Latest / Your Dark Companion Podcast / Rev Entertainment: Transforming Globe Life Field Beyond Baseball Games | Sean Decker President

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Rev Entertainment: Transforming Globe Life Field Beyond Baseball Games | Sean Decker President · Your Dark Companion Podcast

• 0:00:00 - (Mike Rhyner): Nobody would have thought that I would be the one. Reiner. Sports talk. Baseball, baseball, baseball, baseball. Oh, with the big mic. Oh, okay. All right. Yeah, okay, now I get it. We got a lightning strike, boys. What happened over there, Grego? We had a little lightning strike right outside the window. The Texas Rangers win the World Series. 0:00:30 - (Sean Decker): All right, all right. 0:00:31 - (Mike Rhyner): Here's a tip, right? All these Americano league teams don't. 0:00:34 - (Sean Decker): Wait, you said tip? 0:00:35 - (Mike Rhyner): Yeah, tip with a P. Keep jamming the ticket Cola. Nothing but a big Gen X jerk off session. This is a cool night. Or what? Although somebody would hear that and go, I'm back. And a very, very pleasant good day, good evening, good night, good morning. Whatever time of day it may be where you are, no matter what time of day it is, you've tuned in to another episode of your Dark companion. This is the 28th of July as we are wrapping up another big month here on the show. And what a month this has been. 0:01:21 - (Mike Rhyner): I would be Mike Reiner shoopy with us today, and we are out here at Globe Life Field. Once again, that means we're going to be talking, maybe not Rangers baseball so much, but we're going to be talking about another branch of the Rangers organization which you may or may not know very much about, but you'll find out a little bit more about it today. Must confess, I did not and maybe still do not know a heck of a lot about this myself, other than the fact that it does exist and it is a part of things. 0:02:03 - (Mike Rhyner): So we're all going to learn all about this together. This is Sean Decker. 0:02:09 - (Michael Gruber): Yeah. 0:02:11 - (Mike Rhyner): And he is part of Rev Entertainment. Are you the executive president or vice. 0:02:18 - (Sean Decker): President or just the president? 0:02:19 - (Mike Rhyner): Just the president. Okay. The guy at the top. Rev Entertainment. Now, I gotta tell you, this is something I had heard of, but I didn't know too much about what the idea behind it was, what the purpose of it is, until I started reading through your bio here. So you can probably fill the masses in a little bit better than I can on just what Rev Entertainment does and how it is that you do what you do. Because that's what we want to find out about. 0:02:49 - (Sean Decker): Yeah. Well, first of all, thanks a lot for having me. Big honor to be here. The main function of Rev Entertainment initially was to really program at the old stadium, the old Globe Life park, now Choctaw Stadium, and now at Globe Life Field, to program everything other than the 81 days when the Rangers are playing. How do we find ways to create content to drive people to Arlington, Texas, to create more Energy, more excitement and then ultimately more revenue. 0:03:16 - (Sean Decker): All of the revenue from Rev goes back to the Texas Rangers and to try to help put a winning field team on the field. Which by the way, we can talk little Rangers. Eight out of nine. 0:03:24 - (Michael Gruber): We better. 0:03:24 - (Mike Rhyner): Oh yes we can. We go. 0:03:26 - (Michael Gruber): That man likes the Rangers quite a bit. 0:03:28 - (Sean Decker): Yeah, it's. It was a heck of a. Heck of a last home stand hot start coming out of the All Star Game. So I take a lot of, a lot of pride in that. I've been with the Rangers organization for more than 15 years now. The first 10 really exclusively on the Rangers side. And then when we got the opportunity to start Rev Entertainment and Ray and Neil and the ownership team gave us the the go ahead to do this, it's been an unbelievable journey. 0:03:50 - (Mike Rhyner): Whose idea was Rev Entertainment? 0:03:52 - (Sean Decker): Well, I mean, I think ultimately the idea goes to ownership. They tasked me with coming up with a strategy around it, but it was really them that recognized the old way of operating where you build a stadium, you just play your home games there and that's it. It's an unbelievable facility. But it became really evident when you built a new $1.2 billion stadium. That 81 games is a lot of games. We play more than anybody else. But that still leaves 200. And my math's bad, but that leaves 280 something days that otherwise are unprogr. 0:04:22 - (Sean Decker): So that's really what we focus on. Whether it was the concerts are the things you see a lot. But we do more than 200 private corporate events a year. We do tours every day. In fact, I just ran into a couple of them on the way over here. So it's really about programming it. And then since then, Rev has grown tremendously, which we can talk more about. But that was really how Rev started, was how do we find more content and more ways to operate this great facility. 0:04:42 - (Mike Rhyner): Where'd you grow up? 0:04:43 - (Sean Decker): I grew up. So my wife and I both graduated from Grapevine High School. 0:04:46 - (Mike Rhyner): Oh really? 0:04:46 - (Sean Decker): And then I went to school at Tarleton State University. I moved around a lot because of my dad's job, but Texas has always been home. Born in Waco, Texas. Kindergarten, fourth grade and high school all at Grapevine. So. And now my wife and I live back over there. 0:04:58 - (Mike Rhyner): Ranger fan all your life? 0:04:59 - (Sean Decker): My whole life. My dad was a season six. I was at Nolan seven. No hitter on my dad's shoulders and die hard Rangers fan. So I mean the idea. I worked for a few minor league teams before I got here. I worked for the office of commissioner in the Arizona Fall League. But to get to go to a major league team is a dream. And when it's the team you grew up rooting for, Dream come true. 0:05:20 - (Mike Rhyner): Who or what was your connect? Did you just show up and knock on the door and say, hey, I'm Sean, I can do anything? 