Val Ackerman, BIG EAST Commissioner
BIG EAST Hosts External Operations Workshop In Chicago
President and COO of the Golden State Warriors, Rick Welts, will serve as the featured speaker at the two-day event.
NEW YORK – In conjunction with its annual July meeting of the league’s Directors of Athletics, the BIG EAST Conference will host an External Operations Workshop for leading administrators from its ten member schools to build on the successes of the last five years and help shape the direction of the conference’s business operations in 2018-19 and beyond.
The workshop will be held at the Chicago Marriott Downtown Magnificent Mile on July 18-19. Breakout sessions will focus on brand development, in-game presentation and best practices, social and digital promotion, ticket sales, increasing audience on all platforms, trends in athletic development, and the use of analytics and data in marketing and ticket sales programs.
An additional workshop will be held to explore marketing, branding and sales strategies and conference tournament optimization for women’s basketball. Representatives from ten additional Division I conferences are expected to participate in the women’s basketball segment.
Rick Welts, President and Chief Operating Officer of the NBA Champion Golden State Warriors, will serve as the featured speaker for the two-day event, sharing his thoughts from more than four decades in the sports business world. One of the most accomplished executives in the history of the NBA, Welts has overseen all business-related operations for the Warriors since 2011, a stretch that includes three NBA championships. He was previously the President and CEO of the Phoenix Suns, as well as the NBA’s Executive Vice President, Chief Marketing Officer and President of NBA Properties. In 1998, Welts and BIG EAST Commissioner Val Ackerman were named Co-Marketers of the Year by Brandweek magazine for their efforts in connection with launch of the WNBA.
In addition to the conference’s athletic directors, representatives from the ticketing, marketing, communications and development departments of all ten 10 BIG EAST member institutions and staff from the conference office will attend the workshop. Also participating will be select student-athlete representatives from the BIG EAST Student-Athlete Advisory Committee.
“We are excited to host this workshop and to provide our schools with a forum to review best practices and trends in key revenue-producing areas,” said BIG EAST Commissioner Val Ackerman. “We’re proud of what the BIG EAST has accomplished over the past five years, and we hope the dialogue will lead to ideas and actions that enhance the conference brand and fortify the business outcomes on each of our campuses.”
Additional guest speakers include Derek Crocker, FOX Sports Media Group’s Senior Director, Collegiate Sports; Tim Eichorst, owner of BIG EAST and FOX Sports partner Rush Media; Tracie Hitz, former Director of Championships & Alliances at the NCAA; Sandy Hatfield Clubb, Senior Partner of the PICTOR Group; Felisa Israel, CEO and Founder of 10 Fold Entertainment, a full-service event production company; Kristen Scott, Digital Producer at FOX Sports; Michael Bucklin, Vice President of Digital Content at FOX Sports; and Dan Migala, co-founder and partner of Team 4FRONT, a sports and entertainment marketing company whose clients include the NCAA, Cleveland Cavaliers, Cricket Australia, Field Entertainment and Minor League Baseball.
The External Operations Workshop follows the BIG EAST’s August 2017 Social and Digital Summit, which featured representatives from all ten schools and executives from FOX Sports, Facebook and Instagram, MIT, Google, YouTube, Major League Baseball, the National Basketball Association and the New York Rangers.