The ROAR Podcast: Adam Zimmerman

# ROAR Podcast: Adam Zimmerman
**Guest:** Adam Zimmerman
**Date:** 2026-02-11
**YouTube URL:** [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1MWudcHuNM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1MWudcHuNM)
**Source:** YouTube auto-generated captions (no speaker diarization)

---

(0:05) many episodes of this podcast that have a singular focus and dig deep into a particular topic. Today's episode could certainly be one of those, but Adam's guest today, Adam Zimmerman, has such a wide breath of knowledge that they cover an enormous amount of ground. Adam is the chief marketing officer of the Atlanta Braves. And as a person whose career are it's pretty much every intersection of modern sports business, agency life, sponsorship, ROI, brand strategy, content evolution, real estate driven growth, and now leading marketing for one of the most fascinating sports entities in the industry. Adam started as a student athlete at the University of Matarino, finished at the University of Florida, and originally thought law school might be the move until he got pulled into behind the scenes world of college athletics and became fascinated with how athletic departments actually work. The Michigan internship followed and helped him confirm that sports business was a real path. From there, Adam landed in Atlanta during the Olympic buildup where he worked sponsor services for the games and the kind of role that teaches you everything about trust, problem solving, and anticipating needs before they show up. That experience opened the door to agency work where Adam ultimately rose to be the president of CSE, helping shape the market around talent and corporate partnerships while learning firsthand how brands think about value and measurement. Then came Madam's biggest leap. joining the Braves at exactly the moment the vision of Truis Park and the battery became a reality.

(1:32) And what makes this part so compelling is it isn't just a stadium story. It's an ecosystem story. Adam breaks down what the battery actually is, why it works, and how teams should think about the Tuesday night problem when there's no game to anchor foot traffic. The Adams also dig deep into the evolution of sport sponsorship and marketing. Adam explains how partnerships have shifted from a retroactive ROI conversation to deals that are structured around successful metrics from the very start and how digital and data have made measurement exponentially more sophisticated. And of course for this podcast they go into AI.

(2:08) They discuss an enterprise AI solution for sports and what that could actually look like. Why data readiness is a real starting point and way AIdriven search is creating an entirely new challenge for team marketers. This is one of those episodes that feels like a road map for where sports business is headed. Mixed use, data, IP, and importantly, the human side of fandom all colliding at once. I'm Bryce Linton and this the Revenue Above Rep. to the Revenue Above Rep. I'm your host, Adam Gman. With me today is Adam Zimmerman. Adam, welcome to the podcast.

(2:45) >> Hey, it's great. It's always good to have a meeting of the atoms. Yeah, there's a molecule joke in there somewhere that we won't but and we're already off on topics not Adam thankfully put a post up on LinkedIn where he said there's a bunch of non-sports topics he potentially wanted to cover ranging from the liyic system to rock bands from Athens. So hopefully we'll cover all of that during >> Absolutely. We're doing lesson for him. >> Yeah. But starting out where we always like to start out which is from the beginning. So tell us a little bit more about yourself and your career journey and how you got to your role that you're in now.

(3:16) >> Yeah. No, I'm been really It's been a really wonderful run and it wasn't my original intent as a lot of people who get into this business. I started out in my my goal when I was in college. I went to I started out running track and cross country actually at University of Nevada Reno >> and and then I came back to Florida and graduated from the University of Florida. And at that point in college, I was very fortunate to have very supportive parents who wanted me to explore and think about what was going to be fulfilling for me. And my goal was to go to law school. My father is an attorney. And at that point in my life, I'm like, I didn't really know what to do. And that seemed like a good path, right? I think I'll just try to be down that path of going to law school. And I I had a have a dear friend whose uncle was in the athletic department at University of Florida and and he needed some students to to help out doing various incundary things.

(4:20) I said great, that was great. I had a connection as a student athlete. I actually grew up in a place called Deneden, which is right by Tampa Bay, real beautiful coastal town. and my high school football team was a really good team and there were a couple guys that I knew from high school that played at University of Florida. So, I had that connection and so I started working in the athletic department and it was just my eyes were wide open in terms of oh, okay, this is behind the scenes. This is how things get done. Somebody has to figure out how many Coca-Cola cups get ordered for a football game. somebody has to hand out a gate giveaway at a basketball game. And so I just became fascinated with the inner workings of an athletic department and was able to really contribute at a young age and learn a lot with some really great mentors.

(5:14) And my my parents graduated from University of Michigan and I was able to land an internship at the University of Michigan and so that was great. My family was like, "Hey, this is cool. This sports thing that you're doing and now it's legitimate. You're going to University of Michigan." So, I went up there and had a really remarkable internship there and learned the inside out of another big-time athletic department and how things were run at a very high level. Thankfully, Adam, at that point in time, YouTube had not been invented because I lived with a handful of football players and those people who know Burns Park in Ann Arbor, you go and you play basketball. I love playing basketball, pickup basketball, but let's just say, and this person shall remain nameless, but I was dunked on in the pickup game where I tried to set up and take a charge. Not something you typically want to do in a pickup game where I was dunked on pretty hard to the delight of people waiting there. So, thank goodness YouTube was not invented because that clip would live on in perpetuity. It really would. Yeah. But I came back.

