Name: Rob Higgins
Position: Tampa Bay Sports Commission Exec Dir
Age: 36
Where I’m from: Tampa
Where I call home: Tampa
Focusing on right now: The '15 NCAA women’s Final Four, the '16 NCAA men’s Frozen Four and the '17 CFP National Championship.
Best advice: We have a core belief here to make every day gameday. We’re going to treat every single day, whether we have an event here or not, like we have an event here. We try to pour a lot of energy and effort into every day. Not taking a day for granted and maximizing each day to its fullest potential.
A must for a new hire: We really want a team full of chess players versus chess pieces. We want folks who can kind of be proactive critical thinkers who can think several moves ahead rather than being reactionary. If we had a few members who were only in the business of reacting, we don’t think their results would be great.
Exec I admire the most: One executive we’ve studied as a company who we’re a huge fan of is KEVIN PLANK. He’s got some great core principles that we’ve incorporated into our company. They’re an incredible brand to try to emulate in terms of the passion and direction that they have. We deal with a lot of his team members and through them I think we’re able to see just how great of a leader he is.
Best book I’ve read this year: I haven’t had a chance to really sit down and read with everything going on. I was given a book recently by a friend of ours, BILL SUTTON, called “Thinking In New Boxes.” That’s one on my to-do list for sure. Anything he recommends I’m sure is a great one.
First thing in the morning: Before I hit e-mail I always try to take some time and look at Twitter, specifically the hashtags #sportsbiz and #smsports. Those are often great opportunities to catch up on what a lot of the talented folks in our industry are doing. I usually give that a look first thing and it’s helped to bring me up to speed on the new things in our industry.
Talking tech: I just bought the iPhone 6. I’m still learning the technology but I’m catching on. A local tech company that is doing some awesome things from a national base is Thuzi. We’ve been fortunate enough to work with them -- they’ve been doing a lot with sponsorship and social media integration. We’re trying to integrate a lot of the work they’re doing into some of our upcoming events.
Must have music: I usually stick to top 40, but often times I’ll listen to sports talk radio when I’m in the car or have the chance to go to the gym to hear what’s going on. I don’t listen to a ton of music. That’s always been the trend for me.
Food for thought: Bern's Steak House is just an incredible longtime jewel in Tampa. Then there’s a new restaurant call Ulele that’s fantastic. They’re owned by families that have been incredible to our community. Not only is the food great but it’s also awesome to be able to support individuals who have been treasures to our community.
How I unwind: I love spending time with my family. We have an 8-year-old son and a 10-year-old daughter who are really active in sports. There’s nothing better than getting a chance to go to one of their games and spend time with them. That’s definitely one of my favorite activities.
Day in the life: Working with several different community partners helped put the bid together for the CFP and now that we’ve been awarded it, we’ll work with the CFP staff to help execute the event. We’re going out to Dallas to get an idea for how they’re handling it. We want to see some of their preparations for it. We’ll have a delegation on the ground during the actual event looking at how they execute it. We’ll do the same thing with the 2016 event in Phoenix to help get ready for ’17.
