectively and collaboratively writing down our objectives so that each of ours match each other and we can see we're working towards it. But I think it's just about how you wanna make sure that the organization is.

It's fairly flat and has access to each other and knows kind of how to, how to gain the knowledge they need to, move fast and move at a, at a, at a confident pace. you know, I, Neda and her world in the business and top intelligence side, and they've got a data that flows through the organization is just such a monster to conquer. So there's always going to be, you know, next items on the agenda and priorities there.

So it's fairly obvious our digital platforms serve a pretty critical role there and how it can support that effort or where her team can actually enable us to have some pretty good success in terms of the experiences we create. And Stacey's, I couldn't get on a big enough soapbox to profess like how having someone dedicated to customer experience within the organization is such a critical role to have where she has good knowledge of how things work and can be that perspective to compliment any conversation.

You know having really good people in the right roles, then having good processes to allow for those people to collaborate is pretty key there. And you mentioned two good ones

Sean (09:58.015)
I wanted to talk about one of the key pieces of the puzzle for you in solving it. Is the app and mobile and how that has evolved in your time? Because know, social was doing a lot of that heavy lifting early on. And then it sort of went to that Oprah phase, you get an app, you get an app, you get an app, everyone had to have an app. And then there's that aggregation of all the apps starting to be similar because the platforms are being provided. Where is it now for you? In what function do you want the sharks at to do overall.

Patrick Hooper (10:35.308)
Yeah. Yeah. I've had a fun history with our mobile app. you asked kind of back when I got my career started in sports, never would have imagined I would have been this deeply entrenched in tech and producing a mobile app experience. But, you know, now looking back on it, it feels so befitting on kind of where some of the crossover is. You know, when we kind of first started on this, we're going to develop our own mobile app that's central to our business route. We made so with lot of conviction

You know, we wanted to have, we as the sharks wanted to have autonomy and building an experience that was best fitting for our fans and customers. And, we knew how to provide that, know, you, you, you've seen maybe other leagues or other teams kind of had some rolled up experiences where it's like league controlled or league owned. And we knew pretty strongly that, you know, we knew our customers in our, in our demographic best and, and started out on that journey. And

It's a challenge, Because you're trying to solve a lot of different needs in one experience, just because you're a Sharks fan or you may come to the SAP center to enjoy entertainment, whether it be hockey or some other concert or show, there's a lot you're trying to solve for in this one experience. And, you know, we had some early trials and tribulation where, you you kind of like, push and pull over this, is it a content app or is it a utility app?

What are you actually best trying to lean into? And at different periods, we've maybe had a heavier effort than other, but I think the one that's won out over time is that like first and foremost, it has to be something that provides some value to our fans or customers on a reliable basis. And we found that with like maybe just the strongholds of digital ticketing.

Now a pretty formidable digital wallet experience that allows people to have kind of full commerce throughout our venues. Those utility based products seem to be pretty core for what we found to be kind of like the primary use case of the app and those people who are currently using it. And then we were able to come through and layer on content that I think is a little bit more befitting for someone who would be using that app and that experience. We advertise it and try

Patrick Hooper (12:46.734)
put it as a solution for all of our businesses here at Sharksports Entertainment, which is again more than just the San Jose Sharks, but we have the SAP Center, which is the venue that we operate where the Sharks play, also tons of concerts and shows come through. And then we have the San Jose Barracuda, who are the American Hockey League affiliate of the Sharks. They play just down the road at Tech City Arena. So that's a very kind of comparable.

Sports team and venue. And then we also have three barrier ice skating facilities all under the shark size umbrella. And so a lot of different customers and fans interacting with our businesses and this app experience that we're still on the journey of really perfecting for all those different use cases is meant to be this portal to the relationship between our customers, our fans and us as the business.

So trying to have touch points is, is, is pretty key there. you know, you look at maybe the primary use case, which is you're coming to a shark's game at SAP center. That's where we see the majority of people engage in the app. And we kind of build it as like, Hey, can this be like essentially a remote control for your game to experience? Right. Can you from, from, know, sunup to sundown interact with this app to help improve your experience all the way, whether it is understanding about parking, getting into digital ticketing.

