Fandom Unpacked

Converting Local Fans into Lifelong Brand Advocates with the New Orleans Pelicans

• Situation • Season 1 • Episode 2

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When the New Orleans Pelicans take the court at Smoothie King Center, they're not just playing basketball – they're celebrating the soul of a city renowned for its distinctive culture, resilience, and community spirit. This captivating conversation with Mel Barry, Senior Director of Brand Marketing for the Pelicans, reveals how the organization has masterfully woven the essence of New Orleans into every aspect of their brand.

"If you love New Orleans, it'll love you back," Barry shares. This philosophy guides how the team approaches fan engagement across an increasingly complex ecosystem of touchpoints – from the in-arena experience to broadcast partnerships, social media, merchandise, and community initiatives.

What sets the Pelicans' approach apart is their deep understanding of audience segmentation. They recognize that different fans are motivated by different experiences: some seek premium all-inclusive packages, others respond to themed nights or giveaways, while community groups connect through specially designed experiences like Veterans Appreciation Night. This nuanced understanding allows the marketing team to craft personalized journeys that resonate with diverse fan segments.

Technology plays a crucial role in this strategy, enabling the team to conduct sophisticated A/B testing across platforms, build comprehensive fan profiles, and deliver increasingly personalized communication. Yet Barry emphasizes that the human element remains paramount – particularly in how the organization supports players' personal brands and community initiatives.

Perhaps most compelling is Barry's description of those magical moments when everything aligns – when 20,000 fans rise to their feet in unison, creating an electric atmosphere that transcends the game itself. Even in defeat, as when fans gave the team a standing ovation after a playoff elimination, these shared experiences forge powerful emotional connections that keep fans coming back season after season.

Ready to experience the unique blend of basketball and New Orleans culture? Join the Pelicans faithful and discover why this team has captured the heart and soul of one of America's most distinctive cities.

Recorded Tuesday, November 12th, 2024
Host: Damian Bazadona, CEO & Founder, Situation
Guest:  Mel Barry, Senior Director of Brand Marketing, New Orleans Pelicans
Producer: Peter Yagecic, Innovation Advisor, Situation

Peter Yagecic:

You're listening to Fandom Unpacked, the podcast. An audio version of our regular livestream series where we unpack modern fandom with some of the brightest minds in sports and entertainment. I'm producer Peter Yagecic, and in today's episode, we'll hear a conversation between our host, Damian Bazadona, CEO and Founder of Situation Group, and Mel Barry, senior director of brand marketing for the New Orleans Pelicans. This was a great conversation about NBA fandom and local communities rallying around the home team. Here's Damian and Mel.

Damian Bazadona:

Nice to see everybody. Mel and I actually go back many years and it's just crazy. We reconnected more recently, but many years back are her days at Spocko. I saw a bunch of Spocko people on the RCP list. So, yes, some former folks here, which is awesome. But let's get into it. Like, let's. Obviously I'm a big NBA fan overall, but tell me what it's like to be a Pelicans fan. Like, give me the vibe. Like, what is it like and how would you describe it?

Mel Barry:

Yeah, I think the cool thing about our city is that you know, if you're here, you love the culture, if you live here, right, and if you're coming to visit, you're here to experience it. And so we try to, you know, embrace all of the things about, you know, New Orleans that are amazing, whether it be, you know, the music, the food, within our brand, within the ways that we recognize, whether it be a theme or a holiday or something like that. And so I think our view of a Pelicans fan is someone who loves New Orleans, loves the Gulf South and wants to join us in celebrating all the wonderful things about it and how we support each other during all of the good times and the bad. So I think that's something that's, you know, kind of the vibe of New Orleans in general, and so we try to, you know, keep that something that we amplify with the team.

Damian Bazadona:

Yeah, I was gonna say it seems like the city is a massive part, just the culture of the city, and I feel like the Saints had an awesome game on Sunday which is obviously the NFL a different sport altogether, but it's a sports town. So I'm assuming that just makes all of New Orleans that much more happy, which makes them much more happy when they go to the Pelicans game.