(6:25) >> I don't know. I don't know if this is a state secret or not, but maybe it would be good at some point. >> I It was a blur, but I'm going to I'm going to hypothesize that it was Jaylen Rose because five era. He just bunny hopped over top of me with those long shorts and bam, that was it. Yeah, it was all a blur. I don't really want to remember it because it was a humiliating basketball moment. But >> so I came back to I came back to UF and >> and graduated and and had the option to stay in in the athletic department and Steve Spurer was at UF. There was a lot of things going on in the US, but I had the yearning to come up the road of I75 to Atlanta, which was a real hot bed of activity. This is as the Olympics were being ramped up. So, this is 94ish, late 94. And so there was a lot of energy happening in Atlanta similar to Adam what I think is happening now with the onset of World Cup which we can talk about here in a little bit but all sorts of international people all sorts of activity it was a great place for a young person to come and start to make their career. So I was fortunate enough to get on with in order to host the Olympic Games, you need a grassroots organization to test and learn and do venues and so forth and so on. So I got in with that organization which then parlayed into a role with HCOG, the Atlantic Committee for the Olympic Games. And my job was in sponsor services which was literally Adam Gman is coming to visit me from Chicago. I wait for you at Hartsfield Airport. Now remember, I always date myself when I tell my young staffers. I'm like, "This was before these really worked." Okay?

(8:13) So, there wasn't an app that let me know that Adam's plane had been delayed. So, I would stand there in my suit with my little sign until you came off the terminal and then I would take you wherever you wanted to go. And so, I I really, with no disrespect to chauffeers and drivers, that's what I was. And and I'll be honest with you, and I tell this to young people breaking into it. I I was annoyed and frustrated. I said, "My gosh, I drive Adam around all day. That's what I do. This going to go anywhere? Is this going to lead anywhere for me?" I was good at it. I would always show up on time. I would take you where you wanted to go. Until I realized that at the end of my day, Adam, my boss would say, "You spent all day with Adam, so how is he? What's going on?"

(9:00) >> Yeah. And I was like, you know what? He was really excited about this and he wasn't excited about that and he made a note here and made a phone call there. And I realized being in a position to help people solve problems was a really important skill and also how to keep people's confidence because there were things that these clients wanted me to know and they were there were things where they're like, you didn't hear me make this phone call or we didn't have this meeting. But to be able to understand how to solve problems for a client and more importantly how to anticipate those problems was a really good skill. So, like every other young kid in Atlanta, I needed a job. And one of my contacts from the Olympics connected me with Lonnie Cooper. And you may know that name. And Lonnie was and is an incredible agent, entrepreneur, businessman. But at the time, he was really setting the market. NBA coaches were not making the money that they were making now. And so he had Lenny Wilkins and Mike Fetello and Doc Rivers and that group of coaches who he was helping make really good lucrative contract deals and then also one of the first people to spin them out where Mike Futello was the Zara the teleustrator.

(10:24) >> Oh yeah. >> But the idea that a coach could then become a talent was really one of the things that he pioneered. So I was with Lonnie for many years ultimately becoming president of cse until the opportunity to join the Braves arose. >> Yeah to there's a lot to cover there but because from the from where you entered to where you ended up as the president of CSC it' be helpful to learn more about that journey and how you were able to rise up the ranks and what were the keys to being successful there. I had some really good mentors. Mark Lazarus, who's now at Garcant, who was at NBC for a while. He was my boss for a couple years there. He was a wonderful teacher.

(11:07) Lonnie was a wonderful teacher. I learned the agent business and got a real good sense of the responsibility that it takes to manage somebody's career. And there were several people that have gone on, Matt Kramer, David Coan by name that have gone over to CIA that have been great agents and people that have represented talent and baseball players and football players and so forth. And then really building the corporate practice. So working with at the time Singular Wireless and AFLAC and CocaCola and Home Depot and major clients to really understand why they were involved in sports marketing, how they were getting return on investment, how those engagements could really work for the benefit of the business. So it was a real good learning experience. I think working in agency is a really good skill for people in sports business because you have to anticipate. You have to get to a point where you're not the ultimate decision maker and that comes with a little bit of but it's a really good skill set to be in the mindset of working on behalf of other groups for success.

