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- [00:02]
A
Dive into the dynamic world of high school sports. Whether you're a seasoned athletic director, a newcomer to the field, or simply curious to learn more about this exciting profession, this podcast is your go to resource for inspiration, education and a deeper understanding of the game changing decisions that shape the world of high school athletics. Welcome back to AD360. I'm Greg Vandermayt and as always, I'm joined with my co host, Scott Rosenberg. Today we're diving in a topic that we briefly touched on in the previous episodes. Who wanted to take a little bit of a deeper dive. How do ads build meaningful engagement with their fan bases within their campus communities and the communities in general? Scott, there's a lot of admin work ads do. Definitely excited to touch more on this one. I think it'll be a fun aspect. Thoughts?
- [00:50]
B
I'm excited too, man. I feel like it's incredibly important in 2025 and I'm interested to see how Brady's doing business there. It's always fun to talk to ads from different parts of the country just to see how they might do things. I always think that teachers and athletic directors are the best thiefs and we always like to steal all the good stuff that people are doing so we can give some advice based on what Brady's doing. There's some others. I think it'll be really valuable.
- [01:18]
A
And as Scott mentioned, we've got a special guest joining us today, Brady Pond, athletic director at Westwood High School in Arizona, Brady Griffith. Great to have you on the show. Appreciate you taking the time today.
- [01:29]
C
Oh, thanks for having me.
- [01:31]
A
All right, gentlemen. Well, I think that we can go ahead and just kind of dive right in. Brady, I'm going to start off with the first question thinking big picture here. When you think about fan engagement at the high school level, what does that exactly mean to you? I think a lot of ads hear fan engagement immediately start thinking about, you know, how much is this going to hit my budget? I got to get some fancy technology. Kind of want to get your thoughts. What does fan engagement mean to you when you hear that phrase?
- [01:57]
C
For me, it's actually I kind of go about it in a, maybe a different way. I don't think that it's a new approach, but I go about it from a community aspect of getting my kids and my teams out there in the community so that people are wanting to support them. Maybe it be through service projects or, you know, community events. We have a community that loves to see our student athletes out there and I think when they see them out there Kind of serving and giving back. They're more likely to come and engage with those, those teams and come to those games and support, support those kids that they already know.
- [02:36]
A
I like that approach because, you know, basically the, the communal aspect, you want them invested, you want them involved, you want them supporting your student athletes in the local community. So I appreciate that. Scott, what are your thoughts?
- [02:49]
B
Yeah, I mean, seeing the good side of education based athletics, seeing all the great stuff that kids are doing is incredibly important. So yeah, promoting that, getting kids newspaper clippings up in the coffee shops and conversations about all the good stuff that they're doing. High school athletics I think is incredibly important. And you know what's interesting is I think schools can also turn around the support they get from the community and find ways to support them. So Brady, thanks for that. Is fan engagement something that is on your weekly to do list, something that you're thinking about every single week, or is it something that you do at different times, sporadically throughout the year?
- [03:30]
C
I think that a lot of the things I do kind of lead into fan engagement. I think that doing the things that set up for fan engagement is kind of what makes you a good ad connecting students. Obviously we want to have big student sections, so how do I connect the students during the week? I wouldn't say it's a daily thought, but I definitely think that it's kind of on my agenda on that Monday morning when we're thinking about the events for the week. How can we promote a volleyball game or how can we highlight the badminton team, things like that, so that people are aware of what's going on on our campus.
- [04:11]
B
Can you give me some examples, Brady, of how you might get that out there to your student body or the community?
- [04:18]
C
Yeah, I think we do a really good job with social media. We have thousands of engagements pretty much daily and throughout the week of just different posts, whether it be, you know, about a. We're going to do a dress up for, you know, last week we did actually this week we did a. Dressed like a cowboy volleyball game and all my students came wearing cowboy hats and cowboy boots and they were wanting me to play country music. And so I mean we, we get it. A lot of it's through social media. I think that we do a really good job with social media. And then I utilize what I call, it's called the Warrior Captains Council where we, we have a captain from each sport meet with me and we have a little bit of a, like a message board with, in our, within our school communication where we talk about, hey, let's, you know, we have a big volleyball matchup, so let's get all of our teams out there to go and support them and support each other as student athletes as well.
