I had the privilege to do an interview with Nick Konawalik, he is the Assistant Athletic Director for Marketing at the University of North Carolina at Charlottes Athletic Department. This interview took place on August the 15, 2013 in his office. The following is the transcript from this interview.
It is hard to start off a business and do it the right way, well here at UNC Charlotte (49ers) you are doing that in some ways seeing as you are starting a new football program here. So I would like to ask some questions about the start of the new football program…
1. It is often the case that when you are starting a business you have to market the product before you actually have the opportunity to see if you have a considerable amount of people that will buy your product. The same thing occurred with the Charlotte 49ers starting their football program. How did you do this for the football program and you haven’t even played a game yet?
a. Starting from scratch, it’s hard to educate yourself on how to handle it from top to bottom. What are the best ways to do every aspect of building your football program? Is the main question that we asked ourselves, and posed to other universities. And we did a lot of research at different universities to see how they handled their football program. We quickly realized that there is a lot involved you don’t recognize. We did a good background research on what we actually needed to do. This gave us a lot of information to see how we can do things in a way that was best suit our university. Will it live up to the expectations? This is a question we have yet to see the answer to. We think it will work out, and we will have a good idea of that at the end of this first season.
2. It’s hard to get money when starting a business? Has it been the same to start football? Why or why not?
a. There were some challenges to get the $45 million dollars we needed to build our football stadium. Our Football Seating License (FSL) program helped us out tremendously with the development $45 million stadium. The FSL program generated $5 million dollars own its own, although that is not a big chunk of the 45, it still helped out a lot. The majority of the remaining $40 million can from student funding. Students agreed to pay a football fee, on top of their athletic fee for their tuition. The administration was faced with the task of presenting this to the students, faculty, staff, and community. Ultimately it was something that everyone wanted to see happen and it did. The administration made it easier and as pain free as possible. The education process was a big part of helping do this the right way, that is the education of not only us administrators but everyone that wanted to be apart of this.
3. How hard is it to market a product to students that is free to them? In other words how do you get them excited to come out to a game they don’t actually have to?
a. It has been pretty challenging to get the students of the university to come out to basketball games. Especially since recently we have really been struggling in the wins and loss columns in the eyes of our fans that are more used to the success in our past. In years past, the success of the basketball team transitioned into more students wanting to come out and enjoy the games. Not only for basketball, but also to all of our other sports. Hoping to create that same atmosphere at all games. Now that we have football, it is creating even more excitement. The students are finally getting the sport that they want and it is generating more excitement that they are using to attend other sports until the football team actually has its first game this year August 31. This past spring we had our first annual Football Spring game, and it was big! 5,000 students went on line to request their tickets for the game. No more than 3,000 had ever done this process in the past. Football really helps to create a since of unity. Football will actually help us to keep some of the students on campus on the weekends now. Because the school class schedules allows for students to have the opportunity to leave campus on the weekends. Now we have a football game on Saturdays that will keep the students here. And hopefully them staying on Saturdays in the fall will cause them to do so more through out the school year.
4. What is your most effective marketing technique for students? For the fans?
a. Relationship marketing is the best thing for them. People know you for being a student-athlete. The people that are at the games are those same people that you have classes with, you eat with, and you hang out with. So what we tell our students is for them to actually engage with their fellow classmates. Don’t be the athletes that walk around all of the time with your head down or with headphones on. Be a member of the student body. And in return they will come out and support you at your games. We don’t just say this so that it can make our job easier, but we want the student-athletes to have a good experience at the games and to enjoy their time here at UNCC. This is better accomplished with more students in the stands. People at games are people we are friends with. We also use social media, it is another one of our effective methods. The generation of students now have so much pulling at them that telling them there is a game coming up in a week really doesn’t phase them. But if we send out a picture on a social media site the day of the game, they all come “buzzing.” This has been a big part of what we do with the current view of students and their scheduling habits.
5. How has social media changed your job?
a. Well I actually started the first facebook page at UNCC. But it hasn’t really changed my job as much as you think it would. We just have an increased focus on it. We hand out shirts to kids for liking us on Facebook. This is because we want them to take pictures wearing the shirts and catch the attention of kids. Then when kids start asking how can they get a similar shirt they either come to us or come to a game. Along with that if they take pictures in our shirt it is free marketing on social media sites. It is very helpful for us, but does not really change what we do.
6. How do you expect for things to change once you have a season under your belt?
a. This season will be a learning process. We will really find out exactly what works and what doesn’t. When the season comes to an end we will evaluate all that we do and come up with a better way to do things. Right now we are really just figuring things out as we go, because we do not know what we are doing to be honest. So it will be interesting. Was our time lines right? How was our game day experience? Were our time lines accurate? We will figure out all of these and plan accordingly for years to come.
7. How do you obtain media coverage for UNCC?
a. Media relations do a great job getting in touch with the local media for our athletic department. We hold media receptions for the public to come and mingle with our coaches and get to know our players. When they have the opportunity to meet with them and interact with them they really end up liking them and enjoying their company. We are in a professional market place, so we have to compete with professional teams. One thing that we try to do is constantly remind them that we are the top institution in Charlotte. And although we do have these teams to compete with, we are unique to this market place. Professional games have a different atmosphere than we have. We have thousands of rowdy students at our games that are feeding the atmosphere and make it more enjoyable to all. It is a different twist that a professional team cannot sell. And have to sell it through our commercials and portray it in those commercials. We got students and we got pride! That was what people want and why people come!
8. Do you agree that the college sports industry is turning into a business? Why or why not?
a. I do agree it is turning into a business. You could see the shift a while back. You can see that athletic departments are turning away from selecting athletic directors that were coaches previously and turning to guys that worked in tickets, development, and marketing. Athletic departments are viewed as revenue generating opportunities for universities, and they want to capitalize off of it. When you look in the stores and market places you see products representing the local colleges or popular colleges. If you can have a successful athletic department then you get your school logo out in the public eye more. The bowl games that teams play in generate revenue for conferences, universities, their sponsors, and the coaches (contracts). Hopefully from all of the revenue we generate from all of this we can use it to enhance the student-athletes experience in the process as well as the university. We want as many people at their sporting events as possible. You are doing all of that so that when the students run onto the field that it is a good one.
9. What is one thing you learned here that has really stuck out to you?
a. One thing that has really stuck to me is moving and flowing with transitions. In college athletics there is always a lot of turn over and always people coming and going. What you have to do is work the best you can with the people you have. And when a change happens you just flow with it and adjust to the new personnel and keep it moving. You must learn and manage the personalities that you have when they are there
10. What is it like to serve on the board of directors for NACMA (National Association of Collegiate Marketing Administrators)? What exactly do you have to do? And how did you get appointed to this position?
a. I started out getting involved when I was working at Princeton University in their athletic department and went to the NACMA convention. The people that I met there really inspired me and influenced me to get involved. We come together and talk about the troubles we have at these conventions and it helps you to see that you aren’t alone. It also helps you by learning what others do to solve your problems. So you take those things that you learn and apply them at your university. I got to my current position by volunteering for numerous things, then doing some work on some committees, then I was nominated and elected to the board. They preach to you that it is not something that you just put on your resume, but it is a tool to be used to enhance the college athletic world for everyone. We have several committees on our board that we rotate and serve on.
