Leadership Across Leagues – Steve Reese

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

Sean Callanan (00:01.294)
Very happy to welcome back a very good mate of mine, Steve Rees. He was on episode 259 and he is back on the podcast. Steve, welcome back to the podcast.

Steve Reese (00:10.529)
Well, thank you for having me back, Sean. It's absolutely my pleasure.

Sean Callanan (00:14.828)
Well, we did meet up in Nashville just weeks ago for seat. I had an absolute, it was one of my most favorite panels with yourself and Katie and Todd, which is why I said, hey, we need to continue this conversation, but also dive deeper in what you've done over a long and illustrious sports business, sports technology career. I know I probably covered this in 259, but I'm going to go back to the start. Do you remember how you got your start in sports?

Steve Reese (00:45.613)
Yeah, it was really a complete accident. It was in 1990. I was working for an accounting firm at the time and the Houston Oilers of the NFL had a complete system meltdown. There really were not many IT folks in the sports world at that point. They were only, from what I can recall, six or seven. And so I was called by the Houston Oilers and the accounting firm I was working for to come in there and remediate.

They had lost all of their ticketing data, had never been backed up, lost all of it, was brought in to remediate and begin to put best practices in place. And from there, it started this long relationship with professional sports.

Sean Callanan (01:28.684)
And so that got you that first gig, that got you that first gig at what was then known as the Houston Oilers in an IT role and sort of trying to clean up that back of house piece was that first role in Effectively Sports.

Steve Reese (01:44.302)
Yeah. And I will tell you, it was a very uncool job at the time. today it looks like a very sexy job back then. I had a lot of my contemporaries asking me, what an idiot. Why are you even taking this job? And I thought, you know, this could be a really fun job for a couple of years and let's just see what happens. And then I'll just pick up and leave and kind of move on. And amazingly, it's turned into close to a 34 year career within professional sports, but what a, what a wonderful place to be. mean, the behind the scenes, if you're a story collector,

The behind the scenes stuff that you get to see and experience, it's really very much like the Wizard of Oz. The Oz is flashing the lightning and all the sound and everything else, but what you have is you just have some little bald headed guy behind the screen making it all happen. And that's the beauty of the sports. The sports itself in the game, I mean, that's one thing, but it's really the behind the scenes of what goes into that game, which to me,

is the most exciting. And it's seeing a world that most people don't have access to. And maybe it's like, say, if you work in the White House, you have a behind the scenes glimpse of what goes on that most people don't get to see. But that's the way sports is. it was, you know, what a wonderful thing because there were six, seven of us at the time. And so when I ended up really breaking my teeth and coming into the environment, the Cleveland Browns were incredibly

gracious to take me under their wings and there was just so much camaraderie in the industry, there still is. But it was just very manageable back then. I can't tell you how many trips I made to Cleveland and they made to Houston where we could share technology and begin to help each other just survive this high pressure world.

Sean Callanan (03:20.398)
So that first role ended up being a long-term role at the Titans and then it also involved moving the team. So first of all, you've come in, you know, in a spot where you're trying to set the foundation, but you know, picking up and moving a team doesn't happen that often in the world of the NFL. for those who don't know, Houston Oilers moved from Houston to Tennessee, sorry, to Nashville to become the Titans.

Steve Reese (03:46.479)
Hmm?

Sean Callanan (03:49.57)
from a back, again, use the wizard of Oz analogy, from the back house, it's not just like, we're just moving from one office building to another office building. What was that change like from an IT perspective?

Steve Reese (04:03.945)
let me tell you what it it was traumatic because it really began with a dispute between the Houston Oilers and the city of Houston on either upgrading the Astrodome, which was the eighth one of the world or building a new stadium. And so our owner, Adams and Bob Lanier, who was the mayor at the time, did not get along very well. And so long story short, ended up being that then Mr. Adams decided to call Nashville, which he literally just picked up the phone, called the mayor of Nashville.

Uh, in my conversations with him and said, Hey, I'd like to move our team there. Uh, the story behind that, I'll just tell you very briefly. And I asked Mr. Adams, why in the heck did you end up picking, uh, Tennessee? And his word to me was he was a half Cherokee. And so the Cherokees were led on the Trail of Tears through Tennessee, part of the way to Oklahoma. And what, uh, he told me is that he wanted to bring the team back to their ancestral lands and just felt as if that was.

just felt like the right place to be. But during that period, when this negotiation was going on and then negotiation broke off and we had committed to move to Nashville, the city of Houston had condemned the building that we were in. And so literally I had 12 office relocations within a two and a half year period. And that started about, about say two years before we moved to Nashville, that we had to move to 12 different offices. And so I'd gotten a lot of practice by the time we moved to Nashville, because then

I was in good practice and I pretty well had it done when we relocated to Tennessee where we could move and have everything down and have everything back up and running within 12 hours. so telecommunications, network, everything. really had it done. I should have probably worked in corporate relocations after that because that was really my forte.

Sean Callanan (05:47.584)
I mean, yeah, I mean that I mean, that is a good piece because it like that was the bit that I was going to ask it's both the moving the front office and that kind of thing. But then also, and again, we're talking in the 1990s, like also the technology needed for the for the stadiums and for the high performance and, the coaching staff. And so, yeah, you would have done that multiple times. And then also multiple stadiums, because when you move, you didn't, you know, you had a

You did move straight into Nissan Stadium. You moved into a stadium first, then did the move to the new stadium. So you were also juggling those pieces, doing a new stadium, building a stadium and moving to a new stadium.

