How it Started…

Before our acquisition from Fanatics, we sporadically created media in the Triton / SportsMemorabilia.com office; no where near the amount we should have been creating, given what we had going on. I won’t get in to that in this story, so I’ll cut to the chase…

In my post-acquisition world, all of the key components to the SportsMemorabilia.com and Fanatics “Authentic” division’s world was running pretty smoothly, which allowed me to explore what else could be improved inside Fanatics. The one thing that really bothered me was that we weren’t capturing ANY content at our autograph signings. You may be reading this now with the understanding that creating media at autograph signings is something that always happens. Let me tell you, this was not the case in 2013-2018.

When I would pull out my phone to record or bring my professional media contacts in to capture the moment, I was warned to “stay away from showing how many helmets they’re signing!”…like 200 helmets in the process of being autographed was such a huge racket. “We don’t want to make it look like we have so many!” I was told. Think about this- Tom Brady has 13.7 million instagram followers. Let’s just say I showed 2,000 helmets being autographed. That’s 0.014% follower base. Not even point 1 of a percent. To me, the opportunity cost of not showing talent in-action signing autographs (which help the fans feel more connected to their expensive purchases) was way bigger than a few people being concerned about seeing a couple thousand pieces being signed…sigh…I digress. Back to how it started…which now deserves another section…

The Gronk Spike

After the Patriots won the Super Bowl in 2015, the Athlete Relations team booked Rob Gronkowski to do a signing at the office. My social manager at the time came up with a great concept of Gronk spiking footballs after he signed each one (kudos to a young Danny Noll). At the time, this was hilarious. Gronk was building his persona as this lovable caveman-like legend that gave the fans what they loved…the good old ‘merican football spike!

The concept and opportunity was last minute…like night before the signing last minute. However, the Athlete Relations team delivered my message to the guys at Rosenhaus Sports and I was told it was a go! I was told I had a whopping $350 to spend on the media, so I quickly hired an amatuer local videographer through a mutual connection and we were ready to roll.

The next day came around and my team was buzzing. Granted- we were eCommerce marketers who never really had the opportunity to do fun stuff like this. But, this wasn’t just for fun…we knew this would create fan engagement, and raise awareness of Gronk’s latest autograph collection.

Swimming with the sharks

The moment was here- Gronk and his management team was arriving at our office and one of our Athlete Relations guys told me I would need to ask Gronk and his management if they would be ok with us doing the video. Wait…they told me they already cleared this with them. Sigh. I’m going to need to pitch this on my toes here.

In walks the gigantic Rob Gronkowski and his entourage of Rosenhaus Sports representation. Our Athlete Relations teams introduced me, “This is Mike Gallucci, our VP of Marketing, he has something he needs to ask you guys.” Six-foot-six 265 pound Gronk and a handful of the the toughest sharks in the sports agency world fixed their attention to me. I wasn’t even 30 years old yet in this moment, but I vividly remember it as being one of those confidence-boosting moments because what happened was awesome…

I told him my job is to make sure we sell through this stuff as quick as possible so we can keep writing Gronk checks, and a part of that mission, I wanted to make sure the fans knew about Gronk’s new collection and where they can get it. And, I wanted to give Gronk something awesome he could put on his social media that his fans would find hilarious. Rob and his management looked at each other and said, “yea that sounds awesome, let’s do it.” A huge win on many levels. Special shout out to one of the agents on Gronk’s team, Michael Katz. Some of these contract agent guys can be tough on you, but I remember Michael Katz being super cool about what we were trying to do. He could have chewed me up in that moment and given me the “it’s not in our contract” speech but he didn’t. My intention was pure here and I think he saw that.

Break it

We had a small room set up that had a bunch of footballs on a table with a few chairs. I sat at the table with my Social Manager, Danny, and Gronk to our side. I loved that Danny was in the video because the skit was his brain child and it made the video super authentic having Fanatics employees in it. His acting was way better than mine btw…

I instructed Gronk- “Ok Rob, we’re going to hand you a ball…sign it, then spike it as hard as you can. Repeat that until there’s no more balls left.” Gronk replied, “there’s a lot of stuff in here I might break by doing that.” “Exactly,” I said, which gave him a chuckle.

One take was all it took. Danny handed Gronk a ball, he spiked it, and it dented the blinds on the window. Danny leaned over to ask me, “Is he going to spike every ball?” “Every ball,” I replied, ask Gronk’s enormous mitt of a hand grabs the next ball.

On his fifth spike, the camera cuts to the hallway where our Director of Marketing, Cassandra Wesch, was walking the hall with a notebook on the way to a meeting. She could not escape the Gronk spike as a rogue ball bounced off the ground and up into her, causing a perfect stumble and drop of the notebood. A wide shot shows the wake of Gronk’s spike damage, as ceiling tiles were broken, blinds busted, frames on the wall pushed out of place, as Danny and I just look around at the mess.

It was truly artistic :)

The result

For a comedic skit with a legendary pro athlete, represented by the toughest sports agency in the business, in a last-minute setting, in 2015, and being the first of its kind for Fanatics, I think this activation went off extremely well as a jump-start of more to come. Yes, this was totally inspired by ESPN’s “office commercials”. But at the Fanatics offices you could literally be standing at a urinal next to Peyton Manning on an ordinary Tuesday morning, and turning the corner to almost bump into Conor McGregor shadowboxing down the hall. It was wild.

Remember this is 2015 and athletes on social media were fairly a new thing. They didn’t have millions of followers but they were growing their foundation. At the time- this was Gronk’s most-liked and engaged with post. Well done team.

Where do we go from here?

The Gronk Spike moment helped buy me some more time to explore original content inside of Fanatics. At that time, creative media just wasn’t a strategy that was in the game plan of the higher-ups in the org. I felt so strongly about content & commerce at this point that it hurt to not think about, and all the ways it could showcase the Fanatics brand as a place to get the most unique and legit sports collectibles. Not only was it building the trust factor- it was entertaining. Entertaining means attention. Attention means value.

There’s a lot more stories where this one came from and I’ll do my best to keep sharing.

Thanks for reading :)

-MG