Coming in and leveraging your, your sharks 365 membership benefits with the digital wallets while you're in bowl interacting with the game day experience by participating in games on the video board, being able to check some of the stats that you you're wanting to pair with the visuals that are in front of you. That's kind of that overarching philosophy that we have and kind of guides us through that, you know, earlier debate of content and utility and how, you know, what's the right play

Sean (14:32.095)
I think that utility piece, which on that early app development, wasn't there. And then obviously the quick adoption for a certain reason around digital ticketing helped give those apps the stickiness they needed. I mean, it also should be noted that you're in the heart of Silicon Valley. So there is a real high bar of the users there because they're all beta users of everything that they've got. They've all got some tech bent. So it must set the bar high for what is expected for people in San

Patrick Hooper (15:08.236)
Yeah, no doubt. Yeah, we've received quite a bit of good, solid feedback. And it's a luxury as much as it is pressure to be able to have kind of different types of audience who have experience around these applications and technologies and their demand for it to have a pretty high experience. So we're happy with that challenge.

Sean (15:29.823)
And as part of that challenge also, you know, a lot of the times experience is talking about experience at the stadium and you've spoken about it, you know, how is it, how is it getting there, parking, getting in, but then also we were all, you know, looking at what does the fan experience looks like outside the stadium, the person that's not going and how do you talk to that audience? Is that something that you're, you know, always working on and always tweaking both from an app and then, you know, from a social perspective to be able to talk to those two audiences in stadium and out of stadium.

Patrick Hooper (16:00.46)
Yeah, a hundred percent you nailed it. Maybe a benefit of the way we are structured and the way we group everything under digital experiences is that I oversee, I collaborate with our content strategy with our SJS productions group and that content is most often distributed across our social channels, our web channels and our app channels. So we're pretty deeply ingrained in figuring out workflows and what is brand content strategy and the storytelling that we want to communicate across all these platforms.

And just from a resource perspective, as much as we can figure out how do we, if we're developing a really strong piece of content for social, how can we make it work in the right ways for the app and elsewhere? So deeply ingrained in all those conversations, but you're right on the mobile experience, the one that I think is clearly best positioned for us to understand who that customer is, who that user is, and how they want to interact with our brand and business.

It's making sure that we're servicing the diehard Sharks fan in Toronto or New Jersey, as much as our 365 members who are coming to the game to make sure that their experience is great. how do we enable both of those touch points so that one doesn't feel alienated or cut off? And that's where you get into a little bit, okay, clearly that Sharks fan abroad or removed from the Bay Area without the ability to come to games needs to be able listen live to the game and follow on the action, participate in some of those live digital engagement opportunities.

Certainly content needs to be more accessible to them and starting to be able to turn the page on identifying who those fans and customers are and surfacing content that's more relevant to them that they appreciate as part of the strategy.

Sean (17:48.179)
And as part of it, and you would have sort of been in that transition of working in the social teams and you talked about silos, sometimes you even had those silos in digital where the social team just want the content to live on social because it's great for their KPIs and they want to drive it. And as your app and your platforms has matured and become more stable and easy to track and a better experience, you sort of start going, well, we just want to tease it on social. We want to drive people into our app or we want to drive people onto our site.

You would have had some robust discussions internally around those things. As your products have matured and you've got a better base and a better experience, that something you've, know, slow, you know, and also the instability of certain platforms that we might, you know, talk about that, you know, we don't know what they are. Is that something that you sort of, that strategy has changed from a, you know, social first to hey, driving back into our site, this is the best experience.

Patrick Hooper (18:41.388)
Yeah, and I think maybe the consistent kind of toehold there seems to be the mobile hardware, right? And how most of our fans and customers are engaging with our content, however we send it, email, social, mobile app, however you.

And so, you know, quite recently we made a big introduction of a form of content in our app that is more of the vertical short form video content style that we're very excited about because I think it's opened up an opportunity of both kind of like improved workflows for just kind of speed efficiency and even distribution. But it allows us to, like you stated before, like take what we consider to be maybe the strongest storytelling and narrative content that we can produce and get it in front of, you know, the people we want to get in front of on a platform that we manage and operate.

Maybe have better control over and can control the safety of it and all those fun things. So that's been pretty critical and important to us. And thankfully it has maybe improved efficiency of workflows more than created like, now here's this 15th or 16th different version of a video that I need you to cut. it's helped maybe consolidate the message a bit there.

Finding the successes of what works really well on social because it is such this vast playground of creativity and conversation. But then, know, taking that and getting it in front of, you know, our fans and customers in a more isolated environment has been great to be able to break through in that

Sean (20:18.517)
I mean, it makes sense. We've been watching, you know, meta who have far more data than us, you know, looking at, hey, look at what Snapchat doing. we're going to pull that into our Instagram feature. And now we've got, you know, stories and, and now you're seeing more league and club apps, you know, pulling vertical video into their apps, because again, that's easy to consume. It's full screen, all of the advantages. It makes sense. You know, I say still with pride a lot. It's good to see, you know, league and club apps starting to do what the social networks are doing. So well, and you're right from

Patrick Hooper (20:23.968)
No.