Steve Reese (06:23.599)
Exactly. Yeah, we moved to Nashville and we lived in two temporary, three temporary locations. We played in Memphis the first year. And then after that, things didn't work out well in Memphis. And that was not a good move to go to Memphis because there was just so much hostility. And I'd say rightfully so by people who lived in Memphis, because the team was not going to move there permanently. So they felt as if it was just a way station, so to speak. And so they were like, if you're going to be in Nashville, just be in Nashville. And so then for year two and three.

into Tennessee, we played at Vanderbilt and then we built a new stadium, which started off as Delphia Coliseum today. It's a Nissan Stadium. But yeah, it was a boy. Oh boy. It was just a lot of, it was my own trail of tears going back to Tennessee. But you know, what's really interesting is don't you look at certain points in your life and, and see where the trajectory of your life has changed based on a decision. And so here it is. Now I have my two sons, which are living in Tennessee. We have the grandkids.

And so the grandkids know nothing about Michigan where I grew up at or living in Houston. They are Tennesseans and their wives are absolutely beautiful, great women. But it was just amazing how that decision for the mayor and our owner to not quite get along and allow it to work out here or work out in Houston resulted in just a whole shift in our family and you know, where our family legacy is going to be at for God knows years to come.

Sean Callanan (07:51.042)
So one thing I do when I'm prepping for interviews is look back at people's LinkedIn and sort of where they went to from job to job. And normally it's from one sports job to another sports job. But after the Titans, you had a bit of a, you had a bit of a detour. Was that something you needed a break? You want to look at something different? Like, you any more explain sort of that, I guess that detour?

Steve Reese (08:14.159)
Yeah. So Mr. Adams and I, the owner of the Oilers, now Titans, at that time, he was very much a entrepreneur. He was a wildcatter in the oil industry, had oil and gas interest. He had car dealerships. had boy hair salons. I mean, he had everything. And what I really admired about him was the ability for him to chart his own path. And so what I want to do is to be able to see what it was like to feel the pressures of an entrepreneur, which now I look back and I was

criminally insane for thinking about doing this. I just wanted to know what it was to chart my own destiny. And so at that point, him and I had a lot of talks about it. And then I started off by joining Christian Brothers Automotive. They were just located in Texas. At that time, they didn't have any stores outside of the Houston area. And so what I did is working with the guy who was beginning to set up a franchise model, opened up a store in Brentwood, Tennessee, which is just south of Nashville.

Just wanted to know what it was to own my own business There were so many things that I learned through going through that I was losing my first year within Christian Brothers I was losing probably close to about 18 20 thousand dollars a week Just because it takes time to build that business up and what I learned Was you know, there's so many people that have advice, but when you don't have skin in the game It's easy to provide that advice. So what I

Learned biggest thing I walked away from is how do I? Just listen get myself to a point where I can listen be quiet and follow my gut instinct and so after a year of losing 12 to 15 to $18,000 a week I was down to close to my last $10,000 $20,000 and I was approached by a radio station and we both worked together to come up with a advertising model I started doing all of the own my own radio

We had a small radio show that went off as a result of that. And what happened is that advertising just flipped the switch and helped us to turn the corner immediately. So that was really the big lesson that I had at Christian Brothers was the idea of listen to your gut. There's just times that people may go into a job to interview. And we've all been through this where you just don't feel this is quite right. And I think if I had any lesson that I

Steve Reese (10:36.833)
learned through that that I wish I would have followed more through life and that was to follow your gut instinct and just take a chance and throw it on out there. And so anyway, the story turned around and we went from making or losing 15,000 a week to now making 30,000 a week. And then we were able to pay off a 15 year loan within seven years. And then at that point, you know, we were off and running, but I just had to have that entrepreneurial piece and I needed to know what it was like and experience it.

Sean Callanan (11:05.484)
I mean, it's a, I mean, effectively, was effectively like an MBA on the run, like you could have gone and, and, and, you know, done the, done the study and been all in theory, but it's like, sometimes it's, it's better learning on the job and, know, having that pressure of, you know, money pressure and coming up with new ideas was that effectively like how you sort of see it now looking back.

Steve Reese (11:28.493)
Yeah, I do. It's, you know, my, my theory at the time was, is that how you motivate employees, how you motivate athletes, it's all the same. We're all human. And I just wanted to know what it was like to be in that position. And, you know, no risk, no reward, great risk, great reward. And, yeah, so almost almost lost the house as a result of it. And like we were going down fast, but was able to, you know, look back on that. mean, there's really two or three times in my life, and we can all look back on this.

and see things that occurred as traumas or events or whatever the case may be that we were able to overcome. And that's one of the ones that gave me so much confidence to realize the importance of calm under pressure. We've had a few coaches I've worked for, Jeff Fisher being one of them when I was at the Titans, who was just so calm under pressure. And I began to learn also in being in that position. I don't think any of the employees at the store realized how desperate things were.

but it was through that modeling of some of these coaches that I'd worked with to understand the importance of just that calm under pressure. And I don't think I'll ever face pressure like that again. But that was one of those ones where when it's all in the line and I have to tell you this, so when I'm leaving the NFL and I'm talking to the two kids and I'm like, okay, I'm going to start an automotive repair shop and here's kind of what we're doing. My oldest son looked at me and he says, dad, I'm just so ashamed of you.

And so he goes like, I just can't believe you're going to do this. And I think that's another piece too, that you don't realize in the sports world is that there is a lot of. Cache that you get out of being in such a wonderful, wonderful industry, but there's also a whole set of other pressures that you also face and be in both worlds as well. And so, part of it also was just dealing not only with the pressure of the business, but also the pressure of the family.

