 Welcome to the sports playbook where we discuss solutions to issues that impact sports. I am your host Angela Hazelett. Today's guest is Matt Saina, the Operations Manager for the Greater Cleveland Sports Commission. We are here to discuss sporting events as an economic vehicle. Cleveland's making it happen. Welcome, Matt. Hi, great to be here. I'm so glad to have you join us. The Greater Cleveland Sports Commission, your mission there is to measurably improve the economy of Greater Cleveland and enrich the community by attracting, creating, managing, and enhancing significant sporting and competitive events. You attract and host sporting events at the youth collegiate USA sanctioned and professional levels. Some of these events you've hosted in Cleveland are quite major, such as the 86th NFL Draft in 2021. This was a three-day event held in multiple venues in the city, and we can see some photos here. What can you tell us that's happening in this photo? Yeah, so the NFL Draft was quite an interesting event. In the photos you saw there, the first day of the draft was pretty typical Cleveland weather for the springtime, very unpredictable, where it was cold and rainy, but the fans still came out in droves despite the weather for the first day, and then by the third day of the event the weather was beautiful and sunny. So we experienced it all in a short time period during the NFL draft this past spring in Cleveland. That's incredible, and I know an event like the NFL Draft brings in some high-profile people, such as the NFL Commissioner. So how much of a concern was security for the NFL and for you? Yeah, absolutely. Security was a major concern for both the NFL and for our organization as well, too. We started planning for the draft two plus years in advance, so a lot of plans were put into place when you're planning for an event for a long period out. A lot of different contingencies are put into place. The biggest one that we couldn't really foresee a couple years in the future was the COVID-19 pandemic, so the draft that we had been planning back in 2019 looked very different than the draft that we were able to host in 2021. Security was a large part of that, but the COVID-19 pandemic and the measures that were put into place to mitigate that and to make sure that everyone stayed safe from the fans attending in the audience to the actual players that were being drafted to the celebrities and individuals like Commissioner Goodell and others around as well, too. In addition to security in the secure zones that were set into place around the Cleveland Browns First Energy Stadium and the actual draft site, which was just outside of the stadium in downtown Cleveland. And did everyone follow the COVID-19 protocols? Did you have any resistance to that? It was amazingly, things went very, very smoothly. The NFL draft was one of the first major events coming out of the pandemic really. The Super Bowl that was held down in Tampa was really the first, and then the draft was really the second. One of the big advantages that we had was that the majority of the event took place outside, which again, the weather made it a little bit of a challenge, but a huge stage was constructed. It took about three weeks to construct the stage. It was in amphitheater essentially that covered the outdoor seating area for the draft attendees and their families. So that stage kept everyone underneath of it dry, but also was open air. So it allowed for some of the mitigation procedures for COVID-19 to be put into place. And I think people from fans and just general attendees were just happy to be at a major event after having gone through 18 months of the shutdown for the pandemic. Everyone was just happy to be there and in person and was willing to go through the procedures necessary to keep the event safe. What a great solution to a challenge and kind of finding a compromise that's the best of the world, sort of a covered outdoor venue that allows for a lot of airflow when the pandemic is a concern. And I know for your recent NBA All-Star event, fans attending ticketed events had to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 and provide proof of vaccination or proof of a negative COVID test. So who actually establishes these fan protocols and did you have any problems at this venue, this event kind of enforcing those protocols? Yeah, absolutely. So just about a month ago, we hosted the NBA All-Star game here in Cleveland at Rockingmore Beach Fieldhouse, which is the home of the Cavaliers. Throughout the past NBA season, the Cavaliers have had a varying level of protocols inside their building and at their games, including requiring face masks. That requirement actually was lifted just previous to the NBA All-Star game, but the NBA had their own set of requirements and procedures related to COVID-19. Understanding that at the time of the NBA All-Star game, the COVID levels in Cleveland were actually quite high, but understanding that this event brought in people from an international standpoint to attend the event, the NBA didn't want to take any chances. So that's why they did require that every fan in attendance was fully vaccinated against COVID-19. And then a different level, anyone that was on the floor or working for the event also had to be tested in addition to having to be fully vaccinated, including a third booster shot for two of the vaccines and then a second one for the Johnson and Johnson vaccine as well, too. So with most events, we take the recommendations from the events rights holders as well as the venue. So in this