Sean (20:48.623)
content production team point of view, you're getting dedicated video people. And yes, it's great, works great on TikTok and Instagram, but it also makes sense for it to live in breathe in your platforms.

Patrick Hooper (21:02.444)
Yeah. And, and, it, you know, I think for those sharks fans who want to be able to find our content more frequently, gives it a better like repository for that instead of just hoping it falls on you with the algorithms social, right. amid the chaos. And, it really, really accentuates the point of like, you know, big reach, kind of throw it out there and see what happens versus more personalized, dedicated, you know, here, here's, here's all the sharks content you want.

And, and, and maybe what we're trying and inspiring to get to is really kind of on that same utility and content and use cases of, let's give our Sharks fans a reason to open up this app on a daily occasion instead of just when they're coming to the SAP center, the Shark Tank to access the game. Let's give them something new and refreshed. And that's a way to do

Sean (21:50.519)
So what you're talking about is inspiration there. Where do you look for inspiration in uplifting digital experiences?

Patrick Hooper (22:01.58)
Yeah, good, good question. you know, I, think maybe because my background is rooted in social, it's still very near and dear to my heart. There's just so much creativity and conversation and innovation with the style of content and then the platforms themselves, the way they're constantly competing, that it, kind of rises some of these like zeitgeist themes to the top. And, you know, so far a lot of like, whether it's the style of content or, or the narratives, right.

It's kind of dictated the pace. I, I don't think 10 years ago we were talking about, you know, nearly at the rate, this, short form content, way we were where everything had to be, you know, 16 by nine and five minutes sit down interviews. And, and that's the way we get things done to where now if we're trying to get even something pretty key to the business, which is like, Hey, we've signed a new player and we'd love to get kind of a personalized message of this player to our members to say how excited, you know, he is for the season.

You know, we're going. vertical 15 seconds selfie format. like that's what resonates and that's what we're leaning into. So in terms of inspiration, that's, that's kind of how we are steering it. Again, it helps, right? Because then resources are a little bit better aligned instead of asking for something so against the grain.

Sean (23:15.913)
I want to talk about technology. We're always bombarded in a real hotbed of where new technology comes out. Is there technology, whether it is new and exciting or boring and terribly efficient, that excites you? Because both are, the new and exciting sometimes gets more publicity, but sometimes the boring and efficient ones are the ones that actually give you the big wins. there something that either you're playing with or something that excites

Patrick Hooper (23:45.942)
Yeah. you know, think we're, you're right. You're always, whether it's driven by another, the business, you know, someone sees something that works at some organizations, Hey, can we try this? That, sometimes that comes to you or there's something you see that that's worth trying. You know, we've, we've done some recent campaigns that have been fun, whether it be, you know, know, still dabbling and how do you actually play in this AR XR world where you're actually trying to find ways to be more engaged and more immersive, but our recent attempts have been instead of just kind of like the full Snapchat filter approach is like, it be more storytelling and narrative driven?

We did something last year that paired the release of our new uniform that we call Cali Fin, which had a lot of backstory and a lot of meaning behind it as you often see with a lot of Jersey and uniform releases these days. And we're able to compliment this kind of like full avatar experience where you get to try on the Jersey.

It helped, it helped, more than just wow factor of, here's this fun AR thing to throw yourself on on this environment. To us, it helped drive a storytelling component, one of the complement that that, you know, was beyond just what we were sending an email or social. So that that's always fun to be able to explore. You know, I think

Sean (25:00.791)
And was that on that was that input was that storytelling piece? Because again, there is that case of bright and shiny, let's just roll out the fans will love it. But the fact that it did help tell the story help move it along. Did that give it more stickiness? And you think that you know, because it's, like the brief, hey, Patrick, make it go viral. It's like, just because it's bright and shiny, and he's gonna have that isn't gonna happen.

But making that connection to the story and, you know, the other piece of content that were coming out, because it wasn't a one -shot wonder, do you think that piece of connecting it is what was the important piece?

Patrick Hooper (25:35.682)
Yeah. Well, what it saw for us is, is, is added a level of depth and detail that helped us, really have some sustained engagement time. Right. So whether or not it actually converted, you know, X percentage of Jersey sales, which sure, I would have been loved to drop some, well, stat with you right now, but like it was complimentary to that. Right. It's like, Hey, we could actually see when people are entering this experience, they're spending quite a long time with much longer than 15 seconds of viewing the video on social.