And when your kids look at you initially and say, wow, this is just shameful. I can't believe you're doing this. You just have to stick to your guns and you have to go forward. Now he came around after that and everything was fine and dandy. And he's actually a high school football defensive coordinator in the Nashville area at a very prominent school. Brentwood Academy is doing fantastic. I wish I had his life. mean, it's wonderful. But yeah, there was a lot that went into that decision to leave professional sports and to take that step of faith out.

Steve Reese (13:48.525)
And I'd never replace it, I'd never do it again, but I would never want to replace that experience and what that was

Sean Callanan (13:54.179)
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it is it is part of the entrepreneurial spirit when you look back at those low moments or those pressure moments and you look back at it fondly. And it's something that people who are just in a job and this is not to diminish anyone's just been in job to understand that, that pressure and that growth you can get as a person in that position. So you've been in that position and you did have that calling to come back to sports and this time back to Houston, to the Astros. What was your role at the Astros?

Steve Reese (14:13.485)
Right.

Steve Reese (14:24.793)
So at the Astros, they were in the process that their director of IT was going to be moving on. He was going to be getting his master's at Rice University. So I was brought in to essentially replace him and start their entire department. So at that point, when I started there, there was just, it was just me. That was it. It was Brad and myself. That was it. And he was transitioning out. So I took over a role that I believe now at the Houston Astros. If I'm

not mistaken, but they have close to 15 to 20 IT staff that's there. I did everything from soup to nuts. was help desk. I was network administrator. I was strategic planner, did the entire thing and cannot tell you how happy I was to have somebody pay for my benefits, to be able to not have to pay for every cup of coffee that I ended up getting and to really be back into the

collective spirit of sports entertainment and understanding that You know what you do there is much bigger than yourself And so that was really the fun part the team wasn't very good when I was there Drayton McLean was the owner who was a fantastic human being Gave me an incredible opportunity. I learned a lot under his tutelage Jackie Trawick who is my boss who ironically was a co-worker that she was a tax accountant co-worker when we were at the Oilers Titans together

is who went to go work for. She had at that point moved up to become the Chief Financial Officer. And it was a really wonderful, wonderful time. At that point, I was going through a divorce. Unfortunately, I think the pressures of owning a small business are what put a lot of pressures on my marriage. And so now there are things I learned from that. So I was starting over in many ways. was starting a career over. I was starting my life over. I literally arrived in the city of Houston with a truck.

My old F-150 was like a 1984 F-150, pulled in the trailer with every possession I had in life and was starting over. And so then at that point, I needed to look up some old friends that I had known back during my oiler days. So I'd called the gal Joanne Poole, who was my account rep from Digital Equipment. Had sold me computer gear when I was at the oilers. And one thing led to another and we began to date. And so there was just many, many firsts. It was a first new job.

Steve Reese (16:44.333)
back on my own. The kids were off to college at that point. And so yeah, it was an incredibly just brand new start in every which way you can imagine.

Sean Callanan (16:55.886)
So you spend the next few years in Houston and then also at the Padres in those technology roles. And this is, you know, early 2000s to mid 2000s. And this was a time when I guess, you know, technology was really ramping up across all of sports, both from a, you know, back of house and more efficiency, you know, better understanding of the ticketing data, better understanding of…

of, of, of sales and, and trying to fill out the stadium. But then also there was a bit of a, and I always love talking to the, to the MLB guys, because I think they're the ones that were trying that the most also how they could apply the technology from a high performance point of view and how they could, uh, I guess give their team an advantage. And so it was quite, you know, uh, quite funny when most of the things are collaborative, but then when you're talking about your high performance and what your team can do, it was you were keeping your cards to your chest. What was it like in

I guess MLB in that stage as more technology was coming on board, you were looking to roll new things out.

Steve Reese (18:00.31)
Well, I will say Moneyball exaggerated, maybe exaggerates is bad word. Moneyball really highlighted the use of data in sports, but I'll have to tell you, I think the NFL gets a little bit short change in this because when I started with the Oilers, I began to work with a guy named Greg Williams, who later became our head of special teams, defense coordinator, then he became a head coach at the Buffalo Bills, and then he made his career through the Washington Redskins and all over the place.

So Greg and I ended up developing a game analysis system for the Oilers where at that point we were tracking close to about 250 points of data of players that on the field, formations and everything that was going on. And so that's where I really saw the war in information and data begin. The NFL, even when you go to their hall of fame, they have it wrong because when it comes to like the quarterback communication headset system, they're about three generations back. So I need to really call the hall of fame.

kind of update them on really where things stood at. But there was an incredible amount of data that in football back in 1990, 1991 that we began to gather. And you've got to remember, I find it more impressive for the NFL back then with what we did, because the internet still wasn't even in play. The internet didn't come into play until really the late, the worldwide web didn't come into play until I believe what really in 1990, 91.

And I remember having to explain to one of our executives why we needed the internet. And it was just like, I was sitting there thinking, wow, you look back years later, there's never that explanation. But I feel like football really led the path in that. And then baseball picked up on it. And then it was through Moneyball that that really became known. I would say what baseball did, I mean, they tracked a lot of stuff as well. The difficulty you get into with all of this tech and it's whether it's in baseball, whether it's in

football, basketball, whatever the case may be, because of basketball, you collect close to, I think the number right now is close to three to four million observations during the course of a game, close to about 25 to 30 observations per second. But there's only so much human capacity that can handle that. And so the balance is, and take Steve McNair, who is our quarterback at the Tennessee Titans, there's only so much, and we go back to instinct once again, like we were just talking about.

Sean Callanan (20:05.106)
wow.

