CMAT INTERNSHIP 495

Becoming a Pro at Ticket Sales

Kayd Ruggles

Summer 2019
Kayd Ruggles

Dr. Burns

Communications 495

2 August 2019

Becoming a Pro at Ticket Sales

How is a soon-to-be graduated college student supposed to have any idea what they want

to do for their next 40-50 years? Deciding upon your first job takes a strenuous amount of

thought and consideration, but even just thinking it over will not give you a clear idea as to if you

will be content with your choice 10 years down the road. Fortunately for me, I was able to

complete a summer internship in one of the career fields that I have long been considering. One

thing that I’ve always known about myself is that I want to go into sales, the question was only,

what exactly do I want to be selling? For my summer internship I was able to get extensive

experience in ticket sales for one of the founding teams of Major League Lacrosse, the

Chesapeake Bayhawks. My internship related to communication in many ways, primarily

through verbal communication either on the phone or face-to-face with people while canvassing

businesses in Downtown Annapolis. Through the completion of my internship, I have gained

insight that has led me to the belief that I would one day like to pursue a career in ticket sales for

a professional sports team because I enjoyed selling something I have a true passion for, the

sports industry is one of the most lucrative businesses in the world, and I was encouraged by the

culture and environment that I worked in this summer with the Bayhawks.

A lesson that I learned at a young age in regards to my future career was “find something

you really enjoy and pursue it to the greatest extent”. Being that sports id one of my biggest

passions, pursuing a career in ticket sales for a professional sports team would allow me to have
a fulfilling career. There are many reasons why I would have a fulfilling career in professional

sports ticket sales, reason number one being that I found myself to be extremely comfortable

walking up to strangers and trying to sell them tickets. Something that I did on a weekly basis

throughout the summer was go to Downtown Annapolis with the goal of selling tickets to the

locals and the tourist visiting the city. A group of interns and I would go down with items such

as game fliers, season schedules, free t-shirts, koozie’s, keychains and other free items hoping to

attract people who’ve never been to an MLL game. While doing this, I felt as though I was the

most adapt out of the other interns at being able to speak comfortably and delivering a great sales

pitch. Because sports are second nature to me, speaking about them is too. Not only was I

adequate at face-to-face selling, I also excelled as the summer continued with cold calling

customers. One of the downsides of the Bayhawks organization is that the front office has

limited workers, especially in the ticket sales department. Because of this I was never actually

shown an example of how a cold call should be conducted, or even given a script of what I

should be saying. My first few calls I made were a little rocky, not knowing what to say and

having zero experience in sales made anxious that I may not be good at this. But as the

internship progressed, so to did my ability to call random people and try to sell them tickets to a

sports team they may not have even heard of. It wasn’t until my supervisor gave me better leads,

previous ticket buyers from the 2018 season, that I started having success in making sales.

Surprisingly a large number of people living in the Annapolis area did not know they had a MLL

team just down the street, so selling to those people was much more difficult. Once I got a list of

people who were not only aware of the Bayhawks, but had even come to a game in the past, I

began to gain some confidence. Having confidence on the phones had an immediate impact on

the sales I was making, and once I started to make sales and feel the satisfaction of making my
organization money, it became addicting. So much so that I was making up to 90 cold calls a

day. One of the biggest surprises I had about the ticket sales field is that cold calls are still one

of the most effective ways to sell tickets. With the use of technology and companies like

Stubhub, I thought the majority of sales would be done online. But when looking into how NFL

teams like the Redskins sell tickets, employees are still required to cold call customers. Another

reason why ticket sales will lead to a high level of job satisfaction is that I was able to come up

with a number of great ideas that could one day benefit the team. In my career I would get more

enjoyment out of marketing a sports team that any other type of business. I enjoyed coming up

with promotions and other ideas to try and get people to buy tickets, or to upgrade their tickets to

more expensive ones. One idea that I proposed to my supervisor in a meeting was doing a seat

upgrade during the game, similar to what other professional sports teams do. The idea was that

customers would have the buy a “hawks nest” ticket, which is a $5 upcharge from the general

admission ticket, and you would be entered into a chance to have your seats upgraded to club

level at the end of the first quarter of the game. This would give fans the opportunity to sit in

$70 seats for only $20 if they were to win the drawing. I also suggested the idea of having a

student discount, knowing how cheap my friends and I were in college, people my age would be

more likely to come to a game if they could save a few dollars on their tickets. The main reason

I was able to create solid ideas is because of my knowledge and experience with sports. I have

seen what other professional sports teams have done to sell tickets and made them applicable to

the Bayhawks. My experience selling tickets this summer opened up my eyes to the reality of

what it is like to work for a pro sports team. I learned many things, such as how to handle being

rejected by countless customers without being discouraged. I learned other things like unique

ways teams market themselves, like attending youth sports tournaments and selling tickets to
families attending. But the best part about learning all of these things, was that they were things

I wanted to learn, and I have a lot of fun learning them. This all leads back to the understanding

that because of this internship I’d like to pursue a career in ticket sales because sports are my

passion, and it will undoubtedly lead to a happy and fulfilling career.