case, the Rockingmore Beach Fieldhouse had their own set of guidelines in combination with the NBA and what they felt as necessary to keep everyone safe. So we took the recommendations up from both of those organizations on what to put in place. Things went on very, very smoothly. They partnered with Clear, which was an organization that has an app, makes it very, very easy for the attendees to upload their vaccination cards, their negative COVID tests. They had multiple testing centers throughout a downtown area to be able to test prior to coming to any of the games or any of the events. And things ran very, very smoothly. Wow. That's awesome collaboration. And it sounds like this was more of an indoor venue versus outdoor, but it sounds like there's a lot of collaboration in that app and having a third party agency to support that program and that testing sounds incredible. I know you also in 2019 hosted another high-profile event, of course this is pre-pandemic, but the MLB All-Star Week. And this event generated an incredible $65 million in economic impact. So tell me, we talked about security and COVID-19 concerns, but what are some other major challenges you experience in hosting these major events that feature professional athletes? Absolutely. Well, the things with big events always change, and professional athletes things change constantly as well too. So planning for an event like an All-Star game, we run into two challenges that sometimes are minor, two challenges that are major and significant. One of the benefits that we have in the city of Cleveland is that we have a great relationship, a working relationship with our city services, from the Cleveland Police Department to the Cleveland Fire Department, EMS, Building and Housing for Permits, and the Special Events Planning Committee, which works with the mayor's office in Cleveland. We have established that relationship through hosting major events like the All-Star game for Major League Baseball, the Republican National Convention previous to that, the National Senior Games. So these relationships have built upon each other to only grow and the events have grown in scale as well too. So an event like the All-Star game, fortunately we had previous experience planning major events, but Major League Baseball coming in to see that game, we had to connect them with the city of Cleveland and make sure that everyone's on the same page from a timeline standpoint to what permits might be needed, to what venues that we're hosting these events at, which can change and they can change up until even a few weeks or days prior to the events. Some of the small challenges we faced were things that were easy to overcome. For example, signage that was approved by the city design and planning commission to have certain players featured on the signs. Those players didn't end up actually being voted as All-Stars. So things had to be changed. That same problem happened for the NBA All-Star game too. Actually a player got traded that was on a sign and he got traded just a couple of days prior to the All-Star game too. So had to flip that around very, very quickly, but I think knowing that relationships that we have built and established within the city have really helped us to be able to see those challenges, to meet the expectations, and to resolve those issues in a quick manner when they're needed just a couple days prior to the event. And you have to pay attention to that, right? Like is this athlete coming and are they still represent the same team? And so you have to pay attention to the marketing and promotion aspects as well. I love how you mentioned the senior games, the national senior games that you hosted back in 2013. And these games are a biennial competition for men and women 50 and over. It's the largest multi-sport event in the world for seniors. In fact, this is the event where the sport of pickleball made its competitive debut. And this event alone generated $36.1 million in economic impact into the Northeast Ohio economy. So at these games, you coordinated 19 sports. You used 20 different event spaces and facilities, nearly 11,000 athletes descended upon your city. So talk to me about the challenges of coordinating multiple venues, multiple day events for so many athletes. Yeah, definitely a lot of challenges with that one. That one, that event was so unique because it was the first event that kicked that opened up, kicked off the convention center and brand new convention center in downtown Cleveland. So we were the first event in there. That space hosted several of our major sports like basketball, volleyball, pickleball, badminton. But it couldn't host all the 19 different sports that we had. So we had to spread across the city to multiple different venues, which definitely posed a pretty big challenge for us too. From a logistical standpoint, we had a whole team that was based out of the convention center from a logistic standpoint that filled up cargo vans and minivans with fruit and snacks and sports equipment, other random office supplies, and was out canvassing the city, replenishing supplies and snacks at each of these venues. It also requires a lot of staff. And I'd say that's the biggest thing that to make these events possible and successful is to have a great staff, a staff that we could trust. A lot of these staff were college students that were hired just for a couple months to work on the event. We placed a large level of responsibility on their shoulders and we trusted them to be able to run these events successfully and to set up the venues