- [05:18]
A
I like that because then you're getting the student athletes involved and you kind of get that organic fan engagement because they're all excited to support their classmates, their peers. I think that's a great approach for it.
- [05:31]
B
I do, too. We've talked a little bit about leadership and captain's councils and things like that and getting those kids involved and the captains involved. Like you said, Greg gets that organic kind of traffic. I'm also wondering, Brady, do you have more success on specific social media platforms, like, as opposed to others?
- [05:49]
C
So we get really good engagement on Instagram. Instagram seems to be the go to for kids. I always say Instagram for the kids, Facebook for the parents, and Twitter for everybody else. So. So it's a little bit of everything. We try to hit all the different ones. But I would say our most successful platform has been Instagram.
- [06:10]
A
I laugh at that one, Brady, because the episode that we had recorded before our guest was saying that Facebook was for old people. And I'm sitting there, I'm like, oh, man, I just got labeled into a demographic. Apparently I've aged myself out.
- [06:23]
C
Yeah.
- [06:25]
A
That'S awesome. So one thing I'm curious about, when. When a school is trying to develop that emotional connection with the community, you know, how do you approach that? Especially, you know, there's. There's always going to come times where maybe your team's just not having that much success. They're not having the best season. You know, how do you go about keeping fans engaged, keeping the community behind you, and making it more than just about wins and losses.
- [06:49]
C
Yeah. So, I mean, we do a really good job of making the events fun. I've been to a lot of gyms and a lot of games where you have a lot of restrictions of certain things. I try to make the events as fun as possible without obviously going overboard, but making those events that they're kind of like, if you don't show up, then you're kind of missing out type of thing. But obviously, you know, when you have success, it breeds a little bit of that, you know, that buzz and that fun. But at the same time, I think that if you have authentic buy in and I think, you know, the community, when they support, they'll support no matter what. So even in the low times, they've. They've done a really good job of coming out and supporting, but making those events fun so that it's kind of a destination. Like, where else would you be Friday night, you know, than going to a football game? Or why not go on a Tuesday to a volleyball game? Because it's going to be fun. There's going to be, you know, we've done. First 50 students get pizza. Like, oh, you know, that just cost me, you know, maybe 150 bucks worth of pizza. But I get 50 kids in the stands and. And they get dinner. So just different things like that.
- [08:02]
A
I like the approach. You know, it's kind of almost like a fomo, like the fear of missing out. Right. And you're making it an overall event. It's not just a sporting event. It's like you just mentioned, like, it's a destination. It's something that people want to be a part of, whether it's just the socialization aspect that they're attending for. They actually want to see what's taking place on the court, the fields, etc. I like that approach because you're. You're keeping the buzz, you're keeping the interest. Regardless of how the team's performing, you're still driving that student interest, which again, it. It comes back to word of mouth, right? Like, the students are like, well, where are you going to be? Oh, you're not going there. Oh, we're all going to be there. And it just really kind of drives that engagement. I like that approach.
- [08:43]
B
You know, I think it takes a truly elite athletic director, Brady, to figure out the fine line between what's fun for the kids and then, like, in a sense, what's appropriate at games, what's fair to the. Of the away team, who's in your gym. So any thoughts on that? Like, where do you draw the line? Like you talked about? First of all, I would have loved to be in that. Just like a cowboy game, listen to some country music. But did they all bring cowbells? And were they putting the cowbells off as somebody's trying to serve? Like, you know what I mean? It's a fine line.
- [09:16]
C
Yeah. No, and I agree. Like, it is that fine line. I, you know, we do a really good job within our district of. I will call it making sure we are clear with our communication, what is appropriate for student sections, Especially making sure I talk to those kids and I say, you know, I go to those front line, you know, the kids on the front row, hey, just so you know, we're not. We're not yelling at the other team. We're not, you know, Making noises when we shouldn't be making noises. Our goal is to boost our kids up, our students. You know, you cheer for your, your peers and don't worry about anything else. And I think that, you know, making sure that you have that clear expectation. And, and there has been time, I mean, every, every AD has gone through it. There has been times that I've had to say, okay, well, you're, you're going to be going, you're going to be leaving, and next time if you act more appropriate, you can come back. If not, then that's just how it has to be. And luckily we haven't had to do that too many times. But I think that I have a good enough relationship with our student body that they know, hey, this is where. This is what we're not going to do. This is what we are going to do. And, and we try to make that, that expectation very clear.
