Update from Philips Arena

I was invited to join Mike Woodson and Bernie Mullen this morning for breakfast and a chat, along with about 15 other Hawks season ticket holders. It was a very nice gathering although I don't think most of us walked away with a stronger sense of where the team is going this summer. We know that Management thinks the team is headed in the right direction and that they want us to continue to support their efforts by renewing our season tickets. I spoke with probably five or six of the attendees after the breakfast and they all said essentially the same thing; i.e.: that they would not renew until after the draft and if it meant losing their seats then that was okay with them. I guess that is where I'm at as well although I have the added strain of figuring out how to justify them from a financial perspective given the past several months. Still, it's great entertainment and with the right team on the floor it could be an exciting year. Go Hawks!

But think about it from a business perspective for a minute. I have a product and at the end of the day it really is entertainment, or at least that is what I think of professional sports. I go to NBA games to be entertained and that "entertainment factor" is raised significantly when my team wins the game. I can deal with losing to better teams as long as my team played with heart, but the "entertainment factor" is dramatically reduced when my team loses over and over again and often through what you could only term as stupidity; i.e.: they play badly, make amateur mistakes and lose close games that should have been won except for these inconsistencies.

So now I want to take that product and market it to the community. How do you convince people to pay thousands of dollars each season to watch a losing team? Mike Woodson may very be a teaching coach, but his win/loss record is horrible and I'm amazed that the has been retained for another year. I can't say that I'm an expert on the game of basketball. I like to watch the game, up close and personal if possible. But I do have a fairly good sense of the value of a product that does not perform in the market and that is certainly the Atlanta Hawks today. I don't know, but I think that I might have made a stronger effort to convince my core customers to hang with me that Mike and Bernie did this morning. We all left with an NBA basketball having had some bacon and eggs (the basketballs were not signed.....I think that would have been a nice touch) and the eggs were a tad runny. I don't think anyone left with a burning desire to go home and write a check and that is what I would have been pushing for were I the sales guy running the show.

On a another note, Patrick D. Gaul, Inc. is fairly close to signing it's first contract as a company. Can't say much about it due to Non-disclosure, but suffice it to say that I'm excited about the opportunity and I think it could be the start of a very nice relationship for my company.

Anyway, more later from the streets of Atlanta.........