Andrew Kinn ’12, Riesen Fellow in Sports Management

This is my last blog post, and I honestly cannot believe my time with the Cowboys is up. It was quite possibly the quickest semester of my life. Again, the majority of this week was spent working on holiday gifts. I sent out coffee table books to all of our suite holders via FedEx, which entailed putting together all the boxes, making labels, and attaching the labels to the boxes. It took up the majority of my week. I also went to my last production meeting for the high school games we had at the stadium this week as well as our final regular season home game against the Redskins.

Our game against the Redskins was the last event of my internship. Again, I spent the first part of my day running boxes and tickets around the stadium, and then I picked up the Legends. My Legends for the week were Leon Lett, Russell Maryland, and Preston Pearson. I was also fortunate to meet Jim Jeffcoat while walking around with Russell. It is pretty cool when former NFL players remember your name and ask questions about your internship. It makes you feel pretty important! It also helped that the Cowboys won the game, ending my internship with a victory!

I just want to take one last opportunity to say that the people in my office are fantastic. I know that this internship would have not been anywhere near as enjoyable if it wasn’t for all of them, and I will truly miss them all. This internship has been the greatest experience of my life on so many levels (personal, professional, and as a sports fan!). I can’t thank the Dallas Cowboys, my office, or Cornell enough for allowing me this amazing opportunity!

Andrew Kinn ’12, Riesen Fellow in Sports Management

With the holidays coming up, most of my energy was spent on getting the suite holiday gifts and Christmas cards out in the mail to suite holders. I first had to hand out the Christmas cards to all of our sales reps. Then I made their labels, sealed the envelopes, and stamped them so they could get into the mail and into suite holder’s hands before Christmas. As for the gifts, I applied labels to all the envelopes, and then placed the gifts inside. We then added cards, stamped them, and shipped them out. It was a very long process and required most of my energy for the week.

This past week also saw me attend my last practice. There really was not anything newsworthy to report about, though we did have quite a few more people than usual. Due to that, we actually got a chance to talk with some suite holders and answer more questions than usual, so there was a little break in the typical routine. I will definitely miss going to practices, as they were a lot of fun.

Finally, we had the Eagles game on Sunday night. I didn’t have any Legends for the game, so I helped out with the suite walks because we had a lot of per-game rentals. There weren’t any major issues, just a few catering issues or minor things that were able to be taken care of quickly. I was able to see Roger Staubach as I was doing my suite checks, which was pretty amazing! Also, due to the fact that I didn’t have any legends, I was able to go down into the Miller Light Club and see the team run out onto the field, which was awesome! It was a really fun game to say the least.

Andrew Kinn ’12, Riesen Fellow in Sports Management

This week was incredibly busy for a few reasons. The participants in the Big 12 Championship game were not determined until Saturday night, and the game was on the following Saturday. So needless to say, our office got bombarded with phone calls and emails looking for suites for the game. With the Thanksgiving holiday, some of the people in the suites department had off on that Monday, so we only had half a department, which made things even more hectic. However, we managed to make it through the day, which I have to say went by incredibly quickly. I think I was literally on the phone for about 90% of the day.

On Wednesday, it was also announced that Texas A&M was going to be one of the participants in the Cotton Bowl, so our phones started ringing nonstop again. Once the day was over, we had set a record and sold out in one day! Congrats to everyone in the suite department on that one! I also went to practice on Wednesday and it was a typical practice.

There were a few other tasks that required my attention this week. I had to help move all the gifts for suite and club seat holders from the Jones family. With all the sales that were being made, there was a large stack of contracts that needed to be recorded in our lease database. I also had to help with getting holiday cards together that our salesmen and service coordinators will be sending to clients. Finally, I went to the production meeting for the Big 12 Championship game.

The Big 12 Championship game on Saturday night was a lot of fun. I first started off with checking clients and family members or friends into our marketing suite. Then I had to help hunt down some programs for clients since there were a limited number available. With the large amount of single game suite rentals we had for this game, I helped our service coordinators with their suite checks to make sure everything was running smoothly. After all of that, I got to hang out and watch the game, which was an exciting one that went down to the wire, with Oklahoma eventually beating Nebraska, 23-20.