- [10:24]
A
I was just going to say I like that a lot because it ties into a lot of what Scott and I always talk about on these episodes is the communication piece. You know, you're actively communicating the expectations to your student athletes, your students, as well as just anybody that's attending. So you can keep a fun event. But also there's some guardrails in place. So if someone does step out of line, it's not that you haven't told them before what the expectations are. So I think that's an important piece.
- [10:50]
B
Greg, why do I think, like, if Brady has that look and he gives that look over to his student body, they already know it's time to start behaving. I probably doesn't have to say too much, right?
- [11:01]
C
Yeah. They know that if I start standing up and I start inching closer to them, they're kind of on high alert.
- [11:09]
B
Love that. Talk a little bit about social media and strategy and the huge role obviously, that plays in 2025 in our, in our world and obviously in the, in the world that where our kids live, aside from maybe social media and attendance at Games, is there any way that you would say, like, you measure the success of the engagement from your student athletes, from your community? Any other thoughts on how you might measure that success?
- [11:42]
C
With my coaches, I really measure success more on the character and the character that they're building. We do a character curriculum called Character Matters, where each team is going through a character type curriculum with different character qualities and leadership qualities. I think that, you know, if I can walk up to a student athlete and I can say, hey, what's the word of the week? And they can tell me, oh, hey, the word of the week is discipline. I mean, that's a great way to, you know, that's a great way to measure success because it's like, okay, my coaches are really, are really driving that home. You know, they're really driving home discipline this week. And how do we make it so that these students are taking that? Because, you know, odds are, you know, they're going to take that type of thing further than they're going to take their playing career in most cases.
- [12:35]
B
Yeah, I agree. You know, and you said it before too. Like, I think some of the best memories that kids have will be of the event itself, not the result of the event. So, like, if you make it fun, the student athletes will remember a big crowd being there and the people who are in the crowd will remember the experience a heck of a lot more than if they won that specific game themselves. What do you think, Greg?
- [13:03]
A
I agree. You know, I think that it's, it's really just making sure that it's impactful in a positive fashion and you're getting that engagement where, where the kids are having fun, but at the same time you're not just focused on the win and loss. And as Scott just mentioned, I agree with him wholeheartedly. They're going to have more memories about the event itself than the outcome of the, the contest. More often than not for the general student, you know, the players are certainly going to remember, but when you're making that about the event for fun, ensuring that they're having a good time in the right way, it, it's, it's memorable and it, it really just drives future engagement too, because they're like, oh yeah, you know, like, I'm going to the volleyball contest. Because this is what they do every Tuesday or Thursday or whatever you may have. Like if there's theme nights and things like that, it just keeps them engaged and wanting to come back for more. So I think that's a great approach to it. So then, Brady, a little bit curious. You know, we're, we've been focusing a little bit, you know, talking about fall sports, obviously labeling volleyball, talking about football, things like that. From a year round perspective, you know, it's one thing to get everybody amped and excited for Friday Night Lights and early in the year. How do you go about maintaining that momentum throughout winter and spring sports? You know, it can't be easy to keep that engagement up as you start hitting wrestling, tennis, softball, later parts of the year. How do you go about keeping them engaged throughout the year.
- [14:29]
C
I think that for us it, it does, we do a really good job of kind of supporting each other. One thing that I did this year that I haven't done in years past is I gave a pass to all, all athletes, all student athletes get a pass to get into games for free. In years past they've had to come up with five bucks or whatever it was. And I wanted to break a, break down that barrier so that they're able to support each other. And so I, you know, even in the, I've only had one home football game, I'll have my second home football game tonight. But you know, I've seen more basketball kids in the stands in that one game than I had maybe in the past couple of years. Or I see more baseball kids coming in supporting the football team or you know, a volleyball, a volleyball kid, you know, volleyball girl is going to go to the beach event, the boys beach event. So I think that it starts, I mean as you guys know as athletic directors, you know, most of our student athletes are the leaders on campus. You know, they are those, those leaders that, you know, for good or for bad, it could be, you know that I call it the spotlight because the spotlight could be a good thing, the spotlight could be a bad thing. But I think it starts with those kids supporting each other and if the athletes support each other, then the friends of the athletes start to come and then all of a sudden now the football kids are like, well, you know what, those, those basketball kids really supported us during, you know, basketball or during football season. So we need to go and hit up a basketball game or we need to go and go to a wrestling match. And you know, we do have a lot of crossover with, you know, multi sport athletes. So how do we support each other? And then I think that kind of creates that, oh well, if Mr. You know, quarterback one's going to the basketball game, maybe we should go to the basketball game type thing.
