Rolling Out had the opportunity to speak to Stephen Jones, the chief operating officer, executive vice president and director of player personnel with “America’s Team,” the Dallas Cowboys of the National Football League. One of the first things we spoke about were the many Cowboys’ fans in New York City.
“It’s always acquainted to father and sons watching the game. You want to have a little competition, so the father picks one team, son picks the other. So, I think what happened over the years were those Giant fans had sons that wanted to compete against their dads and then watching the Giants-Cowboys games, they started just becoming Cowboy fans. The Cowboys happen to win a game or two and they had a few players and personalities that they liked. I’ve heard people say, ‘I was rooting against my dad and then all of a sudden, I started rooting for the Cowboys for that one game and next thing you know, I like them.’ So, it’s interesting how those things evolve.” Something tells me this happened in a lot of cities across the nation outside of Dallas.
The NFL is the most successful sport in the country, but with innovations in home viewing of games, franchises must continue to improve the in-game experience for those who choose to purchase tickets. Jones talked about some of those challenges.
“I think the biggest thing you have is trying to keep the fans focused on what’s (happening) on the field. We have a lot of great amenities for our fans and we want to continue to have those, but as we mentioned, the Red Zone (channel) tends to quiet the stadium because they get focused on something else rather than the business at hand. So that’s always going to be our challenge. The smart phone, the more we give them the connectivity which they want and we need to do, well you see fans all throughout sitting there looking at their phones rather than what’s (happening) on the field. I think we will be smart enough to overcome that. I think there’s proper places for our fans to take the break and use their smart phones and look at the Red Zone on the video board and, at the same time, our producers of our game will get them focused on the task at hand in terms of creating a great home field advantage.”
Innovation has led to the success of the NFL, and the league and its teams are always looking for ways to expand the brand. “I think if we don’t keep our eyes open, we’re missing things. Obviously the networks, they have really smart people that produce these games. They’ve really got a lot of experience. There’s people who produced great movies that go on to produce these games and if we don’t look at what they’re after in terms of the content, then we’re going to miss out. I think anything is fair game from what’s (happening) on the field, to more interviews on the sidelines. I think all these things we have to take a look at. It doesn’t necessarily mean we have to follow through with them, but we certainly need to really go over what the consequences are, the unintended consequences and be very open minded to giving the fans the type of content that they want. We can’t ever take a fan for granted. Although our game, like some of the guys have mentioned, the producers from the network may be bulletproof right now, that’s today, not tomorrow. So, if we want to continue to have the type of product that our fans expect, that we expect to have, that our network partners expect us to have, then we have to continue to be innovative and cutting edge.”