Steve Reese (20:22.191)
There's only so much information you can take in and then you have to play off of that instinct. And so that's the balance that you have. How much does a batter have to think about what pitch is being thrown? And so the idea, at least back in those times with the Astros were let these players digest this, get up there and then just hope their instincts kicked in and then they can begin to, you know, see or observe, you know, maybe as a pitcher, tipping his pitches or kind of what's going on.

It's still a game of instinct. I hate to say as much tech as is involved in it. We're still in a game of instinct. And I don't care whether you're a NASCAR driver, a Formula One or whatever the case may be, you act and react on various things and that's where the great plays are

Sean Callanan (21:03.214)
Um, absolutely. then gradually you've, you know, you've been at multiple, uh, been at the, uh, uh, Astros and the Padres. And then you've moved in, you know, to pick another sport. You moved to the move to the Phoenix suns, um, in 2013. Um, and I think this is around the time that, that we met, whether it in 2011, 2012, when you're at the Padres, uh, probably at seat. then, you know, for most of the time I've known you, you've been at the, been at the suns, um, in that CIO role.

Was this something that you were looking to achieve to get into that senior C-level role, when you were looking from job to job?

Steve Reese (21:44.132)
Yeah, there were two things that occurred and you've got to remember that back at that time, especially when I was at the Padres, there were only, I believe, two of us that had ever been on multi-teams. was another guy named John Wynborn who had been with the San Francisco Giants and then he went with the Milwaukee Brewers and then later he was with the Padres so I replaced him in San Diego and then moved on to the Suns. The situation with the Suns at that point was, well,

Let me just back up. The situation with the Padres where they're going through an ownership change. And so at that point, I was told that they were going to really be reducing their budgets on IT work for a while. And so I just felt like I was going to be bored to be perfectly honest. Also at that point, MLB had cut their defined benefit pension program, which was a big asset because in sports you're going to make traditionally a little bit less than what your counterparts make. And so between

getting rid of the defined benefit pension and them saying, don't worry, we're not going to lay you off, but we're to have to reduce a lot of these projects because we're cash strapped for a few years and off we go. And then on the opposite side, basketball, they were having a situation with the Suns where they were gearing up to do a huge stadium redo, which ironically didn't take place for another eight years after I'd gotten there. The best laid plans.

went to the wayside, but it was really then the idea of moving here to Phoenix, which is a beautiful area. the pay was great. And I felt like I was going to be really kept busy because it was a huge need here. Their infrastructure was completely outdated. And so I knew I was going to have to replace that infrastructure from top to bottom. And so it just, you know, between the activity of what I was not going to be doing in San Diego, though, that was the best place to live. And I have to say, there's part of me that says, what an idiot for leave. And I should have never done that.

Um, but the desert's a fine place to live as well. And, uh, it just, I was very busy here. And so there's a lot of things I learned here that I most likely would not have learned in San Diego, just because there was such a huge need to, uh, to kind of gut replace and put everything in from, from scratch.

Sean Callanan (23:55.407)
Was there an adjustment moving into the CIO role? One, managing more people, looking after long-term projects or at least managing those long-term projects till they actually come to fruition. What were some of the things that you had to, I guess, learn or adjust when you came to The Suns?

Steve Reese (24:17.537)
Yeah, the adjustment was a difficult one and it wasn't necessarily being part of the executive team. The difficulty was, that to be perfectly honest, the executive team was incredibly dysfunctional. There was a lot of power play going on between the executive role, the CEO role, the president role and sponsorship. And so what happened is that it just threw everything out of kilter.

really came to understand that the tail that wagged the dog was on the sponsorship side, which maybe there's a need for that to some degree, but what you really need to do is to have a CEO who can balance out the organization and allow all players to play well together. And I like to kind of use the analogy when it comes to, football, there's always pressure between the football staff, the coaches and the scouting staff and the general manager.

because you go back to the old Bill Belichick idea that if I'm going to cook the meal, I should be able to buy the groceries, right? And so, but there's got to be a strong CEO in place or owner in place that is basically calling the shots and making sure that everybody is an equal participant in what's going on. And so what, what occurred with the sons is that there was just a real imbalance between the

feedback that was acceptable from the sponsorship side and then everybody else. And so the challenge was, being asked to engage in sponsorships that really were not in the technological best interest of the organization that would have really put them behind the eight ball. And then also trying to bring money in. And so the difficulty was, was trying to have a consistent strategy without having a lot of creep come in from the partnership side.

They would throw pieces in there that could not fit whatsoever. And so there were, were times that we were being asked to try to see if we could get a 5g put into all our digital signage, get all of our digital signage. So it's not hard writer anymore, but have it all operate off of 5g, which is, you know, even completely ridiculous and not a good ask, but there were just lots of conflicts that went around stuff like that. And it's not even like a close call, but it was like a completely unreasonable call to think that we could put 5g. We're going to, we are.

Steve Reese (26:42.809)
We'd shut down the game show at that point. Or to have all of our broadcast cameras operate off 5G. So that's just one example of different things that would go on. So I appreciate the sponsorship folks, because you do need the cash. Without the money, we all die, right? The organization ceases to exist, but we need to really have a neutral arbiter that could step inside of that as a strong CEO. But instead that wasn't the case. Cash was king. And so with that, it presented a real lopsided balance. And so the…

The challenge wasn't necessarily being part of that executive team. It wasn't part of being the strategic planning side, but the idea was the only strategic planning that there really was, was bringing as much cash and revenue as you could. And that's all that mattered. And that presented a incredible challenge in trying to do your role and service everybody the way you should and serve as the coaching staff and everybody else while also having this other dynamic in play that made it very difficult to manage.