Finding a career that leads to happiness is goal number one for me when it comes to my

job search, but I also want to be sure I am entering an industry that is not only strong, but

thriving and continuing to grow. The 2018 Nielsen ratings show that six of the top ten most

watched programs of the year were football games, with the Winter Olympics also coming in at

sixth on the list (Levin, 2018). This shows that people still find sports to be the most intriguing

thing on television, and most likely always will. Not only would entering the sports industry be

a wise decision because of the popularity of sports in the United States, but also because of the

impact sports have all over the World. According to Business Wire, “the global sports market

reached a value of nearly $488.5 billion in 2018, having grown at a compound 4.3% since 2014”

(Business Wire, 2019). With sports continuing to expand globally, sports teams from every

country and every sport will need to have ticket sales specialist to fill their stadiums with fans.

This could give me the opportunity to experience other parts of the world while still making the

center of my career sports. The thing that would excited me the most if I were to be offered a job

by the Bayhawks is their potential to grow not only the team, but to expand the sport of lacrosse

in general. Lacrosse in considered to be one of the fasted growing sports in the entire country,

opening up doors to young athletes in almost every state. In fact, the number of NCAA lacrosse

teams has doubled since 2001, and the number of lacrosse student athletes has gone from 12,022

to 24,821 in the same time span (nvlax, 2016). The Bayhawks and the rest of the MLL have a
responsibility to spread the game so that it can one day compete with leagues like the NFL and

NBA.

While the sport of lacrosse has been growing at a rapid pace, the MLL is still rather

small, as there are only six teams that make up the entire league. Because of this the front office

of teams like the Bayhawks is rather small, which is something I did not think I would enjoy, but

I was surprised when I found this work environment to suit me well. As one of my superiors in

the ticket sales department said “its like working in a fish-bowl, you can be seen and heard by

everyone in the office at all times”. The main reason I found this environment friendly to work

in is because of the culture that the people in the organization have created. I found all of my co-

workers to be laid back at the right times, and hard workers when they needed to be. People

from all sections of the organization gelled well, from the operations team, to the digital media

crew, everyone is aware that the common goal is to fill the stadium and create the best game day

experience for the fans. Another benefit to the organization being small is that most of the

employees have a general idea of how everything is done throughout the office. Which was nice

in my first few days because any questions that I had could be answered by almost anyone, other

than the other interns. The office being small also made it easy to be recognized by my co-

workers for doing things such as making sales. My supervisor made sure that the interns were

given positive feedback and encouragement for successful cold calls, which gave me and the

other interns more confidence to keep trying, even if the last 10 calls all went poorly. The fact

that everyone could hear if someone made a sale created a sense of competition between the

interns because we all wanted to be the one to have the other people in the office congratulate us

and give us credit. The first few days of cold calling not many sales were made, but once we

started having success, it became much more enjoyable. Another intern and I would rotate back
and forth on the same phone keeping track of who had the most tickets sold throughout the

summer, I beat him handily. As interns, we could not gather any sort of information pertaining

to a customer’s credit card, so we would have to hand off our customers to a full time Bayhawks

employee, but we were still given the credit for making the sale. The thing that I found the

coolest about the culture of the Bayhawks is that there is a hierarchy in the organization but

because of the size of it, I was working in the office with the President and Owner of team

multiple times a week. The owner of the team, Brendan Kelly, is a very personable, easy going

guy. He treats everyone in his organization with the same respect he expects us to give him,

which makes it more enjoyable to work for him. Dave Cottle, who is a Salisbury alum, is the

head coach of the team, and he too would come visit the office on a weekly basis to check in

with everyone and tell a few jokes. Knowing that working for a lot of pro sports teams the ticket

sales intern most likely would never meet the owner, I took the opportunity to say hello to Mr.

Kelly every time I had the opportunity to. Because of how friendly and hardworking the people I

worked with throughout my internship were I feel more encouraged to enter the professional

sports industry, specifically in ticket sales.