Andrew Kinn ’12, Riesen Fellow in Sports Management

Not a whole lot to report this week, as it was a short one due to the Thanksgiving holiday. We did, however, have a game on Thanksgiving Day so I had my typical duties and errands to run during game weeks. The typical ticket office errands and Pro Shop runs were my main duties for the week. I also had to go through CRM, our lease database, and do some more updating. This time, I went through a stack of suite holder fact sheets, where they detailed birthdays, marital status, etc. and enter that information into their database profiles so that it can be easily found for future reference.

The Thanksgiving Day game against the Saints had me running a few errands before the game started, but it was much more relaxed than most of our games have been so far (at least for me). It was a slightly different atmosphere, as the fans were split, with about half rooting for the Cowboys and half rooting for the Saints. I guess it is possible that a lot of Cowboys fans gave up their tickets when the team started poorly so Saints fans snatched them up. If that is the case, then maybe winning is the primary ticket driver after all! I also had the privilege of escorting Everson Walls, a former Cowboys defensive back, to a suite to meet and talk with the suite owner.

One other cool thing I did this week, though it was more fun, was get my picture taken with Emmitt Smith’s Hall of Fame Bust (the real one from Canton, not a replica)! It was in the stadium due to a ceremony that honored Emmitt’s election into the Hall of Fame that was held during the Lions game, so I definitely had to get a picture taken with it before it headed back to Ohio.

Andrew Kinn ’12, Riesen Fellow in Sports Management

This week was an interesting week, as we essentially had two games to prepare for: the Detroit Lions on Sunday and the New Orleans Saints on Thanksgiving Day. Therefore, I spent a good part of the week getting the typical pre-game, post-game, and interview passes organized and into the mail in time for suite holders to get them before the games. I also spent a lot of time running different errands, whether it was promotional goods to suites or tickets to and from the ticket office. I also went to another production meeting, where we went over all the details for the Lions game. It was a pretty standard game week for me.

I went to practice again on Wednesday! We escorted suite holders to and from the practice suite, made sure the food was set up and ready to be eaten, and then hung out and watched the practice. Again it was a pretty typical practice, with no surprises thrown in, but I still think it is pretty awesome that I get to watch the Cowboys practice!

I spent the Lions game escorting our Legends, checking people into the marketing suite, and watching the game. The Legends I got to meet this week were Jay Novacek, Russell Maryland, and Tony Casillas. Russell is a really cool guy; there were a few suites that requested to have a legend visit, and he was willing to go to all of them and chat with suite holders. Jay is extremely funny; he needed me to escort him down to the broadcast booth to visit Daryl Johnston, and I have to say it was really neat to be in the broadcast booth while the game was going on! The best part of the game was that I finally got to see a win in person!

A final, more academic note is the fact that even though the Cowboys do not have the greatest record at the moment, the stadium is still packed. In my Economics of Sports class, we talked about winning being the sole force that drives the demand for tickets. Clearly, that is not the case, as even though the team has a losing record the stadium is still packed. Maybe we need to update the syllabus!

Andrew Kinn ’12, Riesen Fellow in Sports Management

The Suite Sales and Service staff went to the Cowboys away game against the New York Giants this past weekend with some of our suite holders. Due to this, the majority of my tasks this week dealt with preparing for the away game trip. I put together a rather large box of lanyards for the guests to carry their tickets around with in New York. My main project for the week was to put together the away game booklets for both suite holders and staff. This book consisted of the itinerary, maps, and game notes, and had to be bound. Needless to say, making 200 of these books took up quite a bit of my week. I also had to assist with making sure about 70 of the books, as well as the away game gifts, got sent out to suite holders on time.

I also got to go to go out to practice again this week. Unfortunately, the Cowboys fired their coach from the beginning of the year and installed an interim coach. So while practice ran smoothly with regards to the suite holders, it was interesting to see the differences in practice habits between the two coaches. Also, while I was waiting in the main lobby of Valley Ranch for suite holders to arrive, Troy Aikman sat next to me! Considering he is my all time favorite football player, this was quite a thrill!