Mel Barry:

Absolutely, I think it's, yeah, it's something that the city thrives on and they're great too. I mean, obviously you can't win them all, but when you do, everyone comes to work with a little pep in their step. Um, and then, obviously, within our organization, um, the Pelicans are are owned by the same entity as the Saints, and so you know, we have a lot of the same. You know, uh, it's, it's a lot more fun to come in on Monday after a win, uh, you know, and and if not, you know, it's on to the next. Everyone's always really focused on the next game, whether it be basketball or football, but it really definitely gives you something to smile about when you come to work on Monday that you're in the dub club again, as you will.

Damian Bazadona:

Let's build into the Just how you look at marketing overall, integrated for the entirety of the Pelicans brand, because it just seems like this is the most amazing NBA, which I think does an incredible job of all of the different fan touch points that exist. From watching game, I mean, we watch the games here on the NBA. Pass um between watching the games, uh, on TV, or streaming in person, uh, gaming, right, my kids, we play NBA 2k, which they I still am actually decent at. I've been playing some version of NBA and gaming for years, but collectibles, like my son collects sports cards and we got our Zion card and stuff.

Damian Bazadona:

I just feel like there's so many different touch points that are happening at any given moment in time. How do you and I know this is an impossible question, but it is important, I'm just trying to understand how do you as an organization sort of stay all interconnected, because I'm assuming a massive part of your role is selling tickets to the games, obviously, but all these other touch points, right, they're all like whichever touch point someone takes is equity in the brand. How do you guys think about the overall integration of all those moving parts?

Mel Barry:

No, that's a good question. I think it's a lot of like communication, right, again, we all have to have the same goals in mind and priorities so that we are executing on the same things and it doesn't feel disjointed across the different, different channels. And so some of those things happen through, through like partnerships is what we would call them. So, for example, our, our broadcast partner, the TV station that has the affiliates within our market, that that broadcasts our games over the air, that's a partnership, and so we work with them to understand how they're promoting the games and talking about tune-in, talking about our players, talking about the team, and so you know they may not be under our roof but we have regular, you know, kind of conversations with them and you know set out, you know, at the beginning of the season, the goals for I mean for this year is mostly education, because we changed our broadcast partner between Bally's and now we're with Gray, which is over the air, and so, anyway, those are the types of things that we're, you know, making sure that from our end, we're telling our fans, because they're coming to us for that information, but then also the way that they're receiving that message, whether it be broadcast or you know, obviously, like the things we can control are a little bit easier, whether you know, like our social channels, our website, you know anything that we're putting in paid we do a lot of.

Mel Barry:

You know PR, obviously, like releases, or you know, sending our folks out into the markets to talk about the things that are going on for the team, and so it's just you know it's not easy for sure, and it, you know, sometimes you have to. You know, kind of there's fire drills and you're like this is important today and it wasn't important yesterday, right, you know, kind of there's fire drills and you're like this is important today and it wasn't important yesterday, right, so everyone's got to be very nimble, but I mean, I think that's across most sports, right, you just got to be flexible.

Damian Bazadona:

You got to understand that there are a lot of things outside of your control, and so what you can control is how you're working with the people who are, you know, putting out these messages and kind of you know you're supplying with the right assets and tools to do that I find, um, you said the word nimble and I do think prior to our this interview, I saw in the weather, like a week ago they said you guys were buffing it down for a major tropical storm or potential hurricane coming through on this date, and I just think of all the different you talk about, like nimble, I can only imagine what it's like inside your offices trying to navigate on this ongoing basis. Whether it's a hurricane or it's a player controversy or whatever it might be. There's all these different moving dynamics which I'm sure make things fun on a daily basis and no two days are the same.

Mel Barry:

No, you're absolutely right. I have never showed up bored. I have never been like, well, what are we going to? You know, this fire seems really boring and I'm not going to pay attention to it. No, there's always something.

Mel Barry:

Like you said, the weather is one, especially in our market, and you know there's other teams who have been impacted by this as well, like one of our preseason games was canceled because Orlando was under, you know, a hurricane, a hurricane warning, and so you know it's certainly something we kind of deal with. But in this region especially, you know, I don't want to say we're used to it. You never want to like get comfortable with the fact that you know there's a natural kind of potential disaster on the way, but you do learn how to deal with it. You know you have those communication plans in place. You make sure that you know you have all the touch points. You know something like training camp, for example.