So it's just another touch point to then pair with like an overall campaign. And then even in a more holistic view, the more we can continue to offer our fans who arrive in the app, which is this level of depth, exploration and detail and things to check out, it's helping the overall goal again of why does someone need to have this? Why should they volunteer to open it up amongst you know, tens or hundreds of other apps on their phone on a daily basis. And how are we kind of creating that trust to drive them there?

That's, kind of the overarching goal that I think that's, that's serving whether or not it's actually improving your bottom line sales. Sure. We, we may be aware of it, a self, a few more jerseys, but you know, it's not that not the only ROI and, and, and KPI that you're applying to

Sean (26:51.255)
And one of the things I'm sure if we dove into the stats of what's driving people into the app and what's performing well is when you get to feature your athletes and tell the stories and build the heroes of your athletes, what have been some of your keys to success with working with Sharks players?

Patrick Hooper (27:10.102)
Yeah, I mean, that's where I tend to geek out a little bit too is because I have my hands on the content side and maybe even where my background was rooted is in this thought that I would be a part of some kind of storytelling, you know, effort or role in my future is, hey, we are helping to broadcast these stories and really kind of serve the brand storytelling effort of the organization.

And our athletes are some of the best examples of trying to showcase that. They're one component of it. We try to look at it more than just athletes, but look at our broadcast talent, our employees, our fans. We do a lot of fan storytelling and all of these components make up what it is to be a part of this like shark's family that we have. But it helps when you have exciting personalities on the athlete side.

Hockey players in general are funny. They're a little bit more of a humble and reserved group. So sometimes you're finding yourself kind of pulling that personality out versus it being volunteered. But I think some of the ways we've had success at propping them up is again, kind of the asks and what we're trying to do where it's like, hey, we're not gonna make you look silly.

We're gonna try to highlight some of these fun. off ice stuff that our fans actually kind of gravitate towards more so than the glossy highlights that you can put up on the ice and really kind of showcase who you are. Again, some of the athletes, it's a little bit more pulling teeth than others, but it's important for them too to feel like they have a digital voice and a digital brand. And we work with them and we have some tools and technology that allows us to make sure we're not just asking for content.

From them to post on our channels, but maybe even creating content for them to post on their channels. You you talked about inspiration before. I maybe one space I look to none other is if you look across at the North American college market and what some of these college programs are doing for their athletes and how they have to compete for that kind of athlete branding. It's really inspiring stuff that is kind of the race there. So there's been a lot of cool tools and technologies developed to serve that need that worked just as well with us that make

Patrick Hooper (29:27.508)
super easy on a player and an athlete's day to day life where, you know, if we need some content created by them, we can kind of guide them along it. They open up their app, they press a few buttons and they're producing the content that we need versus needing to be in the same space in the same room with them and take up a lot of their time in a pretty valuable schedule that they maintain on a daily basis.

Sean (29:49.311)
And you think as these athletes and I agree, you know, the college athletes that are going through the nil process, you know, naming image likeness and, and, know, getting paid and being a bit more active in social will mean they will come into the league and be even, you know, more digital natives than, know, when you first started your role, you know, working with, with hockey players, I I don't want to be on this social platform. This looks silly to having these younger sort of molding that, you know, as they come in as rookies and befriending them

How do you go about building that trust with players to know that, we're here to help you. We'll help build your brand. The fans want to see your personality. We're not expecting you to be a comedian. We just want you to be you and sort of building that piece

Patrick Hooper (30:34.742)
Yeah, it's relationships. And it doesn't necessarily matter who in the organization best have it because that's what you want is a relationship from the business to the athlete or player so that they have someone they trust and know what's happening. we have the benefit of having, again, video producers or media relations staff.

Social team who is you know amongst them and in the locker room on a daily basis they're on the road traveling that's so important if you have the resources and availability to do it because that's when you're going to get some of those pockets of downtime when you can actually have an open and honest conversation with these athletes. We try to make a pretty concerted effort each year in training camp which is coming up for us where we do try to find some time to sit down with them and understand their interests and it's across the whole business right it's not

Hey, do you want help growing your following on Instagram, which, which you hit the nail on the head, some of these, these new guys coming in, that is a need for them. But it's like, what, what nonprofit or charity efforts are you interested in? you know, what's, if you're asked to be involved, you appreciate, you know, being on camera more, would you want to do audio stuff? And it's just understanding kind of where their comfort levels are. And then we can kind of steer it from there. it kind of helps, right? Because oftentimes you'll have a need for a.

