COVER
STORY
10
1st QUARTER 2014
requires this organization
to think outside the box,”
he says.
Gameday
Experience
For fans, “there are more
alternatives out there than
there ever have been,” says
Friedman, “whether it be an
alternative way to purchase
the ticket, an alternative to
the way you consume the
product, or alternatives to
the way you interact with
the team.”
At the same time, he sees
many different ways the
team can impact fans’ lives
and many more revenue
streams than in the past.
For the 80,000 fans who
come to MetLife Sta-
dium on gameday, the Jets
organization has worked
at creating more than just the action on
the field.
“Our goal is to make sure it’s not just
that you’re coming for the game. You’re
coming for the experience. You’re com-
ing because your kid loves to jump on
the inflatables before the game, get his
or her face painted, and then root on the
team,” he says. “And if you didn’t have
that opportunity, who knows? As the
weather gets chilly, you might opt not to
buy a ticket. You might stay home with
your widescreen TV.”
So this season, the team introduced
the Player Walk. Instead of entering the
stadium through a private entrance, the
players, coaches, cheerleaders, and own-
er come in through a cheering gauntlet
of fans. With superstars like Muhammad
Wilkerson high-fiving them and giving
out collectible coins to kids, these are
the types of high-impact, unforgettable
experiences that Friedman wants the
team to invest in to drive critical fan
engagement.
All of these changes come at a cost.
A cost, Friedman believes, that is worth
every penny — or in this case, every
collectible coin.
Fans who watch at home outnumber
those who are regular ticket buyers by a
factor of maybe 80 or 100. That stay-at-
home fan likes the comfort of being able
to go to the refrigerator, have his own
beer, follow his fantasy team players on
his phone, and text with friends. Still,
even though he and his friends consume
the Jets product in an entirely different
way than the ticket-buyer, these fans are
important to the Jets.
“These at-home fans’ consumption
of the product drives television ratings,
which drives television contracts and
contributes to our profitability as well.
They spend on product purchases that
Sports teams today are looking to provide a better overall
experience, says Friedman, because there are so many alternatives
Sidebar: The Alignment
Test
As CFO of a public com-
pany, Caroline Dorsa puts
great stock in team align-
ment, which she says starts
with agreement around a
common purpose. “If you
know that your mission is
safe, reliable, economic, and
greener energy, and you
know that your principles
are about operational excel-
lence, financial strength,
and disciplined investment,
you start there. Then you
can take different business
proposals and hold them up
to examination and ask, Do
they meet our principles?”
she says.
“You’d be surprised how
easy it is to have a good
conversation when you
evaluate everything through
that lens.”
She credits PSEG’s
Chairman and CEO Ralph
Izzo for consistently articu-
lating a vision that employ-
ees have enthusiastically
rallied around while con-
tinuously driving toward
higher and higher levels of
performance. Of course,
such common principles
must serve employees, cus-
tomers, and shareholders,
Super
Strategies
As every CFO knows, the
job involves multitask-
ing at various projects.
For Brian Fried an, this
year brought on the
added responsibility of
working for n of the
host teams of Super
Bowl XLVIII.
Although MetLife
Stadium is only four
seasons old, work had
to be done to make sure
everything would be
top-notch when it came
to th Sup r Bowl.
“The N tional Football
League’s marquee event
forced our organization
to think about every
aspect of everything,
and I mean every
aspect,” says Friedman,
who credits informa-
tion technology VP Tom
Murphy and his crew
for th ir tireless work at
both the team’s facility
and the stadium.
Long before the ball was
kicked off at MetLife
Stadium (which is owned
jointly by the Jets and
the Giants) on Feb. 2, the
WiFi system was upgrad-
ed so it could handle the
needs of the press and
the fans — an stimated
40,000 simultaneous
connections. And every
transformer and fuse
was tested, retested,
and given a backup
where possible. Last
year in New Orleans, a
load-measuring piece
of equipment acciden-
tally cut power to the
Superdome. That hiccup
caused an energy-relat-
ed fiasco that blacked
out the Super Bowl for
34 minutes. At MetLife
Stadium, a standby
mobile substation was
on hand.
However, Super Bowl
XLVIII’s focal point for
many Jets fans wasn’t
MetLife Stadium. Jets
House, part of the 50
Yard Lounge created by
the Jets organization’s
partner, Connect Group,
was the home base for
Jets season-ticket hold-
ers and fans, featuring
appearances by current
and former players.
“Jets House was a
large investment of time
and money with the goal
of giving all fans, and
more importantly our
Jets season-ticket hold-
ers, a memorable place
to experience Super
Bowl Week,”
says Friedman.
Photography: Jose Rey, New York Jets
