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Sharks score by adding to biz team

When John Tortora was promoted to San Jose Sharks COO in June 2013, one of the first things he aimed to address was that the team’s business side, in his mind, was not performing at a level that matched the club’s on-ice success.

The Sharks had been a consistent playoff participant across the past decade, but off the ice, the numbers had started to slip. Tortora, who came to the team in 2011, attributed the decline to the team being understaffed.

San Jose’s trip to the Stanley Cup Final this year is boosting the club’s sales.
Photo by: AP IMAGES
Following San Jose’s first-round playoff exit in 2014, he approached Sharks owner Hasso Plattner with a plan.
“I really just felt we were understaffed on all sales and services, whether it was corporate partnerships, ticket sales or suites,” Tortora said. “We just really needed to increase our people resources.”

Plattner agreed, and he greenlit roughly $3 million to $4 million in investments for tackling the issues at hand.
Tortora said some of the changes were simple, such as surveying season-ticket holders and asking what they liked and didn’t like. That resulted in changes to the music that’s played at SAP Center, including the team’s goal song, and adding an organist. Still, it was something the Sharks hadn’t done before.

TORTORA
HAMPSTEN
The Sharks also hired former Charlotte Hornets executive Flavil Hampsten (most recently senior vice president of sales and database marketing for the club) as their executive vice president and chief sales and marketing officer to work under Tortora, a new position for the team.

One of the main initiatives Tortora and Hampsten introduced this past season is what they call Sharks 365, which came about after surveys showed that season-ticket holders didn’t care as much about on-ice performance as they did about how they felt they were being treated. The program, designed for full-season-ticket holders, adds a year-round membership component for the fans, including discounts on merchandise, early entry to games, food and beverage credits, and invitations to events like player forums and parties.

The team also decided to go out with its season-ticket renewal effort this year earlier than it has in the past, starting in January — perhaps a bold choice considering the Sharks had missed the playoffs for the first time in 10 years last season and were not in a playoff position at that point in time as well.

The decision, however, paid off, and the team saw an 84 percent renewal rate after its first deadline this year, 18 percentage points better than last year’s initial date later in the season. The team now has more than 11,000 season-ticket holders, aiming to build back up to the 14,000 it had three seasons ago.

Tortora said this year’s Stanley Cup Final run is helping, with new accounts heavily outpacing last year’s total. The larger sales staff also allows for pursuit of additional new business opportunities during the playoff run, as well.

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