While there were countless things that I experienced this summer that led me to the belief

that I would want to work for a pro sports team, there were also some things that I thought

needed to be changed or improved. As I stated previously, I enjoyed the fact that the

organization is rather small because I got to work with people throughout all levels of the

organization, but the Bayhawks front office might be too small. The most noticeable change that

I think the Bayhawks need to do is add a few more employees to each part of the organization.

Because I worked for ticket sales I can confidently say that my supervisor had way too many

responsibilities and without the sales interns, she probably would not be able to get everything
accomplished. She was not only in charge of all ticket sales, but she also had the task of booking

sponsorships and entertainers for our pregame tailgates. Besides the interns, there were only two

people in charge of trying to sell nearly 4,000 tickets per home game. I personally feel that the

team relies too much on their unpaid interns, and should invest in full time employees to ensure

they have skilled and committed worker’s year round, not just in the summer. Another weakness

I found within the organization is there engagement on their social media pages like Instagram.

It is a well known fact the social media can be one of the biggest assets to a company if it is

being run properly. The Bayhawks Instagram account as 25.8k followers but average around

250-350 likes on each of their posts. To me this shows that the social media department needs to

create better content that is more engaging to the people following the page. The most

concerning thing that I came across this summer was the overwhelming number of people who

were from Annapolis who were not aware of the Bayhawks. Maryland is known to be the hotbed

of lacrosse throughout all of the United States, but when people in the state where lacrosse is the

most popular are unaware of a professional league, there is an issue. When I would encounter

someone like this, they were always pleasantly surprised to know that they could go watch the

highest level of the sport in a venue as amazing as Navy Stadium. This goes to show that the

team needs to do a better job of marketing themselves. In addition to the Bayahwks themselves,

the entire MLL needs to do a better job of marketing, especially because of the threat of their

new competitor, the Premiere Lacrosse League which has a huge presence on social media and

has locked up a television deal with NBC. In order to ensure that the MLL remains the top

league for professional lacrosse they need to be reaching a bigger audience nation wide,

otherwise the PLL will continue to grow and eventually surpass the MLL. Something that I felt

disappointment in was being able to explain why the MLL is better than the PLL when it comes
to the better Pro lacrosse league. I had many young athletes and their parents ask “why is the

PLL so much better” and I never felt I gave an answer that left the person believing that the MLL

is superior. I truly believe that ramping up the leagues social media and potentially paying to

advertise on Instagram and Twitter will lead to and increase in viewership across the entire

league. Other improvements I think the organization could make would be to have more

extensive training for all of the interns, including the game-day operations staff. There were

many instances where the interns would have no idea what to do and I felt it was because not

everything was explained in full detail. Even though I was a ticket sales intern, after games I

would have to help breakdown the entire field, but without being told how to do it and where to

put everything, I found myself to be lost at times. This goes back to my previous point that I

think the Bayhawks would benefit greatly from hiring more full time employees to ensure they

always have enough workers and to be sure those workers know exactly what they should be

doing.

At the start of my internship I had nerves about being able to effectively sell tickets and

be a contributing part of the Bayhawks front office, but with the knowledge and experience I

have gained, I go into the office everyday with the confidence that I can make an impact. With

the encouragement us interns received on daily basis, it made doing something as boring as cold

calls somewhat fun. My love and passion for sports is what drew me to the internship, and I am

grateful the Bayhawks gave me the opportunity to get an idea of what working for a professional

sports team is like. Because of this internship I will know be considering a full time position

either with the Bayhawks or another pro sports team in a ticket sales position because I love

sports with a passion, I am excited about where the sport of lacrosse is headed in the future, and I

really enjoyed being surrounded by co-workers who share the same passion I do for all sports.
 References

Lacrosse Growth. (n.d.). Retrieved August 5, 2019, from

https://www.nvlax.org/page/show/3277295-lacrosse-growth-news-on-the-growth-of-the-sport

Levin, G. (2018, December 17). 2018 in review: The year's most popular TV shows according to

Nielsen. Retrieved August 5, 2019, from

https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/tv/2018/12/17/2018-review-nielsen-ranks-years-most-

popular-tv-shows/2339279002/

Sports - $614 Billion Global Market Opportunities & Strategies to 2022 -

ResearchAndMarkets.com. (2019, May 14). Retrieved August 5, 2019, from

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20190514005472/en/Sports---614-Billion-Global-

Market-Opportunities