Sean Callanan (27:40.855)
It is, I mean, it is a tough one. I mean, I talk about it in the, in the digital space of, you know, sponsorship, I guess, driving and directing, you know, content and digital efforts that you know, aren't the aren't going to be the most effective and most loved by fans. But it's, I guess, part of the sponsorship agreement. Was there was there? And then some of it becomes, you know, control what you can control. How did you how did you, I guess, work through those work through those problems and try to

you know, go back to what the technology and what the fans needed, you know, they wanted, they wanted Wi-Fi, their fan experience demands were going up. know, those kinds of things that in that, you know, 2013 to now period, the expectations and the requirements from the fans have kept going up. How did you deal with those conflicts and those issues to still try to deliver a solution that worked?

Steve Reese (28:34.317)
Yeah, we had a CFO who really understood the tech side and I will tell you what, he was incredibly supportive. And so the idea with him was, listen, we're going to end up spending a lot of money on lots of different tech. but he wanted to make sure that I kept him lockstep, involved, well informed with what we're going to do to make sure that he was on board with every piece of we went. And so he also did a lot of the,

you know, ran a lot of the interference as we went along the way. You know, we had a sponsorship with a telecommunications company. And so I know on the sponsorship side, part of how they were being rated was based on the amount of spend with that company. So they wanted all of our tech spending to go through this telecommunications company and they weren't really set up to do that. And so that was another major conflict, but our CFO really helped to intercede. And so we were able to get around some of that.

And so our wifi went from one of, would say probably one of the worst in the NBA to where then we became one of the best. And so it was just a case where there was just a lot of negotiating around and having to work with different executives to figure out how can we, how can we get around this? And so we eventually formed a incredible partnership with Verizon, where then what we did is we put in both a wonderful neutral host as, as well as upgraded our

our telephone cellular infrastructure. And so what we really began to discover is that when we really upgraded both together, then the fans had multiple paths they could go down, whether they're on the neutral DAS and they could end up getting T-Mobile or AT &T or Verizon, or they could jump onto the Wi-Fi system. But when we ended up holding the NBA finals in our arena back in 2021,

The NBA said it was the first time that they held the finals, that they had no complaints about the wifi or the telecom infrastructure. And so that's where it worked very well. And that's where from a sponsorship standpoint, then that worked well, but it took a while to kind of turn that around. Once Verizon came in, we were able to really take advantage of that. But yeah, it was a journey.

Sean Callanan (30:48.82)
Absolutely. You talked earlier about moving to new stadiums, and that was one of the draws at Phoenix. It did take a little while, and it was completed during the COVID times. What was it like getting that stadium up and going, especially with all the spanner and the works of COVID and shortened seasons and those kind of things?

Steve Reese (31:15.129)
COVID didn't do a lot of people much help. They did us an incredible amount of help. COVID was the day that our CEO came in and he explained to everybody, hey, we're shutting down tomorrow. We were demoing the very next day. Ironically, this just kind of wind back about nine months. My youngest son was doing work ironically in Wuhan, China. I had clients over in Wuhan, China and back in September of…

I'm just trying to think back here was it September we shut down in 20, right? So in September of 19 He called me up and said dad I'm not sure what this means to you but I've got some clients in Wuhan and they were talking about the fact that They are beginning to shut down the city and barricade it because there's some disease going around and he said dad I'm not sure what this does for your work from home Policy, but you may want to kind of rethink this so we really in September of 19 began to work on our work from home Strategy, which just made sense anyway

Because you never know is there going to be a fire in the arena what's going to happen? And so we were only literally two or three days away from releasing everything At the time that we shut down and so we didn't have a whole A whole lot of makeup to do there wasn't a lot of scrambling So we sent a lot of people home with Chromebooks and our sales team and we basically had the infrastructure in place Teams was relatively new at that point. So we began to use teams and a few other things

But, but it did us a lot of good on the, on the construction because at that point it cleared everybody out. sent everybody to Florida to play, the rest of the remainder of the NBA season there. And so not only did we start working on our, arena, arena redo, but also worked on a new practice facility, which is, right near, Paradise Valley within kind of central Phoenix. And so we got a lot done that would have taken us much, much longer. I would say estimate that.

The pain would have been much greater and could have taken us an additional year just to get things done had it not been.

Sean Callanan (33:15.478)
Yeah, I mean, I think it's stories like that. And the ticketing folk that no longer print paper tickets are the people that say it was a winner, but like, there's not too many, but there is a few small cases where it accelerated some opportunities. One of the questions that I did ask you at seat, and I really loved your answer was understanding the difference because you've worked in the NFL and the MLB and the NBA is understanding the differences in the leagues. Do you want to sort of

Steve Reese (33:22.319)
You

Sean Callanan (33:44.162)
give us a bit of that insight for the listeners on the differences of the leagues.

Steve Reese (33:48.696)
Yeah, and so the difference the difference in leagues first was on scale the scale being where if you're Working in an arena that is just easy picking so much easier than one of those to work in an nfl stadium I remember putting in wi-fi at the titans stadium in nashville and I'm thinking at the time that had to be close to 20 million dollars for putting wi-fi in it was ridiculous

We put it in at the arena here. Now, naturally things have scaled better and prices have dropped, but I believe it was close to about 1.2 million. And so, and the coverage we got went without complaint. So it ended up being wonderful. The second piece was really between the scale and the being profitability. Profitability can really present its challenges because when you are profitable, there is a little bit of an idea of why do we need to really do more because we're very profitable. We're doing

fantastic and then you add the scale in there and so within the NFL it just became a little bit more difficult to do certain things just because there was this perception that we're so profitable the fans are liking this and we're kind of off and running anyway why bother and I could be simplifying this a little bit but I I believe that that attitude was there in baseball it was in between because really profitability you got to remember coming out those strike years and baseball still struggling and so there

profitability or the lack of profitability really added well because what we have to do is service the customer. And so we had people like Bill Schlau who is in San Francisco who came up originally with digital dugout, which later became MLBs, at bat app. And so what we had is we had a lot of creativity going on because of lack of profitability and how can we make money in lots of small ways. And that's one of the things I also learned in the automotive business. How do I make

money in lots of small ways. What are things that I give away? Putting tires on a car, you don't make a lot of money, but you add that with oil changes and air filter replacements and all these things and you make money in small ways. And then the final difference was creative license. The NFL had pretty good creative license, but there was some central control with the NFL and with what they had done on the IT side.

