Intermedia Cloud Communications is unveiled at Earthquakes Stadium as the new jersey sponsor for the 2020 through 2022 seasons. Photo Credit: ISI Photos/San Jose Earthquakes
This is part two of a two-part interview with San Jose Earthquakes Chief Operating Officer Jared Shawlee. Part one covered Shawlee’s background with the Earthquakes, the recent front-office changes, and the in-roads with the local Mexican and overall Hispanic community since the hiring of Matias Almeyda.
Quakes Epicenter: Some folks will probably look at the [former Earthquakes President] Tom Fox days with a bit of negativity, and maybe rightfully so. We saw the stadium sponsorship with Avaya go away more recently. The club didn’t have a kit sponsor last season. But the Intermedia Cloud Communications jersey sponsorship probably didn’t happen overnight. Can you talk about this deal, how it came about, how long it’s been progressing, and why this is the right sponsor for the Earthquakes at this time from your perspective?
Jared Shawlee: That’s a great question, and I would say Tom’s time here at the Earthquakes was incredibly valuable to me personally, as a younger executive in this league [having] someone with the experience of Tom who’s been in the EPL (English Premier League). Fans don’t always get to see what he’s doing on a day-to-day basis. I can say he’s made in-roads for me and for the club that will help many times over going forward, so I do think that’s important.
So Intermedia, you know, Mike Gold, the CEO, shared during in the press conference: he’s a fan. So I first met him back in May at a game, similar to how I was saying I talk to many people as I’m walking around. It’s always amazing – one of the things I don’t think people realize is we have CEOs of some of the biggest tech companies in the area at the games walking around in Quakes gear, and people don’t even realize it. The conversation on the jersey specifically really picked up with Mike back in early November. We had a really big meeting over at the Intermedia offices, and his executive team was there and our exec team went. You kind of know when there’s magic in these deals, and I think we all felt it in the room that day. And so it took about two months. We finished the deal, working all through Christmas, through New Year’s, and finished it right at the start of January. And then got to announce it today.
QE: Going in a bit deeper on the Intermedia deal, what all does it entail?
Shawlee: It’s a three-year jersey sponsorship. That will put them on the front of our primary and secondary game kits. There’s a really cool hospitality component to it – which I think is unique within these deals that I’ve seen in MLS – they have a suite for home games and also a suite at all of our road games. They’re going to be bringing employees and customers to all of our road games. I love that. One of our big initiatives this year is also going to be more Quakes fans traveling with us on the road. So all of our season ticket holders get free away tickets this year, so Intermedia will travel with the team, so I love that component of it. We are going to start using some of their new technology and showcasing it – both Jesse, Matias, the soccer side, as well as on our business side. We haven’t fully dived into what that technology is going to be yet, but that kinda the next step in our partnership.
QE: Avaya was positioned as a Cloud communications company as well, and they helped Cloud-enable the stadium. From that type of perspective, will Intermedia provide the same type of services in Earthquakes Stadium that Avaya did?
Shawlee: There is some overlap between the services, so there will be some similarities, but Intermedia also has a completely different set of products than Avaya had, and so it works out to pull those as well. But as far as your core communications platform – your phones and some of the backend networking equipment – that will be similar. And so the stadium should see a seamless transition in this whole process.
QE: In terms of percentage completed toward getting the stadium sponsor – given your experience with these types of deals – how far along would you say you are?
Shawlee: (Laughs) It’s a great question. It’s really hard to put a percent on it. There’s times in the process – you know, I worked on our Avaya deal. I worked on our Amway deal. – there’s times throughout the years when you think “[we’re at] 100 percent”, and it hasn’t come to fruition (laughs). So I have trouble putting a percent on it. We are having very serious discussions with some major brands right now. They’re active, they’re interested, the season last year helped a lot as you can tell from Intermedia today – the comments their CEO makes. We’ve got some pretty interesting and exciting events we are going to announce at the stadium this year, which is a big focus we’ve been working on that will bring more eyeballs and people which helps the naming rights deal kind of come together.