(12:19) >> Yeah. And obviously wouldn't be my podcast without asking about the sponsorship parts. You mentioned about learning about return on investment sponsor. What did you learn? >> You know, we could talk about the evolution of that with the Braves potentially or things if things have changed from your perspective, but what did you learn about return on investment and what from a sponsorship perspective? >> I think over my career, the ability to really quantify the impact of sponsorships has gotten exponentially better. >> And I would say that probably in the late 90s, early 2000s, that wasn't as sophisticated is now. Now technology has caught up. Yeah. Dig digital has made it a lot easier to be able to do those things. The influx of data and really going to market with a lot more sophistication where a company says okay here's why we are targeting this property. Here's what success looks like. And then negotiating with at the four rather than at the back. I think that has really been a real change in how sponsorships are and should be designed Adam where the deal points need to inform what the success should look like rather than the inverse which I think sadly was the case for all too many years >> and then from your perspective and again we want to get into what you obviously your current role but sponsorship what have you seen different expectations from brands or companies and there's a different obviously it's a different set of clients or deliverables where you're working at your agency versus the Braves, but from your perspective, have you seen an evolution in the expectations of brands from sponsorship either from measurement ROI or from the activations themselves and the types of things that they're looking for in a partnership? Yeah, I think because new mediums have developed that so the onset of all things digital and social media and the data that that comes from these sponsorships and who owns what as it relates to that data and the retargeting and the ability to really quantify the engagement that the the influx of people like you who can really bring that acumen into okay let's talk about not just the immediate ROI but the longtail How are we really creating data sets and we found these people because of this engagement and now they become the lifetime value. All of that I think is something that's a lot more sophisticated when people come to market. And then I think the teams now I can speak to that from a team perspective. The teams have gotten even more savvy about holding on to their data, holding on to their IP, valuing the worth of that all of them. that I think has really grown by leaps and bounds as well.

(15:01) >> Yeah, we should definitely talk about that directly, but before we do that, we want to make sure we tie the bow in your career in terms of the transition from the agency to the Braves of what was that decision process like and what was it like to first come to the Braves given your previous position? >> Yeah, and that was again a really wonderful moment in time that my previous boss Lonnie Cooper really supported. And that's one of the things I say to young people, Adam. You're never too young to build your network. >> Yeah. >> And now you've got platforms to do that.

(15:31) And you've got LinkedIn. You've got all of these meetups that happen. The first thing I do is I encourage my young people know the other people in town. You work with the Braves. Know your peers at the Falcons. Know your peers at the Hawks and United. Call your call people in other cities. It's a very small, as we both know, community of people who do what we do for a living. So, get to know them. So, through that, I got to know I've known Derek Schiller, my now boss, president and CEO of the Braves, and he were he and I were catching up having lunch and and he said, "You have no idea, you know, what we're about ready to do." And I said, "You're right. I don't I only what the media is telling me that this is going to be transformative that we're moving from Atlanta and coming up to a new piece of land and that there's going to be a new stadium and that there's going to be a commercial real estate development and he went into depth and breadth of what as I look out my window has now unfolded with unairring detail.

(16:35) And I tell him this and I say, "Look, what you told me now 11 almost 12 years ago has come to fruition." But it was a remarkable as I think I'm proud to say and be a part of it that has been really one of the gold standard projects of a a sports anchored real estate district done really well at the highest levels. And so as we talked about it, he said, "I'm looking for somebody to come over and be the lead marketer for the team." and that's going to be a big part of working with the real estate entity which is within our organization. And I went home and I thought about it, man.

(17:14) Wow, why would I not do this? This is really going to be a really transformative moment for the industry. This is going to be all new knowledge for me understanding the value of commercial real estate as an asset class for a team and what that could be. So I did it and it was a really marvelous decision. you look back sometimes and go, man, wow, okay, I'm going to take the leap of faith and I was not a team marketer by training, >> right? >> But I knew enough about all the different disciplines and things that we did here that it's been a really fun run and >> learned a lot. won a World Series here, did an all derby and have really helped be a part of a best-in-class development that literally and this people from all over the world come and visit and earn the battery.

(18:10) >> Yeah, absolutely. Now over 10 million people per year visit the battery. Vast majority outside of Atlanta or Cobb County and we want to get into that, but I think before we get into that, just you mentioned this being a transformative project. So, first what is the battery? How aligned with truest park? And you mentioned it was going to be transformative. I'm not sure I would have necessarily from the beginning said it was going to be as transformative as obviously it's turned out to be. But why did you think this was a transformative opportunity for sports?

(18:41) >> Yeah. And the idea of this, as you and I both know, Ellie Live had done this before and there were a couple other iterations. The fact that we simultaneously came out of the ground at once. >> Exactly. with a new ballpark in a commercial real estate district. And the idea of the battery, people always ask me, "What's the name? Is it like a battery that you put, but the battery is, as you may know from baseball, is the pitcher and the catcher that they're a battery and they work together." And so that's really the vision of this is we said, "Okay, what would it look like if we owned and operated our own district? And what does that look like on game days for people when they can come early and stay late? There's not a fixed time that oh my gosh, our game's starting at 7:05 and we got to be there.

