Kansas City Chiefs
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North Carolina State University Kansas City Chiefs Final Portfolio Katie Stephenson 8/17/2015 Contact Information Justin Sauser – Manager of Ticket Operations Work number: (816) 920-4225 Email address: [email protected] Physical address: Ticket Office, 1 Arrowhead Drive, Kansas City, MO 64129 Carolyn Messick – Human Resource Coordinator Work number: (816) 920-4867 Email address: [email protected] Physical address: Practice Facility, 1 Arrowhead Drive, Kansas City, MO 64129 Internship Agency Analysis Community Description: Kansas City is located in both Missouri and Kansas, but Arrowhead Stadium lies on the Missouri side about 5 miles outside of downtown KC. Arrowhead Stadium is a part of the Truman Sports Complex, which is also home to Kauffman Stadium, home of the Kansas City Royals. The two stadiums literally sit side by side and have underground tunnels that connect the two stadiums so that food, concessions and other necessities can be brought in underground. The Kansas City area has a very diverse group of people residing in it. For the most part, you can see that the city has been hit hard by the failing economy. However, there are some parts of town that you can find that have blossomed recently such as Westport (a bar/restaurant distract) and The Plaza, a buzzing metropolitan area with shops, restaurants, and many housing options. However, once you go outside of those areas it isn’t long before you see the depression of certain communities. Kansas City offers many sporting options. Besides the Chiefs and the Royals there is also a professional soccer team, Sporting KC, and Kansas Speedway is on the Kansas side of KC. These sports offerings keep the city bustling with people year round. Downtown KC is also home to the Sprint Center, an arena where many concerts are held basketball tournaments are played and conventions take place. The KC people love their sports – I learned that quickly. I have never seen such a professional soccer league following as I had in KC and witnessed one of the best atmospheres in a sports setting when I was able to watch Sporting take on St. Louis in the Lamar Hunt Open. Marketing Plan: The Kansas City Chiefs are a professional football team in the NFL, therefore their marketing efforts are more on keeping their fans happy rather than attracting new ones. The attraction of new fans happens almost naturally. The Chiefs do many things to work with their customers through their Customer Relations Department – a new department in the Chiefs organization. The Customer Relations Department deals directly with all fan questions about game day events and they work closely with the marketing department. This summer, the marketing department held their second annual Kid’s Club Movie Night where they showed Big Hero 6 on the screen of Arrowhead Stadium and kids and their families were able to sit on the field and enjoy the movie. This is a way for the Chiefs organization to connect with not only the parents who enjoy the team but also their children because as we know, children can be very persuasive. Other things that the marketing department works on are Training Camp activities, all concert and promoters that come to Arrowhead, new logos and designs and they are constantly trying to figure out new ways to attract different demographics on social media. Marketing has to work closely with all departments, including community outreach because it is within that department that player appearances and events are planned and approved. Community outreach has their hand in every aspect of the Chiefs organization! Organizational Structure: The organization is ran similarly to any other NFL team. There is your owner, Clark Hunt, and the president, Mark Donnovan, who run the entire organization and have a hand in both football and business sides of the team. Head of the football side of the organization is the head coach, Andy Reid. The business side is built as any other business side would be with directors over marketing, human resources, finance, sales, suites and hospitality, and many other departments. My department, Ticket Operations, has a Director of Ticket Ops (a position that was vacant due to a health issue), Manager of Ticket Ops, and three coordinators and then myself. Ticket Operations also falls under the Ticket Sales department so the director of ticket sales and the director of ticket ops (when the position is filled) work very closely. Personnel Practices: I’ve inserted two of the six policies we were given on the first day of our internship. These are straight from the human resources department of the KC Chiefs and what we as employees were supposed to abide by. One of the two was specific to interns and outlined where our responsibilities and duties were different. Aside from basic policies, it was also stressed heavily how we were to take the job as seriously as possible. This was not a time for us to meet players or coaches, get pictures and “make friends” with the team. This is their job just like it’s ours and we were not to make any kind of advance to a player (this was especially directed towards the women). It’s too be expected to be warned of something like this when working in a professional sports setting, but it is up to us to remain professional at all time. I worked numerous times with Travis Kelce, Jammal Charles and other players but it was strictly professional out of respect to the players, the organization and myself. Financial Support: Due to the Chiefs being an NFL team, many of their finances are disclosed to the public. A simple google search shows that the team is valued at $1.009 billion - 33rd amongst other sports teams. As far as budgeting goes, each department has their own budget for salaries, expenses and other necessities. The Ticket Operations budget was approved to grow for this season due to a new ticket coordinator being hired. This had to be approved by both the director of ticket sales and the president of the organization. Other things our budget was used for was the FedEx mailings of all season tickets, catering of food on event days, purchasing office supplies such as ticket stock from Ticketmaster and many other things. Facilities and Areas: The Chiefs share the Truman Sports Complex with the Kansas City Royals, the cities major league baseball team. The map below shows the twelve parking lots, the two stadiums, and the Chiefs practice facility. It also shows the seven gates that can be used to get into the stadium and also shows game day traffic patterns. In 2011, Arrowhead Stadium opened their new stadium that was renovated between 2008-2010. These renovations included a multimillion dollar club level that goes the entire way around the stadium, exterior updates, and the expansion of all executive offices over to a brand new practice facility that was built off of gate 5. The practice facility now houses all exec-offices, football staff offices, business offices, state of the art practice equipment and the partnered Kansas University Medical Center. All that is housed at the stadium is the ticket office, ticket operations department, sports lab staff, security, and event/game day operations. Since these renovations are still considered new, there are not many plans for the actual update of exterior facilities. However, in the next two years during the off season they will be installing a heating facility under the field so that the field can keep snow off of it rather than having snow blowers blow the yard lines during timeouts. The field itself gets torn up every off season for replanting and reconstruction. They waited to replant the entire field until after the three concerts this summer season because it took quite the beating. The field is down now and they will be painting it soon to be ready for the first home preseason game on August 21st. Programs: Major programs include all game days with their target audience being pretty obvious – football fans all over. Chiefs fans are known and recorded as the loudest fans in the NFL and their fans hold that reputation to their hearts. Game days are planned out weeks in advance with different themes on certain games. There’s military appreciation day, alumni day, red coaters day, etc. Another program would be all the concerts that were held this summer: Rolling Stones, One Direction, and Kenny Chesney with Jason Aldean. All these concerts have their own target markets and were planned around accordingly. For example, the One Direction concert brought up the need of a place for parents to be in the stadium but without buying a ticket so they could still be on site for their children. Arrowhead decided to open up the Draft Room, a bar within the stadium, as an area for parents to go free of charge and was open for drinks throughout the night. Parents appreciated this effort and took full advantage of it. We also designated a drop off and pick up lot for parents who wanted to do just that. This was specific to the crowd and was not offered for the other concerts. Other events that were put by specific departments include Kids Movie Night, First Look Event, Rookie Season Ticket Member Event, and Suite Holders Catering Preview Event. These events are held by the entire organization and are catered to specific groups of people. For example, the Rookie Season Ticket Holder event was for new season ticket holders to come out, learn about what the Chiefs offer in terms of customer service, learn to manage their tickets online and ask any questions they may have about parking, transferring, selling tickets – whatever they can think of.