0:05:26 - (Sean Decker): I wish, I wish. I actually was at the Frisco Rough Riders before. Oh really? I worked in Colorado Springs for a AAA team. Then I went to the Arizona Fall League. And then I'd applied with Frisco a number of times trying to get back to the DFW Metroplex. My wife, now girlfriend at the time was here and I was trying to find a way home. So I sold season tickets for the rough riders in 2009. And then in 2010 the Rangers were looking for a sweet sales and they, they. 0:05:51 - (Sean Decker): And two weeks later I started. And I've been here for more than 15 years now. 0:05:53 - (Mike Rhyner): So what have you done inside the organization? Suite sales. And then what'd you do after that? And I mean, is there like a rise here? 0:06:00 - (Sean Decker): There must be. If there's anything unique, I think it's that I've kind of crossed over from sales to operations and back and forth. So I went from suite sales to event sales, eventually became the vice president of ballpark operations and then started overseeing our food and beverage and retail and authentics our facility here. I worked on the renovation at the old stadium and then got to work really involved in the design of this place. 0:06:20 - (Sean Decker): And I'd left events and that's ultimately when ownership came over and said, hey, you left events a few years ago. The new stadium coming, we'll take on tons of debt, we'll have tons of open dates. Like if you were us, how would you think about it? And that's really when I, when I was able to put pen to paper on a business plan to create what's rev Entertainment. Now, it's hard to believe we had three employees in a small office on a low floor at the old stadium. And now we've got 130 employees across the country, minor league teams, different facilities we work with. It's a, it's a great gig. 0:06:46 - (Mike Rhyner): So when they ask you that question, what'd you tell them? 0:06:49 - (Sean Decker): I would like to tell you that I had so much foresight that that business plan looks exactly like I wrote. But no, I mean like the idea was what we need to do is create a world class team number one for our team and for our staff. So that when I knew that this building was special, right. And we Knew that we would program a ton of content here. But what usually happens is, after the first two or three years you're in that stadium, all of the staff then gets bored. It's just the same thing every day. 0:07:14 - (Sean Decker): So how do we create a platform that doesn't have a ceiling? So that when Global Life Field is full and we've done our job and Choctaw Stad is full and we're booking the acreage around the stadium, what do we do next? And so the idea was to do what we're doing today, to go take a lot of the things that we learned and do with this and help other partners and own. Own and operate other teams and do the same thing there. And ultimately, it's given us the opportunity to do just that and go scale this in a way that's. That's meaningful. 0:07:37 - (Mike Rhyner): Now, I love this quote in your bio. Here you are talking to Ray and Neil. Ray and Neil. And they said they asked you what would you do? And you just told them, if I were you guys, this is what I would do. And then they said, good. 0:07:58 - (Sean Decker): Do it. Do it. Yeah. True story. Stupid me. I honestly didn't think they were gonna ask me to execute it. So I just kind of wrote stuff on the page saying, like, hey, this is the way I think about it. And no joke, it was over lunch in Ray's office, and it was just the three of us, and Ray looked at it, and he kind of tapped the sheets on the table, and he goes, good. Go do it. 0:08:15 - (Mike Rhyner): What'd you think then? 0:08:16 - (Sean Decker): It's kind of like when the dog catches the car, right? Like, yeah, I didn't. It really wasn't. I mean, listen, I'd be lying if I didn't said I didn't see some sense of being involved. But at the time, I wasn't even working with our events department. It wasn't. It wasn't really in my area. But what's great about what we've built at Rev is it was a kind of a culmination. Like I said, I worked in sales and I worked in operations, and now we get to do both. 0:08:38 - (Sean Decker): And that was it. It was. Originally, the task was smaller, and admittedly, I think even the vision was smaller. I hate to admit that, but really the thought was, we got this new ballpark coming on. First things first. We got to fill up that place. It's first baseball. But everything after we win World Series and all of that, these are the dates, and we've got to be really thoughtful. We can't just be concerts, because even we were the best team in Major League Baseball with concerts last year in terms of quantity, and we only did eight of them, so that doesn't get me very far. 0:09:05 - (Sean Decker): So for us, it really had to be building out a staff to sell private events, to think through all the different things that we could do. And I think what makes us unique is we also create and own our own content. We own the largest college preseason baseball tournament in the country. We played more than 50 games this year, had over 100,000 people come here for college baseball, which I think 10 years ago, nobody thought that that many people watch college baseball a year. And it's a massive market. So creating our own content, getting into the Western lifestyle. We sell out high school graduations every year. And that was actually an accident because of COVID if you remember. 0:09:37 - (Michael Gruber): Oh, I remember. 0:09:38 - (Sean Decker): We didn't have any intent on doing high school graduations when we opened this building. And then because of COVID and there wasn't enough room in these gymnasiums and to host folks, we did 64 of them, I believe, in 2020. And now we have a high school graduation season. We sell out. So it's a. We're. I'm a bit of a carny. If you can sell a ticket, we'll find a venue for you. 0:09:57 - (Mike Rhyner): This is just a massive Scope thing. Like, I didn't know what to think about Rev Entertainment or. Exactly. Like I say, I didn't know much about what it was or what you guys did. And now reading what I've read up on you about on you and hearing you talk about it, and the scope. 