(19:27) and giving people that option to come and explore on their own time with lots of free things that you can do and you've been here in the plaza in in having our day on for free which people go what again that's part of the ambiance here is that we have restaurants we have bars we have things for children we have movie theaters we have hotels we have corporate headquarters we have apartments so it's a true live work play complex development velopment that has been created. And the main thrust is yes, how can we take and candidly further monetize your game day experience by stretching out the amount of time that you're here. And one of the things, Adam, that I always tell people when they come, they understand the battery, they understand the finances and what it takes to create from a fiscal perspective. Then you get into the operational perspective, how things live and breathe. But to your point about attendance, we look at that in three buckets. The first is how many people am I getting into my baseball game? So for ease of math, let's use three million.

(20:37) The second bucket often overlooked is how many people are coming up here just because there's a baseball game. All right. In the SEC, right, where I live and breathe, people know when they say, "I'm going to Athens. I'm going to Tuscaloosa. I'm going to Gainesville. I'm going to Knoxville." They don't have a ticket. They just want to go to the city, right? They just want to be there and camp out in the parking lot or just be in the college town. So we take that to heart and say okay there's another audience that we also look at as fans and that can be over the course of a year 30 40% of that 3 million that just come out here. So we may do 70,000 on a weekend night 30,000 in here and another 40 just milling around. All right. And then the last bucket of that is what we've talked about, which is how are you programming and creating events for the rest of the time when you're not playing baseball. We have a theater here. We do shows. We do 150 shows with Live Nation.

(21:42) We do a whole host of special events. We do, you might have seen us. We just talked about a concert that we're going to own and operate, a country music fest. So, what sort of things can we be doing to continue to drive the battery and foot traffic? >> Yeah, I want to hold on that. Former podcast guest and now my boss Vasetelli is the CEO, founder and chairman of Serge. The fundamental question with mixed use developments including the battery is not necessarily what happens on game days but what happens on a Tuesday right when they're threat game and you've started talking about programming and ways that you guys have thought about that and address that but from a marketing perspective but it's a separate challenge marketing for a mixeduse development as it is for a game. One, can you talk about how you think about the Tuesday problem and two, just how you think about marketing for a real estate development more broadly?

(22:32) >> I've talked to John about that. He's got a real keen sense of that. That's a really important part of the equation, right? And again, getting to go back, there are three buckets, right? There's what the team can control and influence, right? Then we have a team that works at what we call Braves development company, which is within the Braves organization. It's a separate entity that is the real estate organization and they have a team that is responsible for thinking through all of those events and activities. How are they driving business to the tenants? How are they doing special events like a New Year's Eve, New Year's Eve celebration, things during the holidays, things during Halloween, yoga in the park. All of those things need to be programmed because they act as drivers and they also drive repeat business.

(23:23) Yeah. And I think one of the things that's interesting about the battery, you mentioned the move from Atlanta to where it is now. It's not all of this is new development like you're saying coming from the ground starting from scratch. I know we tal you talked about it, you referenced it and now to where it is now where it's rapidly growing and the increase in the number of parcels, number of buildings, number of tenants. >> What has that been like? That's a just again just standing up a development and marketing from it's one thing for Derek to have the vision of it 11 or 12 years ago. It's another thing for it to come to reality and you live it every day and now the battery is the example of mixeduse development in sports which has from my own research and what I know Serge is focused on a huge opportunity.

(24:07) So what has it been like just on the battery side live going through that whole journey and experience? Yeah. And it has had an unbelievable effect on the surrounding environment. And there's been a lot more development. There's been a lot more growth. It's driven people. We've attracted corporate headquarters here. It's given people just a really a good idea of what the mix was. And candidly, our original of what we had was not where we are now. It was going to be a lot more retail driven. And then subsequently we've moved into experiential types of activities and corporate headquarters and restaurants and bars etc. movie theaters and entertainment things. But yeah, it influences everything we do here to how we imagine game presentation. I'll give you an example.

(24:57) One of the things that we do certainly inspired by soccer is we do a braisewalk which is the players will literally walk from one end of the battery into the stadium on opening day. We do parades frequently. Why? Because our footprint allows us to do that. Why? It enables me to get tens of thousands of people that can come out to watch a parade. And again, to my point, they may not have tickets to the baseball game. That's okay. I still want them here because them being here on campus is going to help our overall revenue proposition and again they're here of their own valition which is really important >> and you mentioned you obviously have just mentioned success and what success has looked like and I think we can talk about it in real life experiences. It was an interesting you said it was more retail focused and now more experience focused as the law coming about in and about in and around COVID both before it and after it and how that's all changed what you would thought about but can you just define what success now looks like what does it mean for this mixeduse development to be successful either from a braves are a publicly traded which we also want to talk about it's probably a trade entity so you can look up the numbers but what does success mean now from a mixeduse perspective >> it it looks at obviously tenant retention it looks at the success of those tenants It looks at throughput and again to your point, we are one of the few publicly traded sports entities in America, the only baseball team in America, obviously the Blue Jays with Rogers, but you can go to Braves Investor relations and just get a treasure trove of information because we're reporting everything and it really gives you a peak into how we do things, why we do things, and and what success looks like, which is every quarter. We're repressed.