Steve Reese (36:08.495)
Uh, baseball had NF, uh, had NBA, uh, or major league baseball advanced media, which had a very tight control on all the digital content and everything else that went on. And so what happened within major league baseball with the lack of creativity, at least that we couldn't do on the team side is it just made the job less fun. And so that brings up a really good point. One of the reasons moving to the NBA was the fact that they were wild, wild west, wide open.

You own all your digital rights, you own all your assets. And so the ability to be creative and go beyond just servers and storage and workstations, that was also an appeal. So really between the scale, the creative license and the profitability, those are kind of the differences in the leagues. You have the NFL, which is incredibly profitable. Their creative license is kind of in between. And the scale was

Sean Callanan (37:02.636)
Yeah.

Steve Reese (37:04.899)
was large, but then you have baseball sitting in between and then you have basketball, which was a very small scale. Now it's very profitable and the creative license was through the roof. And so those are the differences between.

Sean Callanan (37:15.682)
Yeah, I mean, I really do appreciate that. Having guests in, you know, from different leagues, definitely, definitely seen that of one like you that that piece of some of those restrictions do create that creativity, like depending on what you're restricted on doing, whether it's, you know, broadcast rights or, you know, what you can do stadium wide or what you can do, you know, what platforms have been locked down, the ones that aren't locked down, that's where the creativity goes. And then also that profit profitability piece.

always is something that's ticking over. If there's big money coming in from the media point of view, then that pressure is not there. But again, that pressure, like if you go back to your automotive days, that pressure to create profitability does come up with creative out of the box thinking.

Steve Reese (38:03.681)
And with it and with the NFL, I mean, it really was a double whammy because between the scale being so large and the profitability being so high, it did in some respects impact that ability to really get out there and do it. you know, but I just think right now there's everybody is doing on all three sports are doing so many things that are so fan facing, you know, Major League Baseball, Advanced Media has kind of tapered off a little bit. And some of that control has been given back to the teams in some respects. And it really leads to innovation. How do you.

motivate people to innovate and I really felt like what happened is that with NFL or with the Major League Baseball Advanced Media they disincentivized the teams to really help out as part of that innovation because What happens is when and this is where I'm totally against the title chief innovation officer And I've got many of my friends who are chief innovation officers and so I give them crap over this But the idea is when you have a chief innovator innovation officer and BAM

acted as that innovation officer. What you're telling everybody is that I'm the innovator. You're the implementer. Don't worry about it. I can do the thinking for you. And what you do is you basically remove so many people that can add to innovation and innovation is seen up and down the chain by everybody. mean, whether it is the, the admin who is working in the ticket office or somebody who's working in a, you know, one of the concession stands or whatever the case may be.

You've got to create an atmosphere that everyone gets invited to the table to help innovate. But as soon as you name somebody the chief innovation officer or you become the innovator like Bam did, then you disincentivize everybody to want to participate. And that's just no good. Everybody's got to be part of it. you and then not only do they got to be part of it, but they've got to be given credit for when they participate to say, guess what?

Sally came up with this crazy idea that we thought went nowhere and as we tested it and we ran it out, it solved a pain point. And it may not be a multimillion dollar innovation, but it may be something that removes a pain point or simplifies a process. And you've got to rely on people through the entire chain to do that.

Sean Callanan (40:13.58)
And is that something that's, I guess, embedded in your, I guess, leadership philosophy in enabling others and giving them the ability to speak up, look for innovation, because you're right. Like if someone says, I'm the chief ideas guy, they're like, sorry, you have all the ideas, you don't want my ideas. Is that something that's, I guess, more to your personal philosophy?

Steve Reese (40:27.791)
All

Steve Reese (40:33.295)
Absolutely. I was told by somebody, unnamed person, an unnamed job, but I was told there are five thinkers in this company and you're not one of them. So when we ask you to jump, your jump is, your only three questions are going to be how fast, how high, how far do I jump? And so it's just like, wow, great. That's a great way to disincentivize people. So to me, the idea is everybody has got to have a dog in the fight. Everybody's got to have the ability to speak up and have the freedom.

to learn and have this curiosity and to get out there. Now, frankly, there's some people that aren't very curious. There won't be contributors to the process, but there's a number of folks that are curious that want to be a contributor to the process. And so what I've always felt like with departments that I've managed is I would rather say, listen, here's a problem, here are the guidelines. I'm gonna just step back for a bit and I'm gonna let you just kind of run with this.

And let's just see what you come back with and let's just go back and forth and what you begin to find is people are so incentivized to jump in because now they feel that they are part owner of this process. They're part owner of being innovative. And then when they come up with a great idea, then you give them a big kudos and say, great. Hey, this is where goes back to. But let me just kind of rewind this here for a second. There is a, a PhD is named ironically as Steve Reese.

