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Weekend Plans With Minnesota United VP Bryant Pfeiffer

Pheiffer joined Minnesota United in '17 after spending 10 years working in the MLS league officebryant pfeiffer

Saturday is the MLS home opener for Minnesota United, which means St. Patrick's Day plans for Senior VP/Sales & Strategy BRYANT PFEIFFER will naturally revolve around the game against the Fire at TCF Bank Stadium. Pfeiffer, who joined the club last May after more than 10 years at the MLS league office, is helping take the lead on not only transitioning the team into its future home at Allianz Field, but also making sure it capitalizes on a the inaugural season by continuing to establish the club's footing with fans. Pfeiffer spoke to THE DAILY about the club's aspirations in Year 2, how he prepares for the season opener and how he'll celebrate once the match is in the books. 

BALANCING ACT: We have a massive amount of preparation for Saturday around organizing our staff for game-day duties, and then simultaneously we have another significant workstream going towards our move to Allianz in ’19. We’re going through the process right now where we’re relocating season-ticket holders to their seat locations at the new field. About 10 days ago, we opened up an experience center inside our offices that showcases what it will be like at the new venue. Right now our staff has given over 220 tours just in the last week-and-a-half. It’s been crazy, we’re wearing a lot of hats, and Saturday we’re expecting a standing-room only crowd. This comes after last weekend when a few of us, including CEO CHRIS WRIGHT, went down with the team to our road game in Orlando. We spent two days meeting with Orlando City’s execs to get a real behind-the-scenes tour of their stadium to get some late insight on how they made it work.

OPEN THE DOORS: Saturday I’ll try to get up before the day really gets going and play some pickup soccer with my local men’s league group at 7:00am. Then it’s down to the stadium. We have a huge pre-match reception where we’re gonna have over 200 guests -- from part of our ownership group, sponsors, prospective partners, local execs from the other sports teams in town -- to properly kick off the season. Then our supporters are facilitating a pre-game march to the match and we have one of our partners, Surly Brewing, doing a morning brunch hospitality event, which is very popular. That takes us into the 1:00pm kickoff.

GAMEDAY ROUTINE: In between visiting all these receptions pregame and meeting with fans in the concourses, I’ll be trying to say hello to my family a little bit at some point to check in. We’re anticipating temperatures of about 50 degrees and sunny, which is always important to note this time of year in Minnesota, because last year, we had our famous snow blizzard for over 30,000 fans at our inaugural MLS game. Hopefully we get our second straight win and then we’ll have a postgame party scheduled for our staff to celebrate. Then I’m racing home as I’ve got twins who are turning 13 this weekend. My son BRYCE has his party Saturday night at the house and that will probably feature plenty of NCAA Tournament viewing with his buddies. Sunday, my daughter LINDSAY will have all her friends over to celebrate, and I’ll again be sneaking peaks at my bracket during that as well.  

MINNESOTA SPORTS SCENE: It's a good time for us because there is just a huge carryover in Minnesota sports right now. The Vikings had such a memorable playoff win over the Saints, then we went right into Minneapolis hosting the Super Bowl, where they really transformed the city into a winter wonderland. Now we look at our other friends in town with the T’Wolves and Wild contending for playoff spots and there's good vibes all across the state.

IN THE MEANTIME: When there is free time, I love to get a workout in and especially play either pick-up basketball or soccer. I’m still game to chase some of the young guys around. Outside of that it's really just about spending time with my family any time I can. 

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