An athlete voice in a scenario to solve something within the business. you're sometimes trying to identify in the roster who's best for it, So to have that knowledge, have that relationship that you can call on, you're going to have a little bit of a higher success rate. And thankfully, we do have that now with, we've got a young team, right? Some of these kids will be on the ice for the Sharks in opening day roster, 18 years old. So they know social as much, if not better than many of the staff. So speaking that common language is going to help where it was. 10 years ago and you're like, having to explain what online media is to some of the guys.

Sean (32:29.375)
And on the other side, you know, you probably remember yourself being an intern and being in a professional hockey environment for the first time. How daunting that is. What? How do you go about preparing staff to go, we just want to go and you know, can you go please introduce, you know, interview that superstar and having them understand that they're no longer a fan. They're, know, they're holding a camera, like what what, you know, how to be professional in that environment, not to be over or what's some of the advice that you give staff as they enter?

Patrick Hooper (33:01.238)
Yeah, it's a good question. I think there's got to be some inherent soft skills that can play in there. And then I think, you know, from my own personal experience, it is about exposure and slowly being introduced to that. You know, you probably triggered something in me. I think it was one of my intern days with the 49ers being in the locker room and just being thrown to the Wolfs, interviewing a player for the first time and being kind of shaky.

But with any, anything in life, more, more repetition, more experience, you're going to get more comfortable at it and better with it. The nice thing again, is that, you we do have the benefit of, of we've got a locker room of, of some really nice guys, humble guys who, who are, you know, even if, if you're asking them to do something that they're a little bit against or asking awkward question, they usually find a way to improve it and give you a solid answer, which is always helpful when you can even identify them to spot. and then it's, you know, it's about support fights. So you

You have media relations staff who's with them on a daily basis. You have video production staff who's maybe in the locker room on a more routine occasion. So if you're asking one of your social producers to go in for the first time and they're fairly new, it's relying on the more experienced to really kind of guide them and even showcase and model kind how that can go. And we've had pretty good success

Sean (34:19.669)
And advice for people that want to get into sport or into a role similar to yours and sort of work in that space, what's your advice for people trying to break into sports? It's a very competitive area. But there has been more roles, teams have grown, new roles continue to be invented. Even three years ago, vertical video editors weren't a thing and they're now a role. Have you got advice for people who want to get into the world of sport?

Patrick Hooper (34:51.148)
Yeah. I think some of the obvious stuff, which is, is not so tied to the role is some of the more important things early on. spoke to before about just maybe it's so obvious, but like reliability, being able to kind of deliver on what you say, being adaptable and learning

That's important because it's stuff that I still try to work at even with my amount of experience because you can look through my background and many others. Your roles and responsibilities are going to change. You're going to have opportunities that open up vertically and laterally. And as much as you want to try to stick it in with a career in sports, those opportunities will open up.

Let's say you're dead set on wanting to work in social for a sports team going forward. that you should be open to coming in and stepping into the organization and doing ticket sales or marketing or something else because those skills translate and on a daily basis, we're working with those counterparts. So to have that firsthand knowledge of how they operate, their way of thinking, that's only gonna aid you. And again, to make another obvious point, like coming in and being impressive in one area, it's a tightly networking world.

I kind of often share the story of when I was applying for different jobs. I think I was wrapping up an internship with the 49ers and applied for one with the Sharks. At the same time, I was asking my boss at the 49ers if she knew anybody at the Sharks to kind of maybe put a good word in for me. The Sharks were calling counterparts at the 49ers and asking, hey, who is this kid? What does he represent? So that word of mouth, translation of someone being kind of a good fit is going to go far.

Maybe to summarize that is not to be so, you know, determined or even deflated if things don't go exactly your way early on on thinking this is the one path to do it. There's a lot of different ways to kind of get to where you want to

Sean (36:54.391)
Yeah, most definitely. had many conversations with people that have said they've set up tents outside of stadiums. They've, in some cases, put on mascot uniforms to hand out flyers. And now they're at sea level executives. But the opportunities will open up if you show that initiative and deliver. mean, that's the key thing. People want people who can actually do the job. I wanted to touch on your…

Patrick Hooper (37:21.858)
Yeah,

As I said, never did the tent route, it reminded me one of the best pieces of advice I got when I was starting to, especially again, if you're young and new in your role is, and again, assuming that is a role where you are reporting to an office on a regular occasion, like make sure you get to know the people who can help you out beyond like your department.

Like the reception and greeter areas, the person working in the mail room, like those types of people knowing their names, knowing kind of the processes how to help them may ultimately save you and make you shine going forward. So maybe not so obvious people in the network with, but they're there first and they're there last. So they know everybody and they know how the heartbeat of the organization works.