(26:49) >> That's what it is. >> Yeah. Exactly. >> And I I did look at some of those metrics and the financial reports both for the paper that I co-authored with clutch at RBC, but also just before we jumped on and the Q3 results for 2025. I think it was 57% increase in revenues from the mixeduse development now through at least >> and we acquired a new property too that you probably >> Yep. >> Yeah. Exactly. But just 57% growth year-over-year. I think it's over 7 at least 73 or $74 million in income just through >> your numbers. Look at that. >> I got to be a numbers gang.

(27:24) Go ahead. >> Go ahead. No, you go ahead. >> I was going to say and it's interesting as my job has evolved, Adam, it is having more of an eye to certainly the X's and O's of what success looks like from a team marketer perspective, TV ratings and >> Yeah, exactly. merch and and obviously how we're doing in terms of tickets sold and what the value of those tickets are, but now with an eye to things that are going to help move the stock price, right? What are what sort of things can we be doing? And I know we'll talk about artificial intelligence, but what sort of things are going to make analysts sit up and take notice and go, "Okay, love that." they're going to commit to enterprise solutions with AI across their organization and that hopefully over time will have a positive effect on the business. So, it's made us and we've always had that sophistication here. Our roots are from Turner and our chairman and Terry Mcgherk was Ted Turner's number two for 30 plus years. So, you don't do that without being really good.

(28:27) So, we've always had the sophistication of that and now it's just been formalized with needing to report, really needing to show people the success that we're generating quarter by quarter and what the long-term strategy is. >> Yeah, I I definitely want to talk about that in a little bit more detail, but just to close the loop a little bit on the truest part, one of the big parts that has also been successful is the public private partnership. Yes, that's from so one how have you navigated that relationship and two from the property tax to the impacts on Cobb County to the state of Georgia. Can you just talk a little bit more about the success from that perspective too?

(29:01) >> I think and you can see Cobb County reports on that frequently. They are incredibly pleased with the deal that's been struck. >> Yeah. >> And as you suggested the taxes that have been generated, the jobs that have been created, the our ability to be able to help the school superintendent, for example, higher and better raises to teachers which make an already excellent public school system even better which of course has a virtuous effect on the real estate. It was a very smart deal crafted with Cobb County with the Cumberland Improvement District. So the stadium itself was public private as you're aware and then the battery was funded by the Braves.

(29:45) >> Yeah. Yeah, and I think that's really important that I'm glad you br that up because you know how these the stadiums and the mix as anchors and then the mixeduse development finances obviously gotten a lot of public attention and at times public scrutiny and I think a good example of the best a good example of one of the best use cases of what's called a PPP or public private partnership that has already generated benefits that exceeded expectations that were set out at the beginning in 2015 where there's net surpluses being driven to governments which shows the benefit of the mixed use around the venue as opposed to just only you're solely a focus of the venue itself, which can provide substantial results, but combining that with the mixed use is a really good pathway forward for tax dollars and funds going back to the public, which is obviously very >> agreed. Agreed. And and again, that's why, as we've talked about, we see so many teams look to follow suit to understand the model. So many internationals actually come to visit us particularly with the advent of World Cup and understanding okay maybe we're not going to be able to do that with our stadia because it's 150 years old and really in a dance area but can we be creative on some of our training facilities and do a version of that. So we've had a lot of Europeans come and visit us and sit with us and colleges obviously I think that's really the next forefront as colleges continue to >> look for more money and are blessed oftent times with large swaths of land that they can be creative. I think I'm really fascinated with what colleges do next in this space. Yeah, I think the impact of whether it's private equity, private capital, debt capital, exploring capital solutions, one of the questions is always if you're looking for outside capital to help fund operations as cost potentially increases from what and real estate and mixeduse development and has a effect for the athletic department, but also a knock-on effect potentially for the university as a whole from admissions and all those things as well.

(31:40) That could be its own separate podcast and maybe we can go into that a separate podcast, but I do want to go back a little bit to what you're doing particularly with the brave. We talked a lot the battery. At the same time, you're obviously being chief marketing officer of a team is a full-time job and something that you have to focus on. You mentioned some of the things that you're focused on even just getting a new ballpark up and going at the same time. Can you talk about what was it like to come to the Braves? >> Yeah, there's really I think that there are four areas of focus that I really think about. We just talked about it, right? How am I maximizing my footprint, our commercial real estate district and really maximizing commercial real estate as an asset class for the benefit of the team?