- [16:19]
A
I like that. You know, you're kind of tapping into to one, the leadership element that many student athletes are ingrained with. But then two, I saw this when I was in ad. It almost becomes a competition amongst the different sport programs too of like hey, we went all out and we supported this program at this event. What are you doing? And you can kind of tap into a little bit of competitive nature and within that they're going to be driving the individuals to the contest as well. So certainly playing to some of the student athletes strengths when you, when you go about it that way.
- [16:53]
B
Yeah, I mean, I Used the word elite before. I think elite culture also starts at the top. We'll have a lot of athletic directors listening into this podcast. Brady. So you kind of mentioned the leadership of the kids, the student athletes. But I would say, you know, driving a culture is going to start up with the athletic director, the principal of the school, and if you can create a culture where, hey, you know what, a coach of a team ends practice 15 minutes early so that his or her student athletes can go watch the end of a game for another team. And it's something that's important for all the coaches, and they drive the bus. I think you got a great culture at your school, and I would really encourage athletic directors to think about that as they talk to their coaches. I wanted to ask you, like, concrete things that ads can take from this podcast becomes important. So, you know, you mentioned things like a contest to get kids to come out to games or create a fun atmosphere. You mentioned the dress like a cowboy night. What. What are some contests that you've seen that are successful, that can maybe drive some more attendance or engagement?
- [18:16]
C
I've done a couple different things, just competent. Like you said, competitions like kick do a kick at halftime, um, other things like that. Um, I also have a lot of competition within my clubs and organizations on campus that want to do different things, which is. It's a good competition. It's like, hey, when can we do this? And when can we. You know, I saw that the. The dance team got to go do this at the game. When can my group go do this? And. And I think that, like, for example, tonight we. We have what we call Native American Heritage Night, and we have a Native American club on campus that, that we really. That we really like, lean on for a lot of things. And so we're doing a whole. This is our second year in a row we've done a Native American Heritage Night where they're going to have Native American dancers in the pregame, they're going to have drums, they're going to have, you know, different things. So I think that competition, too, and like, just being able to. To kind of showcase the other things that we do on campus kind of connects that culture piece, too. We have a very high population of Native American students, so it's. It's a natural fit with us being the warriors. We have, you know, we had the Native American club design a new helmet that has feathers on it. So we just have a lot of different things where we try to connect those other pieces. So we're not just a sports Just an athletic department getting that. That competition because it's, you know, hey, when can we do the halftime thing? Or when can we do a promotion? Can I. Can I set up a table to talk about Earth Club at one of the events? So it's about connecting all the dots in the grand scheme.
- [19:58]
B
I love that. If you're live streaming the game, I hope you start that live stream a little early so I can tune in and watch the dancing before the game tonight. That'd be awesome.
- [20:08]
C
Yeah, no, that's a good idea.
- [20:11]
A
I really like how you go about kind of showcasing other groups in the campus community too, because talking about. And getting engagement and involvement and as you alluded to, where it's like, hey, how can we get showcased here? And again, going back to. You're really promoting an event that's inclusive of everybody that's on the campus and within that environment. I like that approach a lot because it really does get some groups that maybe weren't traditionally interested in athletics, but realizing that it can be a vehicle and a platform to promote what they're doing. I think that's a tremendous approach to really spotlight things outside of what's taking place on the fields and courts as well.
- [20:50]
C
And you. And they're. They're selling fry bread tonight, so it's a win for everybody.
- [20:54]
A
There you go. There you go. So question for you is going to be in terms of branding, you know, how that impacts fan engagement. You know, episode that we've done recently was a good conversation of branding at the high school level. Definitely curious to get your thoughts and your approach as it relates to branding for your athletic department itself.