Sean (38:09.783)
Most definitely. I wanted to touch on one of the sessions you did at SEAT in Las Vegas with the very heavy title of delivering on the personalization promise. I really did enjoy it with a bunch of different colleagues. What does that piece mean for you, delivering on that personalization promise? Because it is sort of the next trend. We went through the big data phase where everyone was looking for big data or figuring out what big data was, but now we're, what does

personalisation, how can we better personalise what we're doing? What does it mean for you at The Sharks?

Patrick Hooper (38:44.94)
Yeah, that's why I'm so high on our mobile app and people's effort in the mobile app space to have something owned that you can build and construct for your business is because it's a space where you're most readily available to deliver on that promise. It makes a ton of sense for a business, right? You're gonna get better ROI, greater efficiency if you can deliver the right content for the right audience at the right time.

With less wasted effort, better than what you cannot really achieve on other platforms. It's being data -driven with everything you do, and there's an immense amount of data, and sometimes that's hard to connect the dots on all, but with deeper analysis, you're going to be able to learn more about the behavior. And the customer experience is as paramount as we try to achieve, and that's a promise that we try to make in front of our fans and customers.

It's really a brand promise as much as anything is that, you know, saying you matter to us and how we interact with you on a daily basis should convey that, right? So if we know who you are, we know why you're interacting with us, we can better solve your needs. We can even kind of volunteer the right information that you may be seeking in advance. That's delivering on that brand promise for us. So that's why we hold it at a pretty high level and it's by no means achieved, right?

Pointed out this is maybe a lot is going to be focused on this going forward. I fully agree. But that's why we're trying to be as responsible as we can with how we vet technology that we're bringing in, making sure that it stacks the right way, making sure that we're up to the right standard with privacy, accessibility concerns, all of the legal side of it, but then ultimately deliver just an exceptional experience. That's the goal.

Sean (40:37.695)
And again, it's sort of following the trends of main consumption. You your Netflix is your Netflix. Every social platform now has a for you, you know, algorithm. So everyone is expecting their version. So yeah, kudos to you. I did want to touch on your tech stack. What are some of the tools that are in your tech stack that you're either using regularly, you in your role or even just for personal productivity that you find pretty vital?

Patrick Hooper (41:04.034)
Yeah, yeah. So there's a lot of different ways you can go about it. And sometimes that adds zeros at the end of the final budget there. our strategy has been to work with on the app side, an app developer and fan reach that is very much a platform developer. So they're really great.

Especially with working with sports clients at building kind of the framework and the skeleton of an app that can really serve the fundamentals of the business. Again, thinking about that content and utility aspect that all sports teams have. And then what they do is they allow us to kind of plug in more of these niche products across the obviousness of, you know, we're a ticket master business that manages all of our ticketing products. So that's an SDK in the app. And then other, you know, various technologies that allow us to deploy, you know, our digital wallets.

which is operated by Venuetize, which is really critical for us because that's where all of our membership benefits are contained. And that's where we're making a promise to our members, hey, you what you signed up for in terms of your benefits that can all be easily accessed in this mobile experience. So to get it right and to get it reliable is critical. We work with a partner in Rover who really in terms of personalization propels us and our ability to do just that, allow us to build these, highly custom experiences that frankly our team has had a ton of fun with this off season.

I don't know for those who haven't followed the Sharks as closely, we had a less than ideal performance on the ice the year before where we finished dead last, but we paid for it and earned it by grabbing the number one overall draft pick and using it on Macklin Celebrini who is gonna come in as our first ever first overall draft pick to join the organization. what was a pretty disappointing into the year has turned into a lot of excitement and engagement in an off season when sports teams who finish last don't traditionally get that.

So we've had to pull a lot of levers and kind of empty the barrel, so to speak, and everything that we can produce to capitalize on this excitement, engage our fans and customers during an off season where they're maybe not as typically engaged. So to create these really robust experiences around the NHL draft and development camp and the lottery.

Patrick Hooper (43:21.878)
And free agency, that's how we get all these technologies to work together. Maybe in a more simplified way to describe it is, we want you to open up the app and it be contextual with the time and place, putting the right information in front of you at the right time and that's enabled us to do

Sean (43:41.299)
Absolutely terrific. Pat, you're really happy and thankfully you join me. I want to get to the SportsGeek Closing Five. Do you remember the first sports event you ever attended?

Patrick Hooper (43:53.506)
There have been a lot, thankfully. I've been a part of sports my whole life. The one that comes to mind first is maybe this combination of pure trauma and just my first interaction. We talked about locker rooms, right? So this was my first real locker room experience. I was a kid, maybe five or six years old.