And there was a thing called the Reese Motivational Profile. And what he did is he identified 16 drivers of behavior. And so to me, the real key is, is when you're managing teams is to figure out out of these 16 behaviors and they go everywhere from acceptance to curiosity to eating the family and blah, blah. And the idea is to really figure out with your staff, what are their drivers and to put them in the best position to allow them to satisfy that

Desire so good example would be as I have had two folks that were at the Sun's who are incredibly curious and and really into Beauty and art and those sort of things. So when we're designing the intranet, I said listen guys I'm gonna let you run with this you Go through all the various vendors. Let's just check back in every week or so But I want you to be involved in the design aspects. You got to make sure that what you put out there has a great You know UI

Steve Reese (42:55.481)
that people want to come to this. And I'm gonna tell you what, it satisfied this curiosity and this need for beauty that these two had not been having satisfied. And they just became so excited about this project. So that's where I began to learn that within your team, you have a variety of different needs and wants and desires. And the idea is how do you match those up and put people in the right position to meet what those desires are. And when you do that, then by and large, people are gonna feel satisfied at work.

We had very little turnover, at least within the IT department, probably one of the fewest turnovers we had within our organization. But that's how you allow people to be part of that process and allow them to experience just high satisfaction at work.

Sean Callanan (43:35.855)
Absolutely. And I guess, yeah, the main takeaway from me from that is you've got to that flexibility as a leader to be able to, to be able to lead people differently the way they want to be led. Like, you know, that that that curiosity angle might not work for someone who's a box ticker and process driven. And I just like ticking off boxes like cool, you need lists and here's your list and tick them all off. And I love the end of the day, and they've ticked everything off. And that's their way or someone else might be, you know, so it's ability to be able to pull different reins.

Steve Reese (44:05.913)
Pull different reins and understand how is this person built and to also understand that how I reward somebody has to be based on their value system, based on their needs and it can't be on what my needs are. So I know if somebody is going to reward me, what I would like, but I can't assume that. We've got to make sure that we step out of our own lens and really look at people for who they are and figure out what's the best way to motivate Aaron or what's the best way to motivate Travis or these various people. How do we do that?

And let me just step out of my world and just realize that not everybody's motivated the same.

Sean Callanan (44:42.014)
Absolutely. Well, you would have given a lot of advice to people in the sports industry over years. What's your advice for someone who might be either entering the world of sports business, whether it be in the technology space or just starting out, what's the best bit of advice you could give them?

Steve Reese (44:59.395)
You know, I think the biggest thing is there was a friend of mine who I work with back when I was in my consulting world, his name was Bob Scheller. And Bob was terminally ill. And so I asked Bob that question. You don't get many chances, opportunities for somebody who is willing to answer that question of what would you do different in life? And, you know, if you had the opportunity to start over and Bob gave me some great advice and that was to really

work to eliminate the interference and put yourself in a position where you can think and be quiet and listen to what your body is telling you. Listen to what your instincts are telling you. so the first thing would be is to just, you know, just put yourself in a position like self care and self restoration is so important. You can get caught up in the craziness of just responding to this emergency, responding to that emergency.

But if you don't have that self care to take care of yourself, you're not going to enjoy the ride of professional sports because it can be a ride. It can be very difficult and it pays less than many of the industries. So the idea is you've got to enjoy the ride. So that's the first thing. The second thing is, is get some experience out there. There's a lot of new kids that are coming right out of college that are applying for the sports world and some get in, many don't. But I would say

Understand the idea that your chances are going to be really good work for a marketing firm work for a public accounting firm Get some good solid experience that you can bring something to the table so then when you and and really put yourselves like and I like I'm really biased toward public accounting firms because they teach you how to work and they give you a methodology of how to approach projects it's really good to go ahead and get that experience and then leapfrored over to professional sports and so

so between the self-care and just taking time to listen to yourself and You know breathe deep and be patient not everything's an emergency and then the second piece is just invest in yourself in a skill set that you can really bring something to the table your chances of being three to four years out of school and Learning how to work and being in a good firm that's going to invest in you and then jumping over the sports side You're gonna probably have a better shot at

Sean Callanan (46:59.021)
Yep.

Sean Callanan (47:15.982)
Absolutely. And one of those self-care tools is the ability to say no and just push back when you're at that limit because you're not effective. Mistakes are going to be made. And to be able to understand that, like sport is, you work hard and there are long hours and it's a grind. And we know that that's part of it. But also to being able to know when you're working at your best and you need a beat. And it might be the weekend, it might be a little bit of a pause, but

You're not gonna be at your best. You're not gonna deliver if you can't say no at some times.

Steve Reese (47:49.902)
And you really need your family members to be part of this ride. There was a guy who I was talking to at work a couple of years ago and he was just working, working, working nonstop. And it was really sad because he had burned through a few girlfriends and his family members like quit calling because he's working all the time. Well, part of the advantage of being in this industry and like Sean, even with what you do is allowing people to be part of this process. And

Two of the most emotional times I ever had in sports was when I was with the Titans and we were at Super Bowl 34. And then also at the NBA finals in 2021 against the Bucs. When that first game goes off and the national anthem is being sung and you realize you've got family members and friends who are out there all talking at their party that man Steve Reese is at this game and that's my boy. And this is the guy where Sean's covering this event.

He's there, let's see if we can find him on the field. So you've got to be able to enjoy the ride. And so the grind is kind of one thing we all have to jump into the grind and that's great. But take the time to enjoy the ride and make sure that you bring your family members along with you because that to me is a fun part of it. Is to know that I've got three brothers who are texting me during the game on whatever, good or bad.

And they're all engaged with it. And I know that for every person that's contacted me, there's probably literally 30 outside of them. They're thinking of you, all the people that you used to work with and the people who are jealous you've got this job now and all that. So got to enjoy the ride.