0:10:16 - (Michael Gruber): Of this is just massive when it has been. I'm sorry, I was going to say just seeing it from kind of the inside, then the outside, then back in. 0:10:22 - (Mike Rhyner): Yeah, I mean, you got a better look at it than I do. 0:10:24 - (Michael Gruber): Yeah. Like, I started with the team in 2020, you know, trained a little bit with Chuck before that in 19. But, yeah, starting with the pandemic, obviously, you know, doing all the graduations, all that stuff, that's kind of what Rev was doing at that time, you know, to my knowledge. And, you know, started adding the college baseball and all that. And then I left to go back and try to do the radio thing again, because I can't avoid it. 0:10:50 - (Michael Gruber): But then coming back and just seeing how much more stuff there is, how big the staff is, you know, when I was in 2020, it was basically all the Rangers employees just helped out where they could on Rev. And now it's basically, to my understanding, Essentially separated. Where there's Rangers employees, there's Revs Rev employees. In terms of, you know, the people staffing the events, the people working the events, I don't know. Totally on your side, but just seeing that growth has been insane. 0:11:19 - (Michael Gruber): And I don't know how the hell you've scaled it like that, but it's. 0:11:24 - (Sean Decker): Just a lot of people smarter than me. Is the short answer fair enough? You make a good point. Like, we were absolutely Rangers and Rev. There was. If you walked into our office, there was no discernible difference, right. Other than maybe a T shirt with a Rev logo on it and somebody in a Rangers logo. But. And I would say this, it's still. It's a really challenging, from a leadership standpoint, from my side, making sure that our staff still feels very ingrained with the Texas Rangers team and the staff and that winning matters and all of the things that happen there. To feel like we're a united culture in that sense, because now we even have separate offices, right? Like, so we. We're in different places. So we're. We're completely intertwined in one way, and yet our goals and metrics, sometimes 99% of the time are completely aligned and they're never misaligned. But oftentimes, what we're focused. You know, for instance, the Rangers are out of town, and so that's an off day. If there's an off day on a Friday or something for staff, well, Rev's job is to be working on that day. And so, like, trying to make sure that we don't compare against the same, whether it's benefits or whatever it may be. 0:12:22 - (Sean Decker): That's been a bit of a trick that we've navigated over the years. But ultimately, I think we do a lot of things intentionally, and we try to be intentional about how. How well we are together. So Rev staff is still. Every employee has a ticket for opening day. Like, we all root and cheer together. And I think what's most important amongst the culture between the Rangers and Rev in general is that both sides cheer for each other really hard. The Ranger staff, I know you guys had Jim Cochran on a couple weeks ago, who leads the Ranger side. Jim and I's office, we shared a wall for a few years. Jim is one of my closest friends, and I've always believed in that saying, like, pay attention to who's not cheering when you win. 0:12:58 - (Sean Decker): The one thing I can tell you that since Jim's been in that seat, we've been a million percent aligned in making sure that both Rev and the Rangers are cheering and rooting together because, candidly, at the end of the day, it's going back to the Rangers. That's the goal for us, is to grow, to grow for everybody. 0:13:12 - (Mike Rhyner): You know, and so often when you got a situation like this where there's this one entity and then another one pops up alongside it, you know, quite often it's like this. You know, how do you guys avoid that? 0:13:24 - (Sean Decker): Yeah, I think early on, you could feel some of that. Because, listen, the reality was when we started this grabby. You'll remember this, like, when I go ask somebody working in the scoreboard room to work a high school graduation, like, they really think they signed up initially for their job to work 81 baseball games at home, and then the rest of them are off days or preparing for those 81 days. Our job is to make sure those guys are working 365 days a year. So that's really where I think some of the friction came in, is the old traditional job of working in baseball. We changed that. The whole industry is different now, but we changed that to where we're not just a baseball team, we're an event center. We have a massive development. We have 200 acres. We're programming all of that. 0:14:04 - (Sean Decker): And I think Time has done that. I think the fact that Rev has created enough resources to hire a lot of help and manpower to help those folks help. And as bad as Covid was for. Was for so many people, for so many reasons, Covid brought Rev and the Rangers to get together in a really meaningful way. Those guys that would have preferred to be, frankly preparing for 81 baseball games otherwise, really didn't have much to do. And Rev, whether it was the graduations or I did eight concerts out in the parking lot or whatever it was we were doing, I think that is when we really all realized how important we were to each other. And I think that. I don't know if you felt it, but, like, for me, that felt like a massive change for us. 0:14:38 - (Michael Gruber): Yeah, it's definitely, you know, despite the separation, as you say. Like, I think especially because it started off with so many people having to cross boundaries, for lack of a better term, definitely helped create the togetherness that there is now where, you know, everybody knows their role on game days versus non game days. But as you said, if everybody's working together, then this place is going to be successful. 0:15:03 - (Sean Decker): And. 0:15:03 - (Michael Gruber): And I'd say it's pretty damn successful. 