(32:20) >> Yeah, right. That would be a primary thing that I focus on. The second is enhancing and advancing our IP, our intellectual property. All right. So, I think that's something that that teams have really doubled down on. Okay, what is it that I own and how can I monetize it? And so I'll give you an example. We Braves country for us is a real thing. All right, and it stems from our geography out of which spans six states. We're the only team in the southeast. So you've got Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, South Carolina, Chunkin, North Carolina, Tennessee who that's real for me. Onethird of my gates million people come from outside the state of Georgia. So, I have a real affinity to drive the idea of Braves country. And so, we own that. We own that phrase, Braves Country. Our players use it. Our managers use it. And now, we're starting to thin out intellectual property around it. You probably just saw an example of this when we launched our Braves Country Fest, which is going to be a country music festival that we're co-proing with Live Nation here at the ballpark in the Battery. Well, my hope is to do more of those that we can sort of white label music around the idea of Braves country this and Braves country that. We have Braves country baseball and softball, which is our own youth league, which is scaling all over the Southeast, where we partner with parks and recck departments to teach and have a little instructional league around baseball and softball. So we're monetizing different aspects of our brand by really thinking about how we can leverage our IP and leveraging IP is definitely important in the context of artificial intelligence and again I definitely want to come back to that as the importance of IP in a world that might be where content creations comes from intellectual property but I do want to focus on content there's been an evolution of content and content distribution and all the things that you've dealt with from that perspective up to and including right now which I don't we don't have to necessarily get in too much in the mainstream sports stuff but the how has content from when you started in 2015 till now how has content evolved and how do you think about content now >> exactly it it starts with the IP what is it that I own and then the mediums have certainly changed and will continue to change and and that really even stems to things Adam that one of the co was an absolutely horrible able moment for us, for the world, in the United States in the sports business. It was catastrophic. It was a black swan moment. What would you do if your core product is gone? How would you evolve?

(35:11) And I think that was both my most gut punch and then also our exhilarating innovations of what how we were able to navigate that. So, I give you an example. We created a digital twin of our ballpark. And so now digital twins are really becoming even more invogue. People are using them for security exercises. People are But the idea of having another venue with absolutely untapped fandom I think is really interesting. And if I were a great global club, if I were Chelsea and I wasn't worrying about filling my seats, but now I had a digital venue that I could have untold amounts of people go and engage with my content and sell tickets and take a page out of Fortnite's book, sell skins, right, and do all sorts of things. And you're seeing EA, right, really start to think about that. So I I think the idea of again expanding your IP, thinking about new mediums for distributing content, the idea of digital venues, digital twins I think has a lot of potential.

(36:24) >> Yeah. And I wrote recently wrote an article about digital twins which aligns exactly what you're talking about. And now that we're talking about artificial intelligence, I know it's times let's we should just dive into it full and whether it's digital twins, fan engagement, you even wrote in the post which I think is a good what does fan engagement need mean now? I'll open it to you. What how do you >> let's talk about AI, right? And obviously there's so much buzz around AI and there's so many executions and there's so many directions you can go >> but I think people are now being studious and deliberate about driving those use cases.

(36:58) >> Yeah. And so somebody has yet to crack the code on an enterprise solution for teams and my properties of okay here's how AI can live and breathe in all different aspects of your business to make you more effective and drive more revenue. And so I think that's interesting and I'm always up for learning for people of what are you doing, how are you doing that can be the creative department using Sora to use generative AI for a lot of the work that they're doing aentic in terms of all the use cases that you can have in aentic and I had a I heard a somebody in a podcast and I forget where because I love to site it you may know but the person said CocaCola near dear in my heart here in Atlanta. Coca-Cola built an empire on refrigeration.

(37:52) >> Yeah. All right. >> LLMs are the refrigerators, but nobody's come up with the Coca-Cola. >> That's very clever. Yes. Yeah. Very clever. >> I've been like pondering that. Oh my gosh. Wow. I don't really even know how to react to it, but I don't think it's good. >> I was going to say from a sports perspective, you mentioned that it hasn't been solved. So, like from your perspective, >> I'm not saying exactly, but what would you say the Coca-Cola would even look like to you as a sports decision maker? >> I don't know. I'm still puzzling that through. What I do know is that we're going to we're going to chip away at some meaningful use cases. And we know people have gotten increasingly comfortable with dealing with agents and there's a way that we can get people really down a purchase cycle pretty easily using Agentic AI. I think there's untold types of executions that our creative team can be using in terms of using Sora and other tools to create content that can be monetized and sold.

(38:53) I and at the moment I'm really fascinated and also scared about AEO right how search is really being disintermediated by the day and okay we need to have a whole suite of tools that for SEO and SEM that have had 25 30 years of study and now all of a sudden tell me five things to do in Atlanta I need tickets to a Braves game but don't put me in the heat are the machines doing what I want them to do. >> Yeah. >> Someone said to me, "The machines don't care about your brand and they don't." So that's a problem for team. >> I want to hold on both those point.

(39:33) First on SEO and s we talked about this a little bit with our previous gu Matt Pal who's the CEO of Moroc and how they are specifically trying to create solutions to optimize for AI now doing the search for you in the way you describe. But can you talk about historically how has SEO impacted the Braves business? whether it's the Braves that sells or the battery like you're saying that's this intermediating what does that mean to you and what does that mean to the sports business? Yeah, I think SEO we've gotten to a point in the industry of we understand how to buy and how to interact with SEO and SEM and and certainly when you're dealing with your fan your seat geeks and folks like that that are spending an inordinate amount of money to ticket masters you're like okay cool you that's what your business is if I've got a good deal with my secondary partner then great you guys can really carry the weight in terms of all the marketing muscle on that fair point but now with AEO So things are different >> and the machines are going and grabbing and scraping things that are not behind pay walls as you well know and they're putting things up there that may be inaccurate or maybe misleading. And so there's a whole cannon that needs to be built and how you're managing that effectively for your business.