Mel Barry:

It happens in some of the hottest months of the year, and so we have these systems in place where, if it's too hot for people to come outside, we're going to text them and tell them you know practice is postponed or we'll invite them to another day, things like that. So it's not just the you know, it's weather of any kind, I guess but all sorts of conditions that you have to kind of be ready for just to make sure that people are safe. You know, we don't want them trying to come out to a game if they shouldn't be, you know out they should probably be sheltering or evacuating in some cases, and so you just try to be responsible, right, like, obviously we're here to put on the games and to celebrate with our fans, but there are times when you know certain things trump those situations and you need to kind of make sure that everyone you know is doing what they need to do to stay safe.

Damian Bazadona:

Are there any um? We talked about the different marketing, integrated marketing across platforms. Are there any particular platforms that you're seeing potential more growth in, or at least where there's a bigger focus? So, for example, international or again like new gaming platforms or new streaming platforms, but just in terms of, have you noticed, and whether it's specific to the Pelicans or the NBA at large, what do you feel? Is there a particular conversation around a particular trend that you think is going to impact fandom a little bit in your world?

Mel Barry:

I think it kind of depends on, you know, when you think about in-market people. We kind of think about them a little bit differently because those are, you know, more likely a ticket buyer no-transcript, I think, you know, as we try different types of technology, I think one of the interesting things is you know the tools that will make different iterations of a piece of creative and we can watch how engaging it may be if there's more photos. Or red is, you know, performing particularly well over navy. You know, like there's things like that that we can watch and learn within our different audiences.

Mel Barry:

When we're doing like A-B testing these tools and technologies that either the NBA has, you know, shared with us or we've, you know, kind of found our own way with, is that you can test a lot and you can kind of figure out what's working and hopefully iterate and give people, you know, the things that they want and share those learnings. So if we see something is working in email, chances are we might try to replicate that in social or, you know, even maybe in game, if we're, like people are loving you know this particular application of the brand or the way that we're bringing it to life. Like let's see what that looks like in an in-game graphic, because it, you know, it's eyeballs. So I think there's, you know, kind of depends, but we're certainly leaning on technology to, you know, give us insights about how to best reach and best create the assets that we have going out into the world.

Damian Bazadona:

Peter, any questions on your end? Are you seeing the?

Peter Yagecic:

folks. Well, I'm going to sit on my own You're speaking my language with testing and technology but I am going to ask one of the questions that came in from one of our attendees, earlier Mel. You said you talked about the fact that the social team doesn't live under the marketing umbrella. How do you ensure that you have all the comms in place with different groups to ensure that you're all playing from the same playbook and I'll put a slight spit on it, especially when it comes to listening to what the fans are saying? How does that get? What's the two-way communication? And do you have any kind of advice for teams that are structured similarly to make sure that everybody's on the same page?

Mel Barry:

Yeah, absolutely, I think, because the social team doesn't necessarily sit directly within our department. I, you know they. We will sometimes work with our consumer insights team to do social listening and so we'll say like, hey, what are you hearing? You know that sort of thing. So we may rely on a team for you know reports and things like that about you know whether, again, whether it be how content is, how engaging it is, you know how many followers we're gaining, things like that. So we rely on some of that. But we do talk directly with that team, you know, on a daily basis, really to understand you know what they're hearing, what they're seeing.

Mel Barry:

Again, like, just to bring the broadcast example back, we were very intent on understanding what are the roadblocks to people understanding where they can tune in to Pelican's games this season, so we can teach them how to, you know, install an antenna. We can't you know something that wasn't part of our messaging last season but became important how can we, you know, point them to our streaming service if they are a cord cutter? You know that sort of thing. And so we listen to, hopefully, the comments and things that they're hearing from fans, whether it be DMs, you know reactions, retweets with, you know, feedback, good or bad and we want to hear all that feedback really and understand what we're doing well and how we can improve.

Mel Barry:

And so that's definitely a cycle and it's something you know we get not only from our social team but, like I would say, you know, our operations team, who you know are involved in executing our games at the arena, like they're the ones closest to the fans and they can actually hear what they're saying.