0:15:06 - (Sean Decker): It also helps to do things that other people think are cool, too. Right. Like, you know, whether it's I mean, great example. Last week we hosted AEW all in the biggest event of the year for their professional wrestling circuit. And we've got some fans. Krista Reicher, who grew up as well, is a massive wrestling fan. When you start getting the rest of the Ranger staff sending you text messages thanking you for bringing something here and all of that, and they get to feel a part of that, whether it's taking chairs from ringside or getting their kids involved in it or whatever it may be. We do family fun field days where we put bounce houses and things like that out there. When folks get to see and enjoy some of that themselves, whether it's an interaction with a star or a concert act or just being down on the field and something they wouldn't have otherwise done, that's been helpful as well. 0:15:48 - (Mike Rhyner): Do you look at all this as thinking outside the box? Because you speak of it like it's just, you know, all on a day's work for you guys after you've been doing it for a while. I guess that's the way you look at it. But was there a time when you thought, man, we're really thinking outside the box here? 0:16:04 - (Sean Decker): I, you know what? I. I don't know. I'm not. I don't think. Hopefully our culture is. We're not big scoreboard watchers. I think to. I think to have had that thought, we would have been having to look in the rearview mirror to get it. I think we've been so focused and my job is to make sure we continue to be focused. Kind of with a white belt mentality where it's really, nobody really cares what we did in the past. I'm really, I'm insanely proud of the people I get to work with every day. I'm. I do believe that we're an industry leader in some, in some standards. 0:16:30 - (Sean Decker): But to start to think about, like, how we. I don't consider us pioneers. I think. I think we were. We had some. There was some innovative thought thinking from a lot of really smart people. But ultimately it's really more about what we do next. Right. Not to be, I think, like kind of like a football coach. When you expect to win, the only thing that upsets you is if you lose. Like, we're. We generally move to the next thing pretty quick. 0:16:50 - (Mike Rhyner): Yeah. Once the game's over, it's over. And next thing next. You know, as a guy who has been around here for a long time and has followed the Rangers forever, and yes, I will admit I love the Rangers. 0:17:05 - (Michael Gruber): I do Everybody knows it said that publicly. 0:17:09 - (Mike Rhyner): You can't. You can't. You know, this seems like very, very unusual outside the box thinking for the Rangers organization that I've known. And this is no knock on anybody because there, there have been, you know, the organization, like anything else, has had its ebbs and flows over the years, but to go off in a direction like this compared to the. The type of thought that used to encapsulate the Rangers organization, where it was like 81 bail or 162 ball games and that was what you did, man, it's very different. 0:17:53 - (Mike Rhyner): That mindset. 0:17:55 - (Sean Decker): Yeah. I mean, I told you I was a lifelong Rangers fan, but I think if you thought about what the Rangers were through my childhood. Right. They were usually really good at offense and not good at getting to the postseason, and they hadn't won any until 2010. So I do think, and I think all the credit really goes to Ray Davis. It's not just with Rev Entertainment. Right. You think about what the Rangers did most recently with. With RSN and creating their own sports network to make sure our games are more available to our fans. 0:18:24 - (Sean Decker): When I got here, and I want to be careful because I don't have. I wasn't here 30 years ago. It was only 15 years ago. But Ray and Neil and the ownership group have pushed, I think, a level of thinking to really take the Rangers to the top of the echelon of Major League Baseball across the business in all fronts. And I don't think it's a coincidence like a 23 World Series or all of that. The expectations are higher. And I think that, generally speaking, from a leadership standpoint, that's the most important thing. Right. Like if you set average expectations, it's. You get average results. And the expectation from Ray is to continue to grow and to be the best franchise in this league. 0:19:01 - (Sean Decker): And we take that really personally on the business side. 0:19:05 - (Mike Rhyner): And the thing that really gets me, and I know it gets a lot of people, too, is for all this good stuff you say about them and for all the plaudits that you cast his way, which certainly are deserved because they go along with this, they support it. We know nothing about those guys. We know very little about Ray. We know very little about Neil. And clearly they like it that way. 0:19:31 - (Sean Decker): I think. I actually think that I don't want to speculate because they've never said anything, but I do believe that there's a humbleness in with them that doesn't seek the spotlight. And actually that's why they put me and Jim or give Jim and I the opportunity to come to do these things. I think that they've always been about letting the stars on the field shine and letting those guys do it. And I don't think it's a direct reflection of a reluctance to be. 0:19:59 - (Sean Decker): To do that. I think, honestly, they'd probably get mad at me for saying this. I just think that they're just humble guys and say, if you want to know about Rev, you should talk to Sean. And if you want to talk about the. If you want to talk about the Rangers business side, you should talk to Jim. And if you want to talk about the baseball side, you should talk to SeaWorld. Why? They've always led that way. And I got to tell you, when you work for people like that, it's inspiring. 0:20:17 - (Sean Decker): And for me, it's taught me a lot in terms of what's expected of a leader and how important it is to push the folks out there with doing a lot of the work. 0:20:25 - (Mike Rhyner): You know, anybody in a position like that, all you want from the guys you work for is just let you do your job. You know, let me do my thing here. Let me do what you hired me to do. And if you'll do that, then I will give you. You'll see results. 