There was something to do with someone that my mom had worked used to be a former AAA player for the Texas Rangers and somehow my dad and I got access to the Texas Rangers locker room. And this was in the early nineties. So their heyday era of like just home runs after home runs and a lot of big names there. And so I had my little, you know, baseball and I was meant to go around the locker room and get my autographs and I got everybody Jose Canseco, Juan Gonzalez, Rodriguez.

Sean (44:32.555)
Yeah.

Patrick Hooper (44:45.418)
All these big names and maybe the biggest one and the one I actually knew most at that age was Noah Ryan. He was the last one to get and I looked down to where his locker was and he was standing there ready and available should I want to go up and ask him but he was just head to toe naked. So I was immediately struck in fear and balked at the opportunity and missed my chance because I was, I was, you know, a little five or six year old who didn't want to interact that way.

So I've got this awesome baseball assigned by, you know, the great Texas Rangers team of the early nineties and it's, it's missing Nolan Ryan. So that was my first real crossover of being a fan and being in the locker room. And this is weird. And, and, lo and behold, I, I came to, you know, have a career in this, in this space where I'm in more locker rooms. I'll give you a bonus one too, because Australia is, is near and to my heart. my first footy game was at the Subiaco Oval, seeing the West Coast Eagles take on the Fremantle Dockers, and that's when I was introduced to AFL rules football and fell in love with it there.

Sean (45:49.751)
terrific, terrific. Yeah, I'm sure that that baseball has obviously that that mental image that now all the now all the podcast listeners also have so. And you would have been to a lot of sports events in your time. Do you have a have a favorite food memory or a go to food at a sports event?

Patrick Hooper (45:57.423)
Yeah, it's scarred. It's scarred.

Patrick Hooper (46:10.518)
Yeah, maybe not the most exciting answer here. I'm a big fan of popcorn. So anytime I go anywhere, I'm probably going to try popcorn. I don't go for the fancy stuff. know, some of these these venues try the honey drizzle and chocolate covered with jalapenos and all these combinations. I just like that, you know, the pure movie style. So somewhat controversial, not a big fan of churros. I know that's a lot of people's favorites. The best if you do make

Make your way to the SAP Center for a Sharks game or a concert or whatever. I recommend Hula Truck. It's kind of this Pacific Island food flavor, but they wrap it up in a burrito most of time. It's quite good. That's my escape, even though I'm maybe not enjoying as many games as a fan. If I can run up and grab one and take it back down to the desk while I'm working, that's my go

Sean (46:56.663)
Awesome, awesome. What's the first app you open in the

Patrick Hooper (47:03.15)
I'd probably like it to be Peloton or something worthwhile with my health, but it's, it's honestly Twitter X, you know, it's, it's, it's my go -to quick kind of scroll, see, see some quick news and, and, know, can in a, short span of five or 10 minutes, pretty much get caught up on a few things, kind of make an active effort to not let it be outlook, but, given in the space we work in, sometimes that team's message is top on the priority notification list.

Sean (47:32.915)
I'll ask you, where do you think X is right

Patrick Hooper (47:38.668)
Yeah, it's spicy debate, right? I still quite enjoy it. I mean, if you asked me to show you my screen time, it's up there at the top, if not number one in terms of amount of time I'm spending and on. Maybe it's just with my history with it. It's been a platform that I've probably most kind of also operated from a professional side. I still think it is a fantastic kind of platform that is unique from what the others can offer in terms of offering.

news, kind of breaking trend conversation on things that are kind of very topical. And I find it somewhat useful to jump around between professional topics I want to see, of movies and culture and fun stuff I want to see. So it kind of serves that, but it's a little dicer to jump into the comments these days.

Sean (48:28.863)
Yeah, a little bit, a little bit. It is one like I still find it, you know, I'm still mainly on my following. So people who I'm following and I'm choosing the for you is a little bit more of an adventure and it's something that you don't, you know, you don't, it's a bit of a choose your own adventure. It's not, you're not actually choosing the adventure is probably the best way to describe it. is there, is there, someone that you follow, they might, it might be on X or it might be, on other platforms, or it might be an author or something that the podcast listeners should check

Patrick Hooper (49:04.716)
Yeah, I don't know if you've had her as a guest. You may have. The one that comes front of mind straight away is Jess Smith, War Jess Eagle on Twitter. Definitely a thought leader that what she's commenting on and speaking on matches a lot of across social and storytelling and content on a daily basis. She's a great writer with clarity and broad perspective.