Sean Callanan (49:24.11)
Absolutely, absolutely. Steve, really do appreciate you taking the time. I want to get to the Sports Geek Closing Five as we wrap things up. Do you remember the first sports event you ever attended?

Steve Reese (49:34.16)
Yeah, sure do. It was a Detroit Tigers game. It would have been back in 1970, approximately, or 69. It was when my brother was actually getting inducted in the Navy at that game. And so it was like a happy sad occasion. I remember seeing all the players play, and then my brother was getting taken away and his head was shaved shortly after, and he was in the Navy for the next four years.

Sean Callanan (50:00.5)
Do you have a favourite food or a go-to food at a sports event?

Steve Reese (50:04.491)
Okay, so is beer a food? Well, I would say food and then whatever foods around there, I will tell you the best food I've ever had in the game was San Diego has a seafood bar that looks out over the bay. my God, it's the best. And I drank wine and had seafood there, but I would say beer is probably my staple.

Sean Callanan (50:06.73)
It is in my world. It's a whole food group. It's a whole food group for me.

Sean Callanan (50:29.71)
Absolutely. And I would concur with that one as well. What's the first app you open in the morning?

Steve Reese (50:36.847)
Two apps I open is Wall Street Journal. I've got an app where I try to see what's going on there and I either look at world news, which we've to probably quit looking at world news just for a while and look at the tech stuff that goes on. And I still jump into LinkedIn to some degree. But honestly, I've had to kind of reduce my social media intake because it was just becoming like a challenge. so right now I'm kind of fast.

between Instagram and Facebook and all these other ones and I'm an older guy I shouldn't be jumping into social media too much.

Sean Callanan (51:06.402)
Yeah, that's it. That's that's completely, completely fine. Is there is there someone that the podcast listeners should give a follow to and why?

Steve Reese (51:14.465)
Yeah. there's, there's a podcast called hidden brain by Shanker Vedandam. And I will tell you what hidden brain is awesome. the podcast I listened to, I try to listen to stuff that is away from the tech world, even though hidden brain is a lot about tech, but it's about, biology and how the brain thinks and processes and that sort of thing. I think it's the best podcast out there. Shanker is fantastic. mean, it's a incredible, incredible podcast. Yeah.

Sean Callanan (51:32.398)
Mm-hmm.

Sean Callanan (51:41.846)
Absolutely, I'll check it out. Lassie, what social media platform is your MVP, even if you are stopping using them? Which one is the one that you would keep if you had to get rid of all the rest of them?

Steve Reese (51:54.658)
If I had to get rid of all the rest of them, yeah, I'd probably keep Facebook or Instagram. Are those two kind of like together? Are they together kind of?

Sean Callanan (52:02.422)
Yeah, I mean, Zuckerberg owns all of them, you he gets all the data from them, that kind of thing.

Steve Reese (52:06.241)
Yeah, I think Facebook's for the old people and Instagram is for the only slightly younger people like in their 40s or 50s, isn't it?

Sean Callanan (52:17.413)
potentially. Steve, what we didn't cover and we're wrapping things up is that you have finished up at the the at the Suns. Before I wrap things up, what's next? What's next for you? What are the things you're looking forward to?

Steve Reese (52:25.091)
Right.

Steve Reese (52:32.033)
Yeah, so my life is coming down to I'm doing a lot of public speaking at the moment. I am speaking on a couple of topics. One, as you know, I've been involved a lot in sleep science through the years. We ran a sleep bootcamp with the Phoenix Suns with their front office. put about 80 people through that. So I'm speaking on the science of sleep and I'm also speaking on the science of motivation. And then I've got a third speech that I gave and it's more for individual contributors that are what are those science based techniques that you can use?

Sean Callanan (52:47.214)
Yep.

Steve Reese (53:00.655)
When you just find yourself in the dumpster, which we all do periodically such as random acts of kindness What does that do for us or gratefulness and there's just true hard science behind it and we all have to find ourselves Trying to have ourselves built back up life is like a roller coaster We go up and down and when you find those yourselves in some of those down periods What do we do to try to try to lift ourselves back up?

Sean Callanan (53:22.604)
Well, that's terrific. You can go back to episode 259, because we talked a lot about that sleep science in that episode, if you want to go back to those ones. But Steve, what's the best way for people, always ask the listeners to reach out to guests to say thank you. And if they want to connect, what's the best way for them to do that? Would that be LinkedIn?

Steve Reese (53:27.246)
Right.

Steve Reese (53:38.829)
Yeah, LinkedIn would be a perfect way to do that. I would say reach out on LinkedIn. I'm out there. I think I just kind of moved my profile from Phoenix Suns, but you can probably still look that up and it'll get me there. But it's now a leadership speaking group, which is the company that I formed just to go out and start doing some speaking. And a lot of it is really to cater to IT professionals uniquely with the pressures that they face. And so that's where.

kind of my heart's I'm speaking to a of other companies besides that, but LinkedIn would be the best one.

Sean Callanan (54:10.09)
Absolutely. Well, I'll put the links into the show notes and hopefully, I mean, obviously we potentially will meet again at sea, but hopefully you'll be in my part of the world sometime soon. We can catch up for an ice cold beer.

Steve Reese (54:19.691)
I just took a barge cruise with two wonderful Australians, the Dodds, who live in Melbourne. And they've invited us there. They've got a farm there and all sorts of other stuff. So yeah, we're actually, we're going to be at your doorstep.

Sean Callanan (54:34.008)
So so there you go. You've now got two invites. So thanks very much for coming on the podcast.

Steve Reese (54:38.148)
Well, thank you very much, Sean. I so appreciate your invite.