To finish off the week, we had a boxing match at the stadium between Manny Pacquiao and Antonio Margarito. Since everyone in the suite department was in New York for the game, one other intern and I were in charge of the suites for the event! It was pretty exciting and nerve wracking, but the good news is there were no major issues and the night went pretty smoothly. Still, I had to do suite walks to make sure everyone was happy with their experience. It was a pretty cool to run the show!

Andrew Kinn ’12, Riesen Fellow in Sports Management

With no game this weekend, the majority of my week was just the typical tasks and errands; handing out leads, inputting leases into our lease database, and running tickets back and forth. There was one major task that required my attention this week. I had to prepare the away game gifts for our suite holders. Every year, the Suite Department goes on a trip to a Cowboys away game with some suite holders, and each suite holder that travels receives a gift. This year, they are getting a computer bag and scarf, so I had to arrange the scarves in the computer bags. That was my main task for the week.

I also went to practice again this week, and thankfully we had the right time so there was no need to improvise. It was a typical practice. We made sure the food was arranged, greeted suite holders that were attending practice, escorted them through Valley Ranch to and from the practice suite, and cleaned up afterwards. Nothing extremely noteworthy (listen to me, talking like being able to go to practice is no big deal!). I have to say it is still extremely cool to be able to go to and watch practice!

Again I did some networking this week. I had a meeting with the VP of Legends Hospitality, Todd Fleming. We talked a lot about the different paths that a person can take to get into sports, the skills one needs to possess, and what sports franchises look for in a potential employee. It was an extremely productive meeting. I also talked with Kevin Krajcovic of the Houston Texans. I learned that they have a few different, year-long internships that I would definitely be interested in, so there might be some potential post-Cornell options for me. It was a productive networking week.

On a fun note, I was fortunate to be able to attend Game 5 of the World Series!! As a huge baseball fan, this was definitely one of the most exciting experiences I have had since I’ve been here. The energy in the stadium was incredible, and even though the Rangers lost, I am able to say that I have been at the clinching game of a World Series! I had so much fun!

Andrew Kinn ’12, Riesen Fellow in Sports Management

We had two games this week, including one on Monday Night! Let’s just say the busiest day I have had since coming to Arlington was the Monday Night game against the Giants. I ran around the stadium all day delivering tickets, bringing promotional materials to client’s suites, and running various other errands to ensure we were ready for the game. The legends I had to escort to our suite for the Giants game were Mel Renfro and Daryl Johnston, both of whom are awesome people to talk to! I also helped with some suite checks during the game and got to meet MLB star Torii Hunter, which was amazing! Finally, after the game, I escorted a suite holder onto the field to take some pictures. It was a very long day, but a very enjoyable one!

After the Monday Night game, I had plenty to do. We had another game coming up that Sunday, so the Monday ritual (which was actually done on Tuesday this week) of getting pre and post game, as well as interview passes, sorted and sent out to suite holders was completed. I also ran a bunch more errands, such as picking up items out of suites to send back to suite holders. We had to get the stadium ready for the upcoming game on Sunday!

On Wednesday we were hosting some more clients at practice, so I got to go again! However, they ended up switching the time of practice and we were not aware of this, so we had to do a little damage control. We ended up giving the guests tours of Valley Ranch, including the cheerleader and player locker rooms, had them eat lunch, and then got them rescheduled. Fortunately I will be able to get out to more practices before I leave!

I was also fortunate enough to have the opportunity to do some more high profile networking this week. I had a conversation with Dean Taylor, the Assistant General Manager of the Kansas City Royals. We mostly talked about similar things I have mentioned in other posts, such as the best way to get into baseball, skills that are necessary to possess, and potential post-Cornell paths. He was extremely generous with his time and I’m very appreciative of that.

On top of talking with Dean Taylor, I was also able to talk with the Dallas Cowboys Economist, Ken Kovash. We talked mostly about regression analysis and how to interpret the results, which was something that I had learned in my Economics of Sports class! I also found out that he uses the data program STATA, which we used in that class for our projects as well. It was interesting to see concepts I have learned at Cornell applied in the business world!

Finally, we had another game on Sunday against the Jacksonville Jaguars. I got to escort Cowboys Legends Lee Roy Jordan, Larry Brown, and Rocket Ismail around the stadium, which was pretty cool! Other than that, the game was a little bit more relaxed for me, which was a nice change of pace.

