When the 2014 season was in the books, Jacksonville Jaguars brass sat down to look at how well the team engaged fans over the year.
That included reviewing tickets sold, what type and to whom. What Jaguars staff found was a lack of a key demographic.
“We underserved the business community,” said Chad Johnson, Jaguars senior vice president of sales.
Typically, Johnson said, corporate, business and hospitality account represent a 30 percent share for teams across the league. For the Jaguars, it’s 20 percent.
“We told ourselves it’s an opportunity for growth,” said Johnson, “and what can we do about it?”
Enter Jaguars Black, a new program to bolster the business offerings the team launched last year as part of its Jags 365 initiative. That three-pronged approach included a corporate offering, which provided networking events, promotion on the team’s website and a trade show at EverBank Field.
Jaguars Black takes it up a notch, in what Johnson calls the “first of its kind in sports.”
The concept includes year-round hospitality consultants to guide business owners on how to use the team as a business tool. That can include planning out custom game-day experiences for clients the businesses are trying to impress.
Johnson said an example could be sending the CEO of a business’s biggest clients to a game with their family, allowing them on the sidelines for pictures, a locker room tour or having a gift dropped off to them in the stands.
“We want to make it more than just coming to a game,” said Johnson. “We want to create that ‘wow’ moment.”
There will be more opportunities for networking throughout the year at power lunches and events like “chalk talks” with coaches and staff.
But the “meat and potatoes” of Jaguars Black, Johnson said, is a personalized “playbook” participants receive. Inside are all the components of the program, along with a tracking system that will provide feedback from the business’ clients to show what type of impression the experience made.
The hospitality consultants work one-on-one with business owners on facets like ticket allocation, custom invitations and the like.
From there, it’s about customizing an experience for each client — maybe through one of the newer seating options that came with EverBank Field improvements.
“Any time you’re spending your hard-earned dollars, you expect to see a return on investment,” Johnson said.
Each person in the Jaguars Black program also is in the “Black Book” business directory that will be available for fans.
Johnson said there were 12 people in ticket sales and servicing environments when he arrived in 2012. Now, it’s closer to 40, many trained to handle clients in fields such as manufacturing, legal and financial services.
“We’ve changed the ways in which it’s done,” he said. “It’s no longer just making phone calls to sell tickets.”
The extras for Jaguars Black aren’t free, though. But as Johnson said, a one-person consulting firm might want to become involved for $1,000 and have seats to a couple of games.
Other larger businesses might want to add more.
“It’s like going to a restaurant,” he said. “You don’t go and come back with a ‘W’ or an ‘L’. You go for that certain experience … and that’s what we’re trying to do.”
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