0:20:39 - (Sean Decker): Yeah. There is no question that that is here. The expectation, it. The goals are. Are clear and. And created together, and then the expectation to execute is. Is high and, and it's. It's changed my life. So you'll never hear anything but an amazing thoughts from me on it, but it's, It's. It's really. I. Not only has it changed my life, I think it's changed the culture of this ball club. To your earlier point. 0:21:03 - (Mike Rhyner): Yeah. Yeah, I think so, too. Go ahead. 0:21:05 - (Michael Gruber): Sorry. I was going to say, and I think that's something that, again, kind of getting to jump into the organization. A few years ago, I didn't fully realize how involved Ray and Neil are in everything. They're not telling people what to do necessarily, but they want to know what's going on. They want to understand the thought process. And it's my understanding is they've, as the years have gone by, they've gotten more confident in understanding the business. You know, it sounds like maybe the first few years they were a little bit back and just listening and taking in and learning. 0:21:39 - (Michael Gruber): And now they're still, you know, quiet publicly, but definitely wanting to be more and more understanding of the business and just learning more from y', all, essentially, and then giving. Being able to give their feedback In a way that's constructive and helpful, but still gives you all the full. Maybe not autonomy, but a lot of room to work with. Like you said, you know, the fact that you wrote out a business plan, and they basically said, all right, well, go do it, man. 0:22:11 - (Michael Gruber): Yeah, that's really, really been impressive because I, frankly, before I started working here, kind of thought they were just guys that wanted to sit down in the suite, just wanted to, you know, enjoy being owners, but, you know, didn't seek the spotlight, which in this town is a very unusual thing for an owner. So it's been really cool finding out that. That no, like, they just took their time learning and now are very much involved, but they still aren't telling people what to do, or at least my understanding of it. And maybe that's how it should be. 0:22:44 - (Sean Decker): Yeah, no, no, I think that's what. But, no, I think that's right. I mean, listen, I think it's like, anybody that comes to the Rangers, whether we've hired them in Rev or at the Rangers, and whether it's at an executive level or especially at an executive level, right. Like, I think the most important thing to do is to listen, right? To understand. Ray has a quote. He told me many years ago that the first thing you do when you buy a company or something like that is you paint the bathrooms, because everybody wants cleaner bathrooms. 0:23:06 - (Sean Decker): And so, like, listen, I mean, it's been so long now that I think that there were some really thoughtful questions. But, like, anybody coming from the outside, they bring an outside perspective, even if it's outside of baseball. Like, again, I'm not involved with anything in the. In cy's world or the baseball operations side. So in my side of things, the way that Ray looked at the many different businesses he's been in and the many different businesses that Neil's been in and different members of the ownership group, they've been wildly successful. And so I think if we've been. 0:23:35 - (Sean Decker): I think if we're smart, we should be constantly trying to glean that experience for them, too. So I don't think it was like there wasn't like this defined, okay, for this many years, we sit, we listen, then for this, then we activate. I think it's just been an organic process. And really, especially, frankly, with what Rev's doing now and the way we're really trying to grow and scale, getting that. You know, most people in my role don't get the ability every day to talk to and work with some of the most successful businessmen in the history of our country. 0:24:03 - (Sean Decker): And I don't take that lightly. To have mentors that have built unbelievable companies with great revenues and managing, you know, thousands of people. And what that is, that's been a great opportunity for us to learn as well. 0:24:16 - (Mike Rhyner): And this is no knock on anybody who has been here before. I want to throw that down right here, right now. But the type of, the type of person that the Rangers have been hiring here, the type of guy, or in the case of Angie Swint, woman that the Rangers have gone out and gotten, has changed a lot over the years. And it starts with Chris Young. I mean, I know him a little bit from, you know, when he was a player and a few years ago I had him on the podcast. 0:24:46 - (Mike Rhyner): But over the last few me few weeks, we've met Angie, we've met Jim, now we meet you. And I gotta tell you this, this is a different, you're a different breed from what I've always thought of as Rangers executive. 0:25:00 - (Sean Decker): Well, I mean, I will say the one thing funny about that a little bit is like, Jim's been here 30 years, right? Angie's been here 20 something. I've been here 50. I'm the short timer and the least impressive, for sure. I don't, I can't speak directly to if there's an intentional thought in hiring. I do think it, a lot of it ties back to what the expectations are and the ability. Right. What Angie did with RSN is absolutely unbelievable. 0:25:27 - (Sean Decker): To think of somebody essentially standing up a sports broadcast and network in, you know, six months time or, you know, really going from one to the next is incredible. And yet I have not listened to your show with her yet. But I guarantee you she probably doesn't take any credit for it. She's unbelievable. And she's been here doing her job for an unbelievable amount of time. She got tasked with a herculean task and then absolutely crushed it. I think that's incredible. 0:25:52 - (Sean Decker): And so I don't know that if it's, if it's different people or an intentionality to hire different people. I think it's like demanding a certain level out of current people too. And I think that makes a big difference. 