(40:47) >> And how do you how do you think about that now? Like how has that changed your day-to-day? >> It's changed a lot. And we I sit on a committee with Major League Baseball. They have put together a task force of people really smart guys at the league and guy named Josh Frost who's doing wonderful work in this front but yeah we everybody realizes that it's a problem so the good news is we got it certain start to chip away at it >> but it's fascinating and it like I said it's in the same way I say to people entered my career with the onset of digital and all of what that brought to the industry and to sports business and now here we are at what I believe is another seminal moment where everything is changed because of what AI is and will do to our industry.

(41:31) >> Yeah. And I think that's a very apt complicate whether you call it web 2.0 or or web 1.0 2.0 3.0. Obviously this is different but usher in a C change. I I do want to come back to the content part of it. You mentioned that AI does it or IP and content. You mentioned AI doesn't care about your IP and obviously you said the mo one of the most important things of the Braves is the IP. So, how do you then you mentioned there are other ways potentially for monetization from the IP from a content perspective in an a world. >> Can you just provide a little more detail on all of those things and how you think about all those things?

(42:02) >> I think it's flu. I really do. I think I'm trying to surround myself with smart people on this. I think that there's a whole new subsection of law that's being who rules what and why and and now we've got the machines organizing, right? So, that that's Have you heard about what's it called? M book. >> Yeah. Exactly. Yeah, the Reddit for the AI platforms. >> My gosh, >> the singularity is here, man. They're all >> getting on their humans. So, we've lost control of the machines already. >> But I do think it is a moment right now where I say to my young my young people starting their careers, I'm like, look, if I'm you, just immerse yourself in this, understand it, master the tools, be able to chart a course for people that are more advanced in their careers, help them make decisions on this. really make yourself invaluable in the same way that my generation really was able to embrace all things digital and say to people hey I know you don't get it but let me tell you why we do a website let's talk about all of this that was nent at the time just like I think all of this is right now >> and I did want to make sure I came back to the publicly traded element of this as a publicly traded company that has to consider artificial intelligence that is novel compared in many if not almost every other sports organization. So how do you think about that in context of being publicly traded and also in the context of one of the biggest assets you have now is a real asset right in terms of the battery and everything that comes from that.

(43:34) >> Yeah. No, I I think it is again how can artificial intelligence there obviously there's a whole host of privacy issues that come with that. There's the control over the data. There is as you well know getting your data right which is a whole another subject before you can even embark in all these wonderful AI executions you got to make sure your data is where it needs to be but I think from our perspective it is okay as we sit back and look at the enterprise how can artificial intelligence in various use cases make us more efficient and effective and drive revenue sort of the north star >> and then we mentioned data you have a very strong data team I've talked to your data team They're very much at the forefront of what's happening in terms of using datadriven solutions to drive revenue, whether it's through ticketing, partnerships, hospitality, events, promotions. But when you say get your data in order, what is for your team, particularly given it's so data forward, what does that mean to you and your team?

(44:29) >> Just make sure that everything's able to talk to each other, right? And so what exactly do we have? How best can we use it? All of that. We are really fortunate here to have some smart people who spend an inordinate amount of their time thinking that through which again 10 years ago that didn't exist in our industry to the depth and breadth. Now, if you don't have a top shelf rack analytics team that's not just doing descriptive and diagnostic and predictive analytics, but really I'm sorry, we're really getting into prescriptive analytics that that is really something that has evolved with great acumen over the last few years.

(45:15) Yeah, and I agree with you and I think the idea of leveraging all this data to really whether it's predictive, prescriptive to say this is where we need to be. It's the obviously the famous Wayne Gretzky quote, go to where the puck is going, not where it is. I think that is where the puck is going and and I think your team is well suited for that. In terms of I do want to we're getting towards the end of the time of the podcast, but I do want to make sure we close the loop on so from your perspective, what does it mean to engage with the fan now in this current environment? What for you? What does fan engagement mean? Whether it's for the stadium itself or for the battery.

(45:50) >> I I fought a losing battle in the industry where I I UX does not equal FX, i.e. UX doesn't equal fan experience. And I think when we moved to apps and we used to nav and we started to take a fast approach to how we're managing fan how long lines are and this that and the other all of that is essential but for me it doesn't define fan experience. Experience is the nexus of memory and emotion. When I were if I were to ask you Adam about the best and worst experiences of your life you would tell me a story and there would be emotion attached to it. there be memory attached to it. That's what makes you a fan.