from a signage standpoint, to check in volunteers, to work with the sports organizers, to run the tournaments from officials to sports equipment, to scheduling, to rescheduling for rainouts at softball, the softball venues. And they did an excellent job. Sometimes you don't know what you're going to get and sometimes you really can't control what happens when there's so many different venues taking place. But we, that event turned out to be very, very successful. In my career at the sports commission, that was the biggest event that I had worked on just starting out. And it really set the stage for our organization to be able to host the major events that we have since then. As I mentioned, the All Star Games, the NFL Draft and several other major events that we've had on our schedule. So fortunately, you all were very successful and it set the stage for other rights holders to grant you bids. And it sounds like you had a lot of part-time help to help you with logistics and roving vehicles, support vehicles. And how was it being the first event in a brand new convention center? I know a lot of times you might want to do a smaller, kind of soft opening for a new facility, but it sounds like you all went, you guys went big. So was there any challenges in working in a brand new facility? Absolutely. There was a lot of challenges with it. The biggest challenge is when we were trying to plan out where things were going to go early on in the process, we were walking through a construction site. So we had to have closed-hole shoes and construction hats and goggles on, walking through dirt, trying to map it out and have that vision. It's a fun part of the job to be able to create something brand new from scratch for an event, but this only added even a little bit more to that because the building was being brand new too. Certainly with a new building, they were working out their own kinks with the building as well too. But we had a little bit of a creative freedom in what we were able to do and where we were able to put things with the building too. One of the biggest challenges actually came after the event was over because with a brand new building, the paint on the walls was fresh and the carpet was brand new. So any little scratch on the wall or stain in the carpet, there really was no one else to blame it on too. So we knew where it came from with our event. So we had to pay a few, a little bits after the fact to get things repainted and redone. There was no one else to blame it on too. So since that point, I go in that building, I see other many scratches and dings in the loading dock and other areas too that I know after having a couple events, those things are natural occurrences. But with our event, we were the first one. So it was easy to pick out who's cart ran into the wall or who dropped the box on a certain area and made a scratch and things too. Yeah, absolutely. And Cleveland is located in the northeast part of Ohio right next to Lake Erie. This kind of northern lakefront location has to produce some weather related challenges. What do you do to keep people safe? How does this impact your events? Yeah, absolutely. Always challenges every time of the year. I mentioned with the draft, it was a challenge because we were right on the lake for the draft. So not only do we have to deal with rain, there was a little bit of snow, there was a lot of wind. So a lot of times we plan for where are we going to keep people dry, where are we going to keep people safe in the event of a weather emergency. The NBA also game just a month ago, we Cleveland experienced some significant snowfall in the days and weeks leading up to the event, which would pose a certain challenge for hosting an event in a downtown very walkable city. The sidewalks and streets were covered with snow. A lot of times when the snow plows came through, they pushed the snow into the bus lanes. Well, we had a ton of buses that were hired to transport people around the city as well and they had nowhere to park. So for the week leading up to the event, the city was done, they did an incredible job of moving snow. There were bulldozers driving on the streets, picking up piles of snow and dropping them into dump trucks and actually taking the snow into the lake and dumping it into the lake to get rid of it. There was also, bobcats driving on the sidewalks, clearing the sidewalks as well too. It was an incredible effort from the city of Cleveland, from the non-profit organization, the downtown Cleveland Alliance, to clear the sidewalks, to clear the streets of giant snow piles. There were 20 foot tall some of the snow piles from the amount of snow that we had the past month, but it was all gone by the time the All-Star game was here. The sidewalks were cleared, the streets were cleared, and it made it a safe and walkable environment. Even though it was pretty cold, the sidewalks were still very, very walkable. So I think that was one of the biggest, most recent weather-related challenges that we had to deal with, but every event that we have outdoors always poses risks, especially close to the lake. We've had several events where we've had large tents that have blown over and blown down that we have to make sure that those are safe and secured, and that we have other structures that are able to keep our guests or athletes safe in the event that weather does get a little dicey. I imagine you probably have some of the city service providers on speed dial for certain circumstances. I imagine there's probably also situations where you can't put up a tent, because