Mel Barry:

You know what they're struggling with or what they, you know, are. Like this is a great improvement type of thing. So I would say, you know, whether we're connected to a team or not, we really try to understand what is going on in their world so that we can all be addressing it. And again, maybe something we find out at a game is something we can address on social. Like the team store has a particular item and it's only available here and you didn't know that. So now maybe we address that in our what we call our know before you go and so, like we send out certain messages to fans before they attend a game, and so that could be email, it could be social, but just trying to solve for any of the things that we might hear in any world, even though it might not be ours.

Peter Yagecic:

give them the tools they need to get the message out there. Fandom Unpacked is brought to you by Situation, an award-winning marketing agency built for live entertainment that champions the power of unforgettable shared experiences around the world. We offer full marketing and creative services for experience-based brands in live entertainment, attractions, theater, sports, arts and culture, and more. Check us out at SituationInteractivecom. Now back to our Q&A.

Damian Bazadona:

Let's go into the venue and talk a little bit about your core ticket buyer, how you think about them, right? So you know whether it's demographics or psychographics, how you think about who they are and how you target them. And so we represent a range of sports teams. We also represent a range of live event properties and I'm assuming I know a lot of people on this call are trying to figure out how do you work if you're responsible for moving getting people off their couch in two locations with all the friction and, by the way, they get sent home to stream the game, which isn't a bad thing, but they're not. You're not getting to the venue. How do you think? Just, I'd love to hear about your how you think about your core ticket buyer and kind of, how do you, how do you mostly market and advertise to them? Just curious what a media mix roughly looks like or be helpful.

Mel Barry:

Yeah, absolutely so. I think we do try to segment as much as possible when we think about what type of fan may want a particular experience. And so you know there might be a premium fan who wants an all-inclusive ticket, right, and so they really want their food and Bev and their like everything to be, you know, included. So you've got your phone, you scan your ticket and then you're done, right, you don't reach into your pocket anymore because everything is kind of taken care of and you're just having this, you know, all-inclusive experience. And then you know some fans may be driven to the gate by a giveaway item and so maybe they feel like they want, you know, just kind of that free item at the gate, or it's a t-shirt or you know, whatever it may be, they may be really like. You know that may be the value add. That kind of pushes them over the edge into buying a ticket or just showing up. You know, like, once we sold the ticket, we also need to worry about show rate, right, like once you sell it. That's half the battle. You want people to come, you know like, and they, you know, need to value the experience they have and hopefully it's consistent and it's something that they want to keep doing, and so you know some other things we do are group nights, and so we've got a sales team dedicated to thinking about like niche groups.

Mel Barry:

So yesterday, for example, was Veterans Day and so we had a Veterans Appreciation Night, and so there were certain groups within you know the community that came out military. You know veteran retired military, and they were, you know, treated to some. You know special experiences, whether it be like a souvenir item or just, like you know, a happy hour with people who are like-minded. You know, like other people who are also, you know, in the military, things like that and so kind of. You know, bringing community in as well, and so I think you kind of have to understand what's important to each of those different audiences and fans and what's going to tip them into not only, you know, buying a ticket, but hopefully continuing to attend games, and you know, buy the merch and rep the team, tune in when we're away. Like you know, you just got to try to hopefully grow that affinity by understanding the ways that they want to experience the team and delivering that consistently.

Damian Bazadona:

How do you break down? Obviously there's A games, there's B games, there's C games. Are you trying to put the heaviest focus on the hard to sell games or are you trying to maximize the games that are a little bit easier to sell? But we're going to max revenue. How do you think about? I think when we did our preliminary talk you talked a little bit like a matrix and I'd love to kind of just talk through that a little bit. I'd love to kind of just talk through that a little bit.