QE: You are in the sixth year of this stadium now. Potentially now the newness of this stadium has worn off now, but each year we’ve seen some improvements going into the stadium. Obviously, completing that stadium sponsorship is probably key to the types of things that you would like to invest in. However, if you project forward to having a revenue stream there, what are some of the things you think would be good next steps for fans to look forward to at Earthquakes Stadium?
Shawlee: I still walk into every game, and I think it’s the most beautiful stadium I’ve ever seen, so maybe I’m biased in that (laughs). But the biggest focus for this year was, I’ve heard the fans comments about parking, and parking has been maybe the biggest snag we’ve had as the stadium and surrounding developments have gone up. So this year we are opening up two parking garages – they are ready for opening day. There’s enough parking in those two garages to bring in the majority of the people out of any dirt lots they have had to park in the last five years, and we tested them out with a soft opening at the [NCAA] Women’s College Cup, and the feedback was incredible. It’s a shorter walk. People entered and exited faster than they did in the other lots. There’s not the dirt to walk through any more or to park in. That’s really been the biggest focus structurally for the past three months. Over the course of this next season, there’s a couple other common fan comments – I know of things people want to see fixed. We’ll be debuting some new signage, some Earthquakes branding around the stadium for opening day this year, and then a couple other tweaks to try and push our atmosphere forward a bit inside the stadium.”
QE: A lot has been said about the Ultras stand on social media. Where exactly does that sit at the moment? Are we going to see the same silhouette as last season? Are there any modifications forthcoming?
Shawlee: One of the areas we look to invest and put some infrastructure in is our supporters’ end zone. We’ve been working on it with our architect, [and] with the Ultras leadership for about 12 months now. And I think the key is we want to get it right. When we do go in and construct whatever the embedment will look like for the long term, we want it to be something the club believes in, the Ultras believe in, and the fans believe in that can be great for the stadium atmosphere and help us win. So we don’t think we’ve gotten the design quite right yet, so we are going to have the same structure we’ve had for the last year-and-a-half for at least the start of this year, while we continue to work on that. But that’s one of my top priorities and projects that I’m working on all the time right now.
QE: At least from public numbers, it appears that attendance has been on the slow decline. Even when the team was on a hot streak in 2019, it seemed difficult to fill the stadium consistently. What do you think at this point is necessary to be able to depend on getting 18,000 to fill the stadium every game? Is it a special player? Can you take us into your conversations inside the club on what you think needs to happen?
Shawlee: These are really interesting questions; ones we talk about all the time. It’s one I care about, because I think atmosphere helps us win, right? And winning creates atmosphere. It’s all connected. I don’t think there’s one silver bullet. It was amazing to see the attendance last year – it actually did grow pretty significantly through the end of last year – and we are definitely going to see that again at the start of this year. Season ticket sales are up significantly over last year. Individual ticket sales started a few week ago, and that looks awesome.
So I do think the stadium is going to look [pretty full]. I’d love to find some traditions that the entire stadium really believes in and participates in, because I do think that would help bring people up into their seats a little earlier, maybe spend a little less time at the bar. [The LOBINA is] an amazing attraction and I love it, but sometimes if people are at the bar, they’re not as participatory in the game. I think that’s a part of it, too.
I don’t think there’s one answer – it’s everything for us: it’s winning, it’s having a great fan experience, it’s having exciting players that fans relate to, it’s continuing to be a club with a great history that’s open with its fans, and it’s [the] stakeholders. And then we’ll be there. And I think we’ll look up one day and go, “Oh my God, this is it. This place is rocking.” Maybe that will be when we play LAFC in May this year. Maybe it will be a playoff game we host. I don’t know what that day is, but I can visualize it as I sit here right now. And everyone’s standing for 90 minutes. And everyone’s in their seat the whole game, and we’re singing arm-in-arm.