maybe the wind gusts are too great and things like that, and you just have to roll with it and go to plan B. Absolutely. So let's talk about some of the collegiate events that you've hosted at NCAA Swimming Nationals and the NCAA Wrestling Championships. I know for a recent NCAA Wrestling Championship, you experienced sold-out crowds. This required recruiting 50 volunteers for the wrestling championships. So tell me, how challenging is it to find dedicated, reliable volunteers to support your events? Yeah, it's always a challenge for us, because we are a small team. So we have 15 full-time staff members, which really isn't a lot for the number of events and the scale of events that we host. So to be able to host these events successfully, we do look for dedicated volunteers to make the events run. We have a core group of volunteers that they'll volunteer for any of our events, no matter what we do, no matter what sport it is. They help out with registration, packet pickup, hospitality, tickets, merchandise sales, smaller areas that aren't really sports focused per se. But when we host an event like a wrestling championship, we need workers to work the mats, to run the cameras, to work to clocks. They need some knowledge about wrestling. So we look to find passionate people, people that are knowledgeable about the sports events that we're hosting, that are passionate about it. The thing about volunteers is most of the time, they're not getting paid. So we're looking for people that are willing to give up their free time and their valuable time to help make our events successful. Some events, it is a little bit easier than others, because we are able to offer access to view the events or just a unique perspective to be a part of these significant events. Other events, it might be a little bit more of a challenge just from a geographical standpoint or a scheduling standpoint, when the events during the weekdays or during holidays, when they're hosted. So it's definitely a challenge for us and one that we constantly work at to recruit dedicated and passionate volunteers and to maintain them throughout the year and really get them to buy into the sports commission and what we do so that they're not just coming for a wrestling event. They might start as a wrestling fan and come for a wrestling event, but then they might want to show up and help out at a swimming event or a track and field event or any of the events that we have upcoming in the future too. Is there a primary place you go to recruit these passionate volunteers? Yeah, so our volunteers are a great mix. We have individuals that are older adults that may be retired and looking for things to keep them active and busy. We have all the way down to college students, even high school students, depending on the event too. So I'd say the college students, the colleges and universities that are local to the greater Cleveland area, we have some outstanding schools that have great sports management programs. They're one of the first avenues that we recruit towards just because they have students that are looking to break into the sports industry or to gain experience to put on their resumes. We also, there's an organization in Cleveland called Business Volunteers Limited, BVU, and they help connect us to individuals that are sometimes young professionals or just adults that are looking for more experience to give back to their community. They help make great connections for us too. So I'd say that there's a good mixture of all that, along with our corporate partners too. The organizations that help to monetarily donate to the organization to keep us funded, they like to send out information on volunteering to their employees. Fortune 500 companies oftentimes require their employees to volunteer a certain amount of hours and give back to the community. So we like to be the beneficiary of those hours that are required of those employees too. Great. Sounds like you're not only getting financial compensation to support your events, but you're also getting that volunteer help as well. That's fantastic. Let's talk a little bit more about the economic impact. Some of these NCAA tournaments you've hosted, they really vary in what economic impact that they provide to your community. For example, the D2 Men's Wrestling Championship generated about $7 million, whereas the 2019 NCAA Women's Bowling Championship only produced about $250,000. So comparing that, you talked earlier about the MLB All Star Week, which generated $65 million in economic impact. So how can you avoid, how can you afford to host an event that has less economic value for your city, something like the Women's Bowling Championship? Yeah, absolutely. So when we look to host events, economic impact is the number one driver of our decisions to whether to host an event or to not host an event. The economic impact really is money that is spent in the city that normally wouldn't otherwise be spent here if our event hadn't been hosted. So any fans and athletes coming into town will stay at hotels, they'll eat at restaurants, they'll visit the attractions that we have like the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and hopefully have a great time here and then go back and spread the word about how awesome the city of Cleveland is too. So for us, a lot of events, we don't actually make money off the events. Economic impact can be significant, but we, from a financial standpoint, as a 501C nonprofit, oftentimes from ticket sales and any other revenue sources, we don't make a ton of money off of them. NCAA