Mel Barry:

Yeah, absolutely, I think you're right. Like revenue is king, right, like we want to sell tickets and we want to make sure the games with the biggest upside are packed. That's, you know, just kind of a natural goal. But I think we, you know, have cross-functional teams that kind of weigh in and so our schedule comes out in August and then, you know, we, very quickly, you know, work with again, our consumer insights team and our ticket sales team to understand, you know, and we typically, like we really see it just about the same time that the fans do. We get a very short window to like preview the schedule, enough time to put it into a graphic, you know, and so, and proofread it so, so, and that's a lot of lines. But so we, you know, once we get that schedule, you know we're off to the races in terms of determining pricing and things like that. So we kind of look at, like getting the games on sale and looking at to your point, like different tiers of pricing, and that may be the opponent, that may be the day of week, that may be is it around a holiday, and we know that you know it's going to sell well, because people are off, you know, school work, things like that, and so we look at all those things. But then and so we get the tickets on sale and then we also, you know, then comes the work of, like the nuances for those particular games. So you got the pricing kind of set. But now you got to talk to again the group teams. Like, as soon as we knew we had a game on Veterans Day, we're like perfect, like that's. You know, that's where you're going to focus your group energy for your veteran and military groups. There's, we have a game on Lunar New Year this year. So, like a great opportunity for us to think about our fans who celebrate Lunar New Year. Or, you know, great touch points for our fans in China and other places where that we, you know, we'll plan our themes and our giveaways and our group nights kind of around those priorities. And so, for example, our holiday game this year is the 21st, it's a Saturday and we're playing the Knicks, so if you're in town, stop by. But that's a great, you know, it's a great weekend game, it's a great time to celebrate the holiday right before we think we're going to have a great crowd.

Mel Barry:

Uh, you know, obviously there's those um, you know, marquee matchups, if you will, that we focus on that. You know that's the, the lakers, the celtics. You know, uh, you know other rising teams, um, uh, that you know may have like a star player that everyone really wants to check out and see, and so you factor that in too. But again, like, a lot of what we are looking at is is the fan experience in addition to, you know, the, the, the opponent, obviously, where we want people to come to see the pelicans, uh, so we're, we're, you know, focusing on your mardi gras, right, like that's a big game. Everyone looks forward to that every season. Uh, we do a fan appreciation game at the end of the season. That really, um, usually we do like a festival vibe for that, because it's Jazz Fest around that time and that's a big, you know kind of tentpole moment in our own cultural calendar that has really nothing to do with, you know, anyone else, so that's a unique one, and so I think, hopefully, people kind of start to look forward to things like that as we build up their, you know, appetite for the way that we execute.

Mel Barry:

So it is really a mix, but yes, I mean, obviously revenue is king, and then we try to find other ways to, um, you know, figure out the calendar, cause it's, you know we've got 40 plus home games. You know, if you're lucky, you got more. So, uh, it's a lot, it's a lot to think about, but you know it goes. It goes by so fast, like before you know it. It's like you know it's March and you're like wait a minute, where you know where did it all go. But it's pretty exciting.

Mel Barry:

Those are the most fun times, I think, is when you finally get the schedule in your hands and you can plan all that. And then you know it's really, you know, up to you by then to get everything in place so that when the season tips off in October, you know, hopefully I'll be really like a solid calendar. That you know and you iterate. You know, if we find out that the Lakers game is pretty much sold, then maybe we won't be pushing that in our like billboards and our paid. We'll still remind people that's the next game. But you know, maybe we're putting all of our paid behind, whatever our next theme is, or NBA Cup games, because we still need to move. You know, inventory. These are all real things that are happening right now. So that's kind of the way we go about it is like on a, you know, almost like a weekly basis. You got to, I mean daily even you look at the sales and how things are going and just kind of, you know, move your marketing plan around that.

Damian Bazadona:

Yeah, plus, I'm sure yeah, all the storylines that happen throughout the season that you have Cavaliers are coming to town. That changes the dynamic and I can imagine how we helped him with that. Oh, did you? Oh yeah, You're part of the streak. Sorry, a lot of these are Peter. I think we have a question, correct, yeah?

Peter Yagecic:

Well, and I want to come down to see a game during festival season because I bet that it's amazing. Oh my.

Damian Bazadona:

God.

Peter Yagecic:

We did get a question Going back to venue experience. What role does technology play in enhancing the fan experience at Smoothie King Center especially and I'm adding kind of an audible to this to maybe identify fans that weren't the ticket buyers and start a relationship with those folks who maybe came with somebody who bought the ticket? Or what might there be in the future that you're looking forward to?