- [21:17]
C
Yeah. So when I. When I first took over this job seven years ago, we were kind of all over the place. We were all over the place with logos and themes and uniforms and colors and social media was, you know, hit and miss and all that type of stuff. So. And I actually, I actually presented at the National Ad Conference a couple years ago about this. I think it's. It's about kind of narrowing your focus at the front and just kind of trying to do one or two things really well, becoming, you know, making that brand. So it's ident. You know, you can identify it. We go with the theme rep in the Wood. It's really kind of a silly little saying, but it's. Kids will come up to me and just kind of say it, and it's kind of kind of snowballed from there. You know, we have a little logo that's repping the Wood logo and it's kind of been kind of how we, we do things. It's kind of that brand of, hey, we're representing ourselves, we're representing our community. We're representing, you know, our families, all those, those, those teammates. So we really, we really leaned into that about six, seven years ago. And, and just kind of, that's how we're going to do things here. Because we're not really a. We're not a open enrollment. I mean, we do have open enrollment, but we're. We're more of a community school. So we're about, you know, really building up those kids that do live here and do live in our boundaries, and we want, we want to build those kids up. So, you know, to be at Westwood means a little bit more because, you know, a lot of these kids that, that go here, their, their parents went to Westwood, their grandparents went to Westwood. They live in the community. They've always lived in the community. So we want to make sure we're representing that. And it goes with all the stuff we're doing. And we want the football team to look as good as the cross country team. We want the logos and the colors to match so that when Westwood gets off the bus, that orange and blue is already popping off the bus. And we know that Westwood's there, and we know that Westwood's representing this way. We know that, you know, we're. We're going to have our uniforms that are going to look nice, we're going to have our logos that are going to look nice. We're going to promote our kids on social media. And it really kind of breaks that, you know, those stereotypes of, you know, a lower socioeconomic school. We're going to have nice things, we're going to wear nice colors, we're going to look presentable. And I think it kind of goes into that, like, again, back to that culture piece of that's. That's what our brand is, is just taking care of our own and just, you know, representing our community.
- [23:51]
A
I like that. I think that a big takeaway for me on that is consistency across all, all elements within the department. Right. And. And then also having two to three focal points that you really want to stress and make your, your brand and your athletic department brand all about. And then you can just really dial in and dive deep into those and make sure that they just excel across the board. I think that's a great approach.
- [24:17]
C
Yep. And I want my kids to know that, like, I don't care if you're on the baseball, you're the star of the baseball team or you're the fourth guy off the bench on the girls basketball team. I want them to all feel important. I want them to all feel like, you know, we care about them as an athletic department so that they're not, they're not feeling like, oh, we're the, you know, Coach Pond only likes the football team or Coach Pond only likes the wrestlers or whatever. You know, I want those, even those smaller sports to feel as important with the uniforms and the, the hype and all that type of stuff.
- [24:50]
A
That's fantastic.
- [24:52]
B
Equity opportunity, right? Look. Look great. Feel great too. I think, you know, you kind of said those in, in different ways, but it's so important. All right, Brady, so I'm also a realist, and you sound like you're doing an amazing job as an AD at your school with fan engagement, with branding. Where do you find the time? Do you have any tips on finding the time? Are you using any technology, any tools to assist you in this kind of stuff? Like, how's it all happening?
- [25:23]
C
Yeah, and I'm always looking at new technology, whether it be like facility scheduling software, you know, we have weather. I feel like we use technology in a really productive way. I also feel like I don't know everything. So I'm going to go find people that maybe are an expert in different areas and delegate. Like, I'll be the first to say, I don't know if I don't know something. Like, I'm not afraid to call an AD and say, hey, what do you do? Or like, I utilize some of my coaches on campus to do different things because I, you know, obviously I want to, I trust them and I'll say, hey, can you help me do this? Like, I have a coach that does really good with like taking pictures and things like that. How can I do that? You know, how can you help me with that to take that off my plate? Or, you know, I just hired two student interns to, to do all of the, the kind of the social media pictures and stuff, because I was like, I don't have time to go take all these pictures and put them up on social media. So let's find some students that are passionate about that and, and delegate that to them. So, I mean, yes, the time. The time is the time. And sometimes you feel like you wish you had a 28 hour day. But I try to do my best to delegate and to, to find things to kind of to get other people's expertise so that it's not just me that's pushing Everything. Because I don't think that any AD could do it all by themselves.