0:26:00 - (Mike Rhyner): Yeah, I mean, she, she calmed down some very, very rough waters out there because after the, you know, this 100%, after the regional sports network thing collapsed or went away. Did what. Whatever it did, however it did it, she had to start from scratch, no question, come up with something. And now these days, everybody knows where you can watch the Rangers. You know where to go. There's no question about it anymore. 0:26:26 - (Sean Decker): And it's 100% more available than it was. Whatever the percentage number is, it's. It's infinitely more available because of the work her and so many great people did to put into it. 0:26:35 - (Mike Rhyner): So what are you, what are you most proud of out of everything that you've done here? I mean, is there anything that you look at as your biggest triumph or your shining moment? 0:26:47 - (Sean Decker): I mean, listen, I'd still like to think we haven't done done that yet. I hope what we're going to be most proud of, no question we're in the people business. So if you look at the group of people, especially on our leadership team. Right. Jared Traum was the first sales rep I ever hired. He's now our senior vice president and been. Been with us almost 13, 14 years now. Madison Sanfilippo, who was, you guys know, is big on the communication sides for the Rangers, left briefly and came back and she was an intern behind my desk 14 years ago when I was in sweet sales. So you look across a guy, Tom Czech leads our sports marketing agency, Star Gulage, who runs finance for the Rangers. And Rev, you look at the people. 0:27:26 - (Sean Decker): And I think ultimately when you go back to this, the things that I'm going to remember most are probably not the concert that we got to put on here, but the people that you hung out with after the show when everything else was gone and you had a drink with them or got to hang out. Like we've created something that matters. And I think on the, on the outside, outside of people, the fact that I think we're creating a brand that is starting to get recognized in and around sports entertainment. There's good and bad with that and sometimes it's good to be anonymous. But I think that we've created something that I believe has staying power really. 0:27:58 - (Mike Rhyner): Matters along those lines. And just because this the kind of thing I'm into and the kind of question that I would ask, what's the favorite concert you've ever put on here? 0:28:09 - (Sean Decker): Gosh, that's a great question. I'm gonna like none of them necessarily in the genre I love. I'll give you the most meaningful was the first show we ever hosted here. Wasn't supposed to be. We were supposed to host Chris Stapleton on March 13th of 2020. And we built the stage and everything had to cancel because of COVID So the first tour back out. There were other individual concerts around the country, but the first tour to hit the road started in Arlington, Texas at Globe Life Field. It was Called Hella Mega, and it was Green Day, Fallout Boy, and Weezer. 0:28:37 - (Michael Gruber): I was here for that, and I. 0:28:38 - (Sean Decker): Didn'T think I was a fan of any one of them, and it was unbelievable. So, I mean, seeing like. Like get back to normal that had that. Elton John coming here as part of the stop of his last tour was pretty spectacular. And then Morgan Wallen set the record here with 44, 000 people in the building. So those are the first three that come to mind. Wow, that's. 0:28:56 - (Mike Rhyner): That's three. Three big ones right there. 0:28:59 - (Sean Decker): Pretty big. 0:29:00 - (Mike Rhyner): I mean, Elton John at a baseball stadium. It's kind of hard to fathom, but. 0:29:04 - (Sean Decker): What the heck, it was incredible. His show, it's almost like a. I like to joke that it's almost like a. Like a church gathering. Like, everybody comes in, it's super quiet. He goes on stage, you sing every word. You do that. And they all kind of quietly left and took their trash with him. It was just such an easy crowd and so much fun. It was unbelievable. 0:29:20 - (Michael Gruber): If you could have a concert here, what would it be? Because you made it sound like we've had some great concerts here, but not necessarily your genre. 0:29:28 - (Sean Decker): Well, I would say the ones I want to host are less musical preference and more the artists that told me they would never play a baseball stadium because it became personal. One of the things, not to nerd out too much, but we tried to design this. 0:29:39 - (Mike Rhyner): You can nerd out all you want here, nerds. 0:29:42 - (Sean Decker): A lot of artists don't like playing baseball, and I'll leave most of them nameless. Maybe not all, but they'll just come straight out. Because in most stadiums, the area basically from second base to home plate is completely empty. So we designed our stadium with a retractable mound and a flooring that's fully drivable to be able to seat the whole field. And what that leads to is a lot of stadiums can put like six, maybe 7,000 people on the field. We can put 12,000 people on the field. 0:30:06 - (Sean Decker): And that was direct from my time going around the country, meeting with artists and agents on what we could do to get them to attract there. So there are. There are those, like the Rolling Stones have said no. And by the way, they didn't come when they were in town. They played the Cotton Bowl. But I think the legacy acts are a lot of fun for me. I'm a country music guy, so I'm trying to think somebody in that Garth Brooks in the round here, Nordisk, has ever played in the round. 