Mel Barry:

No, that's a great question. I think yeah. So our ticketing partners vary across teams as well. I think the bulk of teams are maybe Ticketmaster, we're a SeatGeek team and so I assume it's very similar across the different you know ticket, you know partners, but you know, once someone buys a ticket, obviously they're kind of in our system. But if they transfer that ticket, we do, you know, typically it's from like one SeatGeek account to another.

Mel Barry:

You know that's usually the way people like transfer or claim tickets, and so then that person kind of enters our universe and so, you know, our Consumer Insights team is working, you know, to try and build out sort of profiles, if you will, for all of our fans and kind of bucket them and understand what their behaviors are. And so we're honestly kind of in a little bit of a rebuilding phase with some of our stack, if you will like, all the different pieces that add up to this hopefully good picture of what a fan you know has done and what they're likely to do. And so as much as possible we're trying to piece that picture together so that when we do, you know, have another touch point with them. It's, you know, maybe it's a similar type of game, or it's at a similar price point or day, or you know, or maybe we're hitting them with a discount for you know the team store because be you know adding on to that ticket and that game experience. And so I think you know the more that we can put those things together based on the data that we either get from you know SeatGeek and there's all these.

Mel Barry:

You know it's obviously there's a lot of privacy involved too. So sometimes we're anonymized and we're just understanding you know general things about people, but we work very closely with the NBA and if someone identifies as a Pelicans fan, for example, sometimes we're sharing data. Nfl is great about this too. They've been doing it for a long time. Where they're, you know, building up these, you know profiles and things like that, and so we, you know, just rely on all the ways that that data is coming in.

Mel Barry:

It could be our people who are streaming the games and you know we realize that they're in our market. You know League Pass is a way to access the games outside of market, but we have something called Pelicans Plus and it's like well, if you're a Pelicans Plus subscriber, you're in our market. So you know how do we if we see that maybe you haven't been to a game. How can we, you know, entice some of those people to convert and come to a game, because it's not far-fetch those things together into a broader strategy around? You know, hopefully you know again, kind of it's. Maybe it's automated but it's personalized, based on you know the things that we're learning about people.

Damian Bazadona:

I just I know we're mindful of time, but one thing we did not talk about yet that I'd love to is to talk about the marketing relationship to the players themselves. Yeah, and so obviously you guys are actually dealing with a bunch of injuries right now, which I'm assuming is complicated within itself. What is the relationship to the players right In terms of their and the analogy a lot of folks on this call are in very similar industries, whether they're in sports category or other categories of like the relationship between the artist, the athlete, the performer, whatever that might look like to the brand itself. What's the relationship like? How, in terms of the marketing perspective, are you guys on the road with them or collaborating? I recognize social media is another group, but how does that work within the more? How does it integrate with the marketing function, the player relationship in their brands?

Mel Barry:

Yeah, that's a that's a great question and I have joined the team on the road before just to kind of understand again. You get a feel for them. They kind of start to know who you are, which is important, I think, so that they can build up some trust and just familiarity with other people on the team, because they, you know, for the most part are interacting with you know, our basketball operations team, but people we have we also have good relationships with. So they, you know, there's a player development kind of team that works with them on the things that are important to them, you know, in and outside of basketball, and there's our PR team and so we have all these relationships and as much as I do, you know, want them to kind of know who I am, I rely on those closer relationships with them to determine, like, what that looks like. And so it's a bit of a choose your own adventure. I would say it's really like, you know, some players are a little more personal, a little more private. They don't necessarily, you know, want to have a huge presence and you know, maybe they're focusing on, like their brand, you know, which typically needs to be kind of agnostic from a team, because you know their roster, you know changes happen, things like that. So they've kind of got their brand. But I think there's players who really want to opt in to, you know, working with us on content for the channels or even, you know, directly with the community. So I think we talked about before.

Mel Barry:

I said, cj McCollum is a great example. You know, as soon as he came into the market and our team, which was a couple seasons ago, he embraced New Orleans like wholeheartedly, like he loves, you know, he's always like kind of showing the organization appreciation, which is great for, you know, just morale. But he also has this program called McCollum Scholars and so he gives college scholarships to students within our community and so you know he worked with our community team. We have a whole community kind of relationships team that identified the right, you know, maybe, the right schools, the right students, the right people for him to you know execute this program with. And so, knowing that that was something he really wanted to do, then you know we're kind of off to the races, right, we're like you want to do good, we want to do good, like let's do it together. And so I think you know that's an example.