(46:33) >> And that's really hard to turn into a SAS platform and it's really hard to but that's the stories that people tell me. Yeah. Somebody will be like, "Oh man, I waited in line too long for a beer." Okay, cool. But you know what? That goes away if the woman you sit next to turns out to be your wife. >> You get those stories all the time. >> Yeah. Like people come to the Braves and man, I met my wife there. I named my kid Maddox because Greg Maddox was my favorite pitcher. My dad and I didn't agree on much, but man, we could always sit and watch the Braves. Really powerful. That's really emotive. And we have to really live there. I'll give you an example. We realized a couple years ago as we were readying for game presentation and opening the gates, okay, are we ready behind the line?

(47:20) Okay, yeah, concessions are good. Are we ready in front of the line? Yeah, security's in place. And we're like, we're missing the most obvious thing, Adam, the most magical moment, which is when the gates open. >> Yeah. >> And it could be somebody's first game or sadly it could be somebody's last. So we said, you know what? We're going to celebrate every single day. So if you come here before our game, we pick a kid out of the crowd. We say, you know what, Adam, you've got a very important job and we know you can do this. We want you to scream, "Open those gates."

(47:51) Every day we turn it into New Year's Eve games and people love it. And I say to people, I take my own advice. You're having a really bad day. Go outside and see that. Because seeing the joy on people's faces, right? It's Simon Synynics. Don't tell me what you do, tell me why you do it. >> We do because the team creates joy for people. joy that our players bring, joy that they bring themselves, and that's really magical, man. And that keeps you going. And so that to me is the crux of fan experience. And I worry we the more we commoditize it, the more we tend to put machines around that, the more you lose that real human emotives thing which makes people fans.

(48:39) >> Well, I'd be first of all remiss if I didn't quote Homer Simpson about sports when he talked about beer as the cause and solution of all of life's problems. I think sports is and I that wasn't the Homer or the Greed philosopher I think you were talking about when we your LinkedIn post but I have to bring it at least some >> Homer Homer Simpson got a lot of things right. You really did. >> But I do think obviously and this goes to what you're saying from an enterprise franchise value perspective. The reason that there's so much investment into sports is what you're saying, right? Is in a world that could be increasingly digital or artificially intelligenceoriented or machine driven in real life experiences, increasingly important sports is if not the primary one of the primary vehicles to make that happen. And I think that's to your point going and seeing people's seeing the connections, seeing people smiling, see seeing people actually have real experience at venues is hopefully one of the reasons that sports maintains its primacy in people's lives.

(49:33) >> And I'd be remiss on him if I didn't get my Olympic brain. >> Here we go. We got everything, I think. >> Yeah. Because there's a guy who's really brilliant guy named Chad Hutchinson who actually does strategy for Liberty Media and he has this amazing theory about your liyic brain. He's actually a trained neuroscientist. Yeah. >> And his point which I completely believe is your brain works differently on sports than dopamine. When I go to Starbucks, I get my coffee and yay, rewards, I got my coffee. That's different where how people feel about their team. You they tell themselves these things to get closer to the action. Oh my gosh, I got to be there for this game because we're playing the Dodgers for a chance to go to the World Series. the way your brain works on sports that sense of community so forth comes from your lyic brain not from dopamine based stuff.

(50:23) >> Yeah, there's a lot one I think we can also have separately have a whole podcast on the impact of libic system on sports fandom which there's a lot to cover a lot we didn't get to. I think we're going to have to have you back on as a guest to really get to all these topics I would find to be and hopefully our audience would find to be really interesting. But we want to close the podcast with a question we close with all of our guests is and putting it a little more tangible. I guess more in the realm of of people's day-to-day lives. Not that Olympic system obviously is not also tangible, but you know, you're obviously you are a decision maker. You've been in multiple different senior executive roles at sports in different parts of the sports industry.

(50:59) We have a lot of students, young professionals, people who look working to move up the career ladder in the sports industry. when you're looking to hire people or you're looking to promote people, what are the qualities and things that you're looking for from people who are working for you or working in the organizations that you're a part of? >> That's a great question. I I believe contributing to your athletic department somehow some way is really good training when you're in college. And I could care less if you're NIA or high-end division one. And oftentimes I say to people, don't gravitate to football, basketball per se. you can make outsized contributions in Olympic sports and other parts of that portfolio. So that's something I think it's the closest approximation to what we do at that level. And then what we talked about earlier with AI, have even at a young age, have an area of expertise. Have something that you're bringing to the table that you really know innately that will make you beneficial in your organization. And then be a playmaker.

(51:58) Know your role. do it well, but be inspired by the world and ask questions and say, "Wouldn't it be cool if we did this?" Or, "I'm always interested in people that, yes, are doing their work well, but they're inspired by the world. They're asking the right questions. They're trying to push things forward. Those are the people that I think really advance in this business." >> Yeah, a great place to leave it. I totally agree with you and what you're saying, Adam. Thank you so much for being on the podcast. Definitely great to cover all that we got covered in a relatively short amount of time. And again, we're hoping to have you on again soon.

(52:33) >> Thank you, Delight. Thank you.