- [26:53]
B
Hard to do it. All right. I'm a huge believer that an athletic director's most prized commodity is simply time. Yeah. You know, you tend to run out of it.
- [27:04]
C
Yep. And I have. I have to have a big shout out. So my athletic. My athletic assistant, her name is Deb Lee. She's been at Westwood for over 30 years as. As a. As an athletic assistant. So, like, a lot of these kids, like, they saw her, like, they. She. She was here when their parents were here. But she's the most incredible person ever because she takes so much off my plate that I wish I could give her the title of assistant AD and give her a pay raise because she does so many things. She. She does every single, you know, scorebook on the. On the basketball score book, on the scores table. She does the football spotter on Friday nights, she does volleyball. So, I mean, without people like that, when she retires, I might have to retire, too.
- [27:48]
B
So Deb Lee must be related to my administrative assistant in the past. Julie. They must be related because I. I concur. Right. Like, kind of ran the office. I could admit that now. But incredibly important people will ask me.
- [28:03]
C
They'll say, what do I do? And I say, go ask my boss. So if she gives you the approval, she knows a lot. She does so many things that I don't even probably know all the things she does because she just is so good at just taking things and solving problems. And I'm sure we're in for a world of hurt when we find out all the little things that she was doing behind the scenes.
- [28:28]
A
Well, the. The takeaway for me on that, too, is going to be the. The unsung heroes of athletic departments. The admin assistants certainly don't get enough time in the limelight. And then the other thing that stuck out to me, too, is like, you don't have 28 hours in the day, but sometimes the job feels like it's 28 hours long, doesn't it? So definitely good takeaways on that. You know, before we wrap up, as we've been kind of focusing in on. On fan engagement, branding, etc. For a newer ad that's listening in to this and just kind of thinking about, like, well, man, I don't do any of this. Where do I even begin? For an athletic director that's looking to get serious about fan engagement and. Or branding, what would be your advice to them as to kind of where to start?
- [29:14]
C
I would. I would look around in your, you know, in your districts. I would look around locally and see what's working and what's not working. You know, obviously starting out small is the best idea for me. Like, don't try to do everything all at once. I think that most ads get overwhelmed because they're like, I gotta, I gotta do 10 things before the end of the day when, you know, a lot of the times, especially when you're a first time ad, you just have to look at one. Hey, what can I accomplish today? You know, because we're all drowning. Like, I, I became an ad right around Covid time. So I was like, yeah, like, so everybody literally was, you know, just kind of trying to stay above water. But I, you know, I would just, you know, I would do a really good job of asking. And like, I did this as a coach, I did this as a teacher when I was in the classroom. Like, don't, don't be afraid to, quote, unquote, steal something from another person. Like, if the school next door is doing something really great, then don't be too prideful in trying that yourself. And don't be too prideful of just sticking with it, even if it's not working. You know, there's been a lot of times that I've tried something and it flops. And I'm just like, okay, cool. Like, it flopped. Like, shift gears. Try something different. Or I'll call an ad. I have plenty of ads that I know that I'm like, hey, what are you doing? Like, this is the problem I'm running into. What are you doing to solve that problem? I think it takes a lot of humility to do this job, because you have to. The people that burn out are, number one, the people that try to do everything themselves, and number two, that they're not willing to kind of ask for help. You know, they're not willing to, like, kind of branch out there and, and be humble enough to like, borrow stuff from other people. So I'm constantly looking, you know, I'll look at different things from different schools and I'll be like, hey, that ad is doing this. He's crushing this. Or she's crushing this. Like, I need to call her and I need to say, what are you doing? Like, help me out. Like, I'm a part of our association of athletic directors down here. And we're constantly texting each other going, hey, did you hear what that school is doing? Like, how can we do that? Or how can we present that at our state conference? Or how can we, you know, get that for a new ad workshop. So it's just a constant, you know, evolvement of finding something that works, and then when it stops working, don't. Don't be stubborn enough to keep doing it.