Mel Barry:

And then there's also you know the, the, you know almost campaign type things. So if you think about last year, herb Jones got NBA team all defense and so that was something where he's a humble guy. It's not like he was like let's campaign for me he certainly did none of that but we were like we recognize your talent, this is a, you have a real shot at this. And so all season long we were kind of collecting content and stats and like all of this kind of case you know for this. And so when it came time you know, kind of the end of the season, when those types of you know, determinations are being made, we had this entire website built out like showcasing, like you know just how great he was and how deserving he was of that recognition.

Mel Barry:

Now, he got it because he did, you know. He got it because he was. But I think like showing our support was like something that you know just kind of helps with you know our relationships and things like that and recognizing that like we're behind you know our stars and you know and you know even the people who may not necessarily be considered a star, there's still people who might be doing really good things in the community, and so it's. You know what are you kind of finding that makes sense from an organizational standpoint and from a player perspective, and how you want to work together.

Damian Bazadona:

If I were a professional athlete which I'm the furthest thing from that it looks like it would feel like New Orleans would be an amazing city to play. It just seems like the people they get behind their team. It looks like it's an incredible city on so many levels that it has to just be and you could tell what a player it feels like. You could tell what a player wants to be there versus when they don't want to be there, their relationship with the city. Um, and I just get the sense that New Orleans has got to be a great place to be, to be a professional athlete, um. The last question I have is is at its best, what's the? How would you describe the feeling of being in the stadium? Like when it's lit and everything, and it feels like I'm going to an nba game in new orleans and all the people listening right now on the pot on on this webinar, um, when they come to new orleans, they're going. What's the pitch to them?

Mel Barry:

you say, at its best, oh, this is the best part about being in the stadium yeah, I mean, I would say it's, and I, I think I kind of think back to the times that we had, you know, whether it be theater, live events, broadway, you know you get that moment where just everything comes together and it could be like that big, you know solo, or it could be the standing ovation, and it could be like this moment that just feels electric, you know, and everyone is on their feet. And there's this thing that I think I may have mentioned, that you know, zion has said it and Drew Brees, I think, may have originated, you know, kind of this vibe, but if you love New Orleans, it'll love you back, and so it feels like this transfer of energy where you're like you are loving what's happening so much and you just feel it wash over you too. I think like that's the goal, like if every game could have that moment where you're like this is it, you know, like this is why I'm here, this is why I want to come back, this is the reason, you know, that we're all doing this. It's the same thing. I, you know, think of myself as almost like backstage, you know, like I'm the lighting guy, but I'm like, you know, I'm just kind of helping make these things happen, even though I'm not doing anything that, like you know, but I'm hopefully setting the stage I guess there's a pun there but for all of these things to kind of happen, because that's when I feel like we've been successful, like when people can feel and like love and are, just, you know, excited.

Mel Barry:

And I was talking to someone about this the other day, actually, you know, one of the coolest moments we had, and it was unfortunate, but a couple of seasons ago we made a real strong run at the playoffs and we were eliminated at home by the Suns and as our team walked off the court standing ovation, like everyone was just like you know what we like fought and we showed up in ways that people didn't think we would. You know, first couple of games Devin wasn't even playing you know Devin Booker and then he was, and like we're like, yeah, like we're that kind of team You've got to play your stars, because that's how you know, hard, we want to play and want to win, and so like I literally am giving myself goosebumps, but like it was just such a cool moment because we were, we were done Right, but we, we were like at our peak at that moment in terms of fandom, because we were all so proud of what we had done.

Damian Bazadona:

Well said.

Peter Yagecic:

And your goosebumps are contagious? I wasn't, yeah, and I felt them when you described that well said.

Damian Bazadona:

Uh, mel, you're a gem.

Peter Yagecic:

Thank you, I appreciate the time that's gonna do it for this episode of fandom. Unpacked the podcast. If you liked what you heard, please be sure to leave us a review on apple podcasts. Find out how to join us live for an upcoming recording at situationlivecom fan. We'll see you next time, true believers. Find out how to join us live for an upcoming recording at SituationLivecom slash fan. We'll see you next time, true believers.