Andrew Kinn ’12, Riesen Fellow in Sports Management

It was a busy week this week, with a Monday Night game against the Giants coming up in a week, as well as the fact that there was a few Super Bowl tasks that required my attention. So let’s get right to it.

The first major task of the week was getting passes ready for the Giants game. We send out three types of passes to suite holders: pre-game and post-game field passes, as well as post-game interview passes. There is a spreadsheet that one of our service representatives makes up detailing which suite holders receive which passes, and it is my job to divvy out the passes and make sure they get into the correct envelope to be sent out. Since the Giants are the most popular game on the schedule, as well as the game being on Monday night, the list was much longer than usual, and this task took up almost my entire Monday.

I also had to do a suite walk during the week to make sure that all the PA systems were functioning properly. The nice thing about this suite walk was that one of the other interns in our office helped me out, so it didn’t take nearly as long as my other suite walks have. Testing the PA systems pretty much meant turning up the volume to make sure the sound was coming out of the speaker. Not super exciting.

A much more interesting part of my week came on Wednesday, when the Super Bowl invoices arrived! We had to put together a packet of information for all the suite holders. This packet consisted of an invoice for a suite and some really snazzy informational sheets, detailing what each package consisted, a parking map, and a cover sheet. The folder was also really cool looking as well, with the Lombardi trophy on the front and Cowboys Stadium being one of the inside flaps. It isn’t every year that Cowboys interns get to put Super Bowl folders together!

Continuing with the Super Bowl theme, yours truly is the official Super Bowl hotline for Dallas Cowboy suite holders! All right, so all I really do is answer the phone, find out whom the suite holder’s service representative is, and transfer the call. But it is still pretty cool to be able to refer to my phone as the Super Bowl hotline!

A few more notes for this past week. One of the best experiences I have had here so far (and there have been a lot of them!) was when Jerry Jones spoke to our office. With the Cowboys struggles, he just wanted to give us a pep talk to keep our office humming along. Let’s just say it was extremely motivating, and an awesome experience! I would be willing to bet that there are not many owners of professional teams who make it a point to stop into a sales office and deliver a speech to the employees that they delivered to the team earlier in the week!

Finally, I went to the production meeting on Thursday. This is pretty similar to the other production meetings I had been to, where we went over the details of the upcoming game. There should be quite a bit to talk about next week, as I report on the Monday Night game against the Giants as well as another game on Sunday against the Jaguars. So keep an eye out for that!

Andrew Kinn ’12, Riesen Fellow in Sports Management

Not a whole lot to talk about this week, as I pretty much spent the entire week working on one project, albeit a very important one. This past week I went through all the contracts for per game licenses for Cowboy games, college football games, and other events for 2009 and Cowboy games from 2010 to make sure that our sales database was accurate and completely updated. I checked each per game license to make sure that our database reflected the event, revenue, and suite size. After doing this, our database will be able to completely report sales made and revenue earned the past year.

On Thursday, we had a sales blitz in the office. We are trying to sell some more tickets to our boxing event on November 13^th, where Antonio Margarito and Manny Pacquiao will fight. The goal was for each sales person to sell our ticket packages to a client. The salespeople were divided into two teams, and the winning team got an award at the end of the day. Plus, they brought in Chick-Fil-A for lunch!

On Saturday I did a tour for a suite holder. I pretty much just hit the main parts of the stadium, such as the locker room, plazas, main clubs, and the field. While it was not any different from any of the other tours I have done, giving these private tours is a very important part of customer service that the Cowboys provide for their suite holders.

On a more exciting note that is unrelated to work, I was fortunate enough to attend the first game of the American League Championship Series between the Texas Rangers and New York Yankees. As a huge baseball fan that has not had the opportunity to attend many baseball playoff games (thanks, Milwaukee Brewers) this was a treat. Sure, I was six rows from the top of the stadium, but the important thing is that I was in the stadium. The game was also exciting, with the Yankees coming back from five runs down in the eighth inning to win (though the Yankee win did not make for a very pleasant post game experience). I also tailgated with some of the guys in the office, and it was cool to hang out with them in a non-work setting and get to know them a little better.