So definitely plugging her blog and social for anybody who's looking for that type of inspiration. You know, I'm often times trying to look outside of sports too. Kind of a random one that's popping up right now to mind is like something like the National Park Service. I mean, they kind of sit themselves kind of all alone in this space where it's not maybe overrun with a lot of similar accounts. And they do just such a great job of having a consistent voice and personality.

And again, have this niche of like content that I've not normally seen. So when I'm scrolling through the Twitter of this, right. And it stops my scroll. It's kind of fun to see. Maybe just a couple more, you know, we spoke about athletes and obviously their voice, whether guided by themselves or a complimentary organization is always strong. A few that I've enjoyed where they are now is someone like Matt liner, who obviously was a big name when he was a quarterback at USC, winning the Heisman and whatnot.

I don't remember ever following him during those days, but his content and his personal life now is just kind of a fun kind of insight to athlete life right now. And he does a great job of showing that along with his wife and his kids at home. That's fun. And I say that as a Notre Dame fan and not a USC fan. So it's funny how I've kind of gravitated back toward that.

What? So last one, Matt Leinart, he's a quarterback who kind of got a brief moment in it. Yeah. Yeah. We've got a brief moment in NFL, but he's, he's fascinating to me because he's hugely immersed in video games and game culture right now. And he does this awesome thing of how he takes kind of like his, his mind as a former athlete, and then he's playing games and showing that insight to you. And I just find that so fascinating to see how that translates.

Sean (50:56.055)
Former QB quarterback for the Packers, yeah.

Patrick Hooper (51:19.872)
Under that lens of inspiration for where athletes can take their voice outside of sport or kind of just show off this personality that's not so cliche, those are some ones that come to

Sean (51:30.335)
Yeah, so I spoke with I spoke with Kurt not on the podcast, but sort of the work we do with the NFL, like at the start of last year, when he just come out of, you know, effectively his career and decided, well, I'm not going to continue being a backup. Like he was a backup to Aaron Rodgers and Jordan Love and Green Bay. And then to him to lean into, I can play Madden and I'm playing Madden as a QB. And I know what the playbook looks like. I'll teach people how to play Madden. But he's also teaching people how to,

I guess, learn more of the X and of football in the same way that think, you know, JJ Reddick did in podcasting and having an educated experience for the fan and not just, you know, the highlights and the gloss. And so being able to go a little bit deeper, but also being that educational mode. Yeah, he's found a really good, a really good space and, you know, build out YouTube and TikTok and that kind of stuff. And, yeah, I mean, both following his journey and really interested to see how it goes.

Patrick Hooper (52:07.756)
Yeah, totally.

Patrick Hooper (52:29.538)
Yeah, yeah, it just seems to stand out as a unique approach from kind of the way you're used to seeing that sour content. So agree wholeheartedly on all those fronts.

Sean (52:41.163)
Lastly, I always ask people what social media platform is your MVP? And you can answer this both personally and then from a shark's point of view. I'm a real stickler for this. I really don't like people giving out gold, silver, bronze. This isn't the Olympics. We just want one. But what about for yourself?

Patrick Hooper (53:00.822)
Okay. All right. Under those stickler rules. So I am going to continue to roll with X and Twitter, despite maybe, you know, where, where it sits and, some uncertainty over where it goes. just can, and this is maybe a little bit more personal for my own personal inspiration and kind of my following, continues to give me the avenue for news and trends and, even some, you know, fun, creative creativity on creative writing and creative responses to stuff. I find that entertaining.

Performance wise, know, think Instagram, slight edge over over TikTok, just because right Instagram reels and TikTok, you're kind of seeing the same content anyways. it, allows us to do so much in terms of taking our storytelling needs and presenting it through,

You know, two or three different formats and getting it done through posts and reels and stories and then we're just repurposing some of the good content. So I think that's where we're finding some success. I'll stick with my gold medalist there without giving you silver and bronze.

Sean (54:08.607)
No, no problems. Patrick, I really do appreciate you taking the time. If people have listened to this episode and want to reach out to you, what's the best way for them to do

Patrick Hooper (54:18.582)
Yeah, yeah. contacting me on social, on Twitter at Johnny Hoop, J -O -H -N -I -E -H -O -O -P is an option. LinkedIn is also good too. If you'd prefer to kind of go that professional route, looking me up on Patrick Cooper, shouldn't be, ain't hard to find as Dion says. So, you know, reach out to those ways or Sean, if you need to connect us, that works

Sean (54:44.872)
Well, thank you very much. I really appreciate catching up. They're always good to catch up in person or online and look forward to catching up sometime

Patrick Hooper (54:54.976)
Likewise, appreciate the conversation, Sean.