- [31:36]
A
I like the humility approach of it. You know, because I was fortunate enough early in my career, I had a pretty good mentor. And it's ironic that I'm even just going to steal his phrase because I used it throughout my coaching and athletic director career when I would be talking with coaches, I never had an original thought. I always reached out to other people that did it before me, and I just repurposed it for my use and would give credit where credit was due. But I distinctly remember him many years ago when I was asking him, like, how did you even come up with this? And he, He. He blatantly said, he goes, never had an original thought. Just made it my own, rebranded it. Rinse and repeat. And it really. There's. There's truth behind that. Right. Because there's so many people that have come before us and done this. Obviously, in this day and age, the. The problems are a little bit more unique than they were 20, 30, 40 years ago, but the problems are still the problems, and the solutions are still the solutions. Right. So having that humility to reach out to your peers and get some perspective on how they're doing it, that's huge. That's absolutely huge.
- [32:35]
C
Yeah. And there's. I guarantee there's 10 other ads that are going through the same exact thing or have been through the same thing. So it's really good to just lean on people, because even if you don't find the solution, at least you can sympathize and be like, yeah, man, we're hitting a rough patch right now, and it sucks. Have a high five and we'll have a Diet Coke together. When we see each other, you have.
- [32:58]
A
Somebody that you can vent to in confidence in the very least, right?
- [33:01]
C
Yep. Yep. For sure.
- [33:03]
A
This has been a great episode. Brady, I really appreciate you joining us. Scott, do you have anything in closing?
- [33:08]
B
I do. I usually do. Brady, I wondered if you had yet seen what we call fan zone from Play On Sports. Have you gotten wind of that yet at all?
- [33:21]
C
So I've talked a little bit with Kevin about it. Kevin, who's our Play On Sports rep. I've looked at it a little bit. I haven't been able to dig into it a ton, but from what I can see, you know, it's definitely got some tools that. That again, we go going Back to the technology piece. Like, how can it make our lives a little bit easier? I mean, we've done a really good job of integrating. You know, like, we have our Go fan tickets that are attached to our schedules and things like that. So, I mean, anything that we can do to kind of focus stuff in, you know, we're not having to open up 17 apps and programs to get to things. I think technology can definitely be our friend.
- [34:01]
B
Yeah, I agree. And we're excited about it. We'll have to. We'll have to get some more information. The idea about time being such a commodity and being able to, like, crowdsource things like video clips that parents clip their own kids scoring a goal or making a great play and being able to utilize that on your own. Social media, we have some new graphics out, too, that are time savers because there's great companies out there that do social media graphics, but sometimes there's so many, we can kind of wrap everything together and integrate things like the time of the game, the day of the game, and things like that and put them on social media graphics that you could just grab yourself and throw right on to that, to your social media platform. So I think that can be a really big differentiator for athletic directors across the country. We're excited to launch that.
- [34:52]
C
Yep. And there's, like, the way I was looking at it, I mean, there's a lot of. There's a lot of athletic directors and that I've. I've spoken to that are kind of intimidated by the technology. And so, like, the things like this. The fan zone has kind of simplified it from what I've been able to kind of look at it so that it's not, you know, you don't have to have a degree in it to figure it out and that. I think that's the stuff that kind of, you know, especially if an AAD's been around for a while, they're kind of scared of that technology, you know, simplifying the technology so that they're not having to, you know, reinvent the wheel. They can just kind of have a lot of the. The plug and play stuff. So at least that's what I've. I mean, I guess I just gave you guys a good promo right there, so.
- [35:35]
A
Make it intuitive and simple to use. And that's what we strive to do, my friends.
- [35:39]
B
Yep.
- [35:42]
A
Well, Brady, it has been an absolute pleasure having you on and gaining some insights as to how you work with fan engagement, branding, all the elements that are, you know, off the. Off the the Scene product, if you will, for the the contest that you're always putting on. But truly appreciate you giving us some time and some insights today.
- [36:00]
C
Thanks. Thanks for having me.
- [36:03]
B
Great to meet you, Brady. Thank you so much.
- [36:06]
A
Well, thanks again to Brady Pond from Westwood High School down there in Arizona. As always, if you liked what you heard today, please make sure you follow us on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your spot where wherever you get your podcast from. We really appreciate you tuning in today and hope to see you on our future episodes. With that said, from A.D. 360, I'm Greg Vandermade.
- [36:26]
B
Scott Rosenberg.