championships are definitely fall into that category because what the NCAA does is that they will reimburse us for any expenses that we incur as part of hosting the championships. So we keep a close tab of what we spend money on from hospitality to equipment setup to signage and the NCAA ends up sending us a check at the end of the day to cover those expenses. Most of the time, we budget to either break even or maybe make a couple thousand dollars off those events if we're very, very fortunate. But if the economic impact is significant, then we feel like the event is significant. So the wrestling championships definitely provide a great boost because there's a large amount of spectators. Bowling championship, a little bit smaller, only eight teams that come and they don't bring a ton of friends and family, but what's unique about that event is that the NCAA women's bowling championships is broadcast live on ESPN. The finals is. So while it may not bring in a ton of economic impact, it does get Cleveland in the spotlight and a national spotlight too. So we like to balance it out a little bit in, you know, while it may events like that may not provide us a great economic boost, they definitely do help to spread the word about Cleveland as a host city for major events as well as NCAA championship events too. Fair enough. And you put in about 60 bids to host NCAA championships. You know, in regards to your other events, I know you're aiming for about 15 to 16 events annually. You only have 15 full-time staff. So what influences your decision on what to bid for? Is it local politics? Is it you said this economic impact plays a role on that as well? How do you choose what to put a bid for to host? Yeah, there's different, a lot of different options that come to us from events rights holders throughout the year to be able to host events. The events rights holders include the NCAA national governing bodies. So any event that's competed at on the Olympic level, they host national championship events in different cities throughout the country, throughout the year. So our business development team really looks at our annual calendar to see what schedule, what openings in our schedule that we have and what events might fall online with those openings. They also look and see what venues that we have in Cleveland and are we able to to physically host any of these events at any of the venues that we have here too. Oftentimes you get asked the question, can Cleveland host a Super Bowl? Can Cleveland host the Olympics? And you unfortunately are the men's final four. Fortunately those events require certain number of facilities as well as hotels. I'd say that five years ago the scale of events that we could host in Cleveland is a little bit different than what we can host today. Part of that is due to the increase in infrastructure from a hotel standpoint and a number of hotel rooms that are available within a close proximity to downtown Cleveland. If someday in the future Cleveland decides to, the Browns decide to rebuild or reconfigure their stadiums to have a dome, then I think we would be put in the consideration to host a Super Bowl and a men's final four. But right now we don't have the facility to do that. So those are definitely some of the factors that factor into it and then as well too is our staff capacity and do we have the capacity to host multiple events in a short time frame or in that calendar year. I think that might be further down on the list because we've hosted two NCAA championships at the same time. We've hosted multiple different events at the same time too. So I think our business development team they throw that one outside the window sometimes because they think very highly of our staff and what we're able to accomplish and we are able to make it happen. Absolutely and I know we're at the end of our time together but I did just want to mention I know that you all had a challenging time when the pandemic hit and having to cancel several events and that really impacted your budget and ability to do what you do. Just briefly can you let us know how you survived the pandemic when your whole operation is based on these events? Yeah we were very fortunate with the pandemic because as a 501C non-profit we our main fundraising event is called the Greater Cleveland Sports Awards. It's actually this year's a version of it is coming up next Wednesday night at Rocky Mortgage Fieldhouse but we hosted it in 2020 in January. So right before things shut down that event alone counts for almost 60% of our core operating budget from a fundraising standpoint. So with with being able to host that event prior to the shutdown of COVID that really set us up financially to be able to at least make it through for several months and then some of the great government loans that were out there from a payroll protection standpoint we were very fortunate to receive some of those and then last year we transitioned our sports awards event to a virtual fundraiser that was televised on local and regional cable TV that was the the best fundraiser that we we had in our 20-year history. So both of those events were significant and I think the the local community recognizes the impact that we have and really rallied around to to support us to keep us going. That's incredible. I'm glad you guys are still around and I thank you for your time Matt and your insight into sporting events as an economic vehicle and how Cleveland's making it happen. So and thank you to our viewers for joining us today on the sports playbook. We'll see you in two weeks time.