4 Reasons I Chose Factoreal

Born and Raised in Baton Rouge, LA, I grew up playing sports. Playing sports year-round is just what you did. Football and basketball were the sports I loved and played all through high school. I was even fortunate enough to have the chance to play a year of college football at Nicholls State University in Thibodaux, LA. After my first season at Nicholls I quickly realized being a professional athlete just wasn't in my DNA but I knew I wanted to be a professional in the sports industry. Let's be honest...I was not the best student and knew I needed to study something sports related to keep my attention and that's when I discovered Sport Management at Southeastern Louisiana University where I ultimately ended up graduating from in 2005.

My professional sports career started as an Inside Sales Executive for the Arizona Coyotes (Formerly the Phoenix Coyotes) of the National Hockey League. I moved from the swamps of Louisiana to the desert of Arizona to sell tickets for the worst team in the NHL. Did I mention we were selling ICE hockey in the desert? There I learned how to deal with rejection...a lot of it! "No" was a common theme at the end of most of my sales calls for the Coyotes. Another common theme was "Who?"...almost as if they didn't even know their city had a NHL team. All that being said, I met some extremely influential people at the Coyotes. Multiple of my young Managers at the time are now high ranking executives throughout the sports industry. I learned invaluable lessons from them and my peers at the Coyotes and found my mentors along the way. I am thankful for my time there.

My next stop was a little closer to home with the Houston Rockets. I made a lateral move at the time but in the long run it was the right move. I moved to Houston to work for one of my mentors. At first my experience in Phoenix came in handy because in Houston we were selling a below average, non playoff team with two superstars, Yao Ming & Tracy McGrady, on their way out. In 2009 that all changed when the Rockets traded for future MVP, James Harden. The Rockets went on a 9 year run where the team was loaded with superstars, all stars, and MVP's. Winning become the norm and so did massive revenue jumps for the organization. I was fortunate to have overseen the 5 highest revenue producing seasons in franchise history. I learned a ton in my 12 years at the Rockets. I experienced the craziness of free agency and trade deadlines and the excitement of a game 7 in the Western Conference Finals. I feel good about my time with the Rockets but after 12 years it was time to test new waters!!

After 15 years on the team side of sports, going from Sales Rep to Director, I decided it was time to make the jump to the marketing tech SaaS side. Factoreal was the perfect blend of my years of experience on the team side and my passion for fan engagement. As my role with the Rockets evolved, I become increasingly aware how important it was to have an efficient fan engagement plan.

4 Reasons I Chose Factoreal

• Incredible opportunity to build and grow with an innovative company.
• Technology in the sports space is a rising need and teams are looking for solutions like Factoreal.
• Being able to help teams build their fanbase, in venue and digitally, to maximize impact on revenue generation, community efforts, brand, market penetration.
• The thrill of a new challenge that combines my years of experience on the team side and passion for fan engagement.

As I'm finishing this article, I am wrapping up my first day on the job with Factoreal. We are a young company with a lot of potential. Our team is full of creative, energetic, big-picture thinkers ready to take the sports industry by storm!!

Let's connect! My email is [email protected] or send me a LinkedIn message.