0:30:29 - (Sean Decker): And I tried to talk Talk him into it. I like Luke Combs a lot. Luke Combs would be sick. He played next door. Something in that or. Or some kind of legacy act would be really cool. But more. More than anything, I want one of the artists to tell me they would never play a baseball stadium to play here. 0:30:44 - (Michael Gruber): Hell, yeah. 0:30:45 - (Mike Rhyner): How does Choctaw, which is right across the street here, still standing, still looking like it's got years and years of life left in it. How does that figure into what you guys are doing here and what you're trying to do? 0:30:59 - (Sean Decker): Yeah, it's important. It's important to us. It's important to the city. We learned through the vote for the bond referendum on this stadium, we learned that how important it was the community and the overriding sentiment. I mean, listen, the reality was, initially we thought that that would be a parking lot, like, once we built this, that we would knock that one down. And I think that what we heard the most from residents of Arlington is we're okay with the idea. We understand how hot it is, is a roof for baseball is important. We get it. 0:31:23 - (Sean Decker): But, like, what's going to happen to the old stadium? Because that was a really big moment in Arlington's history to build that facility. And how did we do it? And again, Ray and Neil came and said, like, hey, what do you think we can do over there? And so actually, pretty cool story. Like, that happened in the fall of 16, and in summer of 16, we should say. And the XFL was getting started, and the commissioner and CEO at the time was a guy by the name of Oliver Luck. And I didn't know Oliver, but I called a friend of mine at Wrestle at WWE because it was tied to Vince McMahon, got a meeting with Oliver, and in six weeks, we put together an RFP response to turn Choctaw Stadium into what I call a rectangular sports stadium. 0:32:00 - (Sean Decker): Then my next call was to Jimmy Smith, the COO of FC Dallas, to meet with him and Dan Hunt up there to see if North Texas soccer club could play there. Then shortly thereafter, Neil bought a major league rugby team. And so we really just started piecing it together. But the charge was, we don't need to go over there and be, like, wildly financially profitable, but can we do enough to keep the building looking and feeling like it does now? 0:32:25 - (Sean Decker): And so we've had to do some things over there, no doubt. We put. We put a lot of money into the renovation to make it a rectangular sports stadium again during COVID It really paid off. Not only was it a place where our players, the Rangers taxi squad team practiced. But we also. I think we did a 55 or 60 high school football game. Most of the big, like, preeminent matches up as an old Grapevine guy. Right. It was Grapevine versus Colleyville. They moved there because they could get all their fans in, and Trinity versus Bell and those guys. So we played a ton of high school football. It was a blast. 0:32:55 - (D): My background's high school sports, so I worked at Inside High School Sports before this on NBC 5, and it was a big deal when you guys opened that, like, we were really excited to see what it would look like, and it was nice to kind of have like, a central location for several games in a row instead of having to drive to multiple locations. 0:33:12 - (Sean Decker): Yeah, we were playing three on Saturdays. We did a ton of playoff games. I think our first game ever was Alito Weatherford and Alito one in big figures. Yeah. Yeah. And I love high school football. I played Texas high school football, so that was kind of a dream to do that over there. So Choctaw Stadium, first of all, the office building has got the major kind of renovation, if you will, with spark and what it does for working professionals over there. 0:33:36 - (Sean Decker): So many of our tenants that were there when the Rangers there are still there and are fantastic people and still love the place. So it's important to us to keep it something that they're proud of as well. Well, you've seen the development on the west side with the adding of El Tiempo, Starbucks, Lucchese. So as we continue to. Especially that side facing Lowe's has probably got the biggest transformation. I don't know if you saw it today, but we've got a new video board going on the southwest corner over there facing Randall Mill. 0:34:03 - (Sean Decker): So we're not done. We're going to continue to find ways to use that in a really. In a meaningful way, because it matters a lot to the people here, and it matters a lot to us. 0:34:10 - (Mike Rhyner): Yeah, it does matter to people here because, I mean, that's the place where a lot of people, maybe even most people who are in the game of baseball around here, that's where they learned the game of baseball. That's where they went for the game of baseball. It's where they fell in love. If they did fall in love with the game of baseball, it was probably there 100%. 0:34:29 - (Sean Decker): I mean, those teams in the 90s were great, too. I mean, a lot of offense on those teams. And for me, that was meaningful. Right. That was right. Right down the middle in my middle school and high School years, but it's a special place. It's still a great. I still go over there just about every day. Excuse me. The United Football League being our partner over there and then putting their headquarters here in Arlington right up the road has been massive for us. So it's important to us. It's important to the city, and we got a lot. We. I mean, there's a lot more we can do over there. 0:34:55 - (Michael Gruber): I am really appreciative that you all. Like you said that it is still going because of the memories that people have. You know, the times I've gotten to work the, you know, football or soccer or whatever over there. You know, I'm sitting most time in what used to be Chuck's boot. 0:35:10 - (Sean Decker): Yeah. 0:35:10 - (Michael Gruber): And, you know, still being able to look out and, you know, imagine working the few games that I did there or, you know, picturing myself in, you know, any of the seats and still having those memories of even just walking the concourse, even though, you know, it's not quite what it once was. It's still. The bones are still there. You still have the memories and being able to still feel it. And, you know, as Shoopy did, I believe, the very first time he went up to the. 0:35:39 - (Michael Gruber): The temple, you know, just kind of put his hand on the, you know, brick and be like, this is it. 0:35:44 - (Sean Decker): Yeah. I mean, it was. I think the. Maybe the coolest thing we've done over there was the. The fan fest last year for the All Star game. 0:35:50 - (Michael Gruber): Oh, yeah. 0:35:52 - (Sean Decker): I think seeing it converted and getting kids an opportunity to go play on a field that was a major league field just a couple years before was. Was pretty spectacular. I'd like to see us do some crazy stuff. I mean, what do. What do you. I mean, I've always thought it'd be awesome if you get one of the few. There's only maybe three or four artists in the world, but what if you could get somebody that could play show at. AT&T Stadium, Globe Life Field and Choctaw Stadium and gets. Get segments of both of it? Or how does it come into play with. 0:36:14 - (Sean Decker): With World cup coming to town, Whether it's watch parties or events and things like that. So it's still a great. It's still a great facility. We put more money into it this offseason in a lot of ways, and we're going to keep growing it. 0:36:27 - (Mike Rhyner): What's the great white whale of concerts out there for you? Well, I don't know about the one that you would like to see here the most. 0:36:36 - (Sean Decker): Well, I was Gonna say when you said the great white whale. For me, it's Taylor Swift. And I think she's always gonna play football stadiums just because of what she does in a market. Right? Like, she's not. She's not a concert, she's an event or a city to herself. So I think that one. That one's there in this market. Gosh. I'm trying to think. I've got a few and asked me the question. I probably would. 0:36:58 - (Sean Decker): It's probably a multi night. Like, I'm trying to think if somebody hasn't toured in a really long time that, like, I mean, we do. Our favorite business is the reunion business. Like for any band that's out there listening and their numbers are just okay right now. Break up for a couple years and come back. We do really well in that space. So. So it's probably something along those lines. I mean, listen, I don't think Bruno Mars has been out in a long time. I think he'd be massive for us. We try to look at artists that will sell out multiple nights. 0:37:25 - (Sean Decker): And so I'm trying to think of something outside of it. I'm sorry. Like, the problem for me, I'm a big country music fan. That's most of what I. What I listen to. And the challenge with country is it's so play, like overplayed, really, in this market that there's only a handful of country artists that can sell this building out. We get this all the time. Artists that go to Fenway park and sell it out in Boston or Wrigley Field. Because country music's in such high demand there here. Like, you wouldn't think about it, but, you know, we got honky tonks on both in both Dallas and Fort Worth that are real competition to a stadium. 0:37:54 - (Sean Decker): Most markets don't have that. So I don't know if I answered your question, but I. I would say something in that. I'm trying to think of somebody. 0:38:00 - (D): NSync, I'm calling it. 0:38:02 - (Sean Decker): Oh, okay. 0:38:03 - (D): Backstreet Boys. One of those. 0:38:05 - (Sean Decker): Backstreet Boys. And Singh, my wife would be all over that. And that would be massive. 0:38:10 - (Mike Rhyner): Well, go get them. 0:38:13 - (D): I mean, they're trying in Vegas. You can start them now. 0:38:15 - (Michael Gruber): We give you the authority to do that. 0:38:17 - (Sean Decker): One of. One of the most common misconceptions is that I have much control over who actually plays here. The truth is, nowadays it's so controlled by the promoter that I spend most of my time. Or really our team spend the most of their time. Jared. Especially talking with the live nations, the AEGs the promoters of the world, because they're buying these tours in big bulk and then deciding where they're going to play. 0:38:36 - (Sean Decker): So for us, you know, early in my career we did a lot of that trying to talk to managers and agents directly and we still talk to the agents a fair bit. But all we're really trying to do is say, hey, we know that you're going to get a tour. You know that it's going to get bought. And what we'd like you to do is tell Live Nation, aeg, whoever buys your tour that we're the building you want to play when you come here. 0:38:53 - (Sean Decker): But very rarely anymore do you buy a one off. On our minor league side we do. Like I did a Randy Rogers concert in Cleburne this year that was great. At the Cleburne Railroaders is one of the baseball teams that we own and that was really cool. That's his hometown and it was the 20th anniversary of his number one hit called Roller Coaster. So most of it though is I wish I had any real say over which artists can come. It's really who's going on tour and then how do we get them to want to play here versus somewhere else. 0:39:16 - (Mike Rhyner): Now you did hit on another aspect there of what you got going. You got a couple of minor league teams, minor independent minor league teams involved with you, right? 0:39:25 - (Sean Decker): Correct. We got two baseball teams and one hockey team. So we've got the Cleburne Railroaders just here southwest of Fort Worth. We've got the Kane County Cougars just north and west of of Chicago. And then in, just outside Albuquerque, in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, we just launched a new hotel hockey team which by the way, we're doing a contest right now for name the team there. So in four days we'll know the name. But right now it's just going as New Mexico Pro Hockey Club. 0:39:47 - (Sean Decker): And they'll start skating in fall of next year, October of 26. So those are the three teams right now. 0:39:53 - (D): Mike, have you ever been to Cleburne? The Railroaders out there, you were talking. 0:39:57 - (Mike Rhyner): To the one time voice of the Cleveland Yellow Jackets. 0:40:01 - (Sean Decker): No way. Have you been to a Railroaders game though? 0:40:04 - (Mike Rhyner): No, I haven't. 0:40:04 - (Sean Decker): The Railroad. 0:40:05 - (Michael Gruber): Yeah. Let's get them. Do play by play. 0:40:07 - (D): Fun. It's super. Like it's not too far from where I live. I love going out there. 0:40:10 - (Sean Decker): It's like a miniature big league park. The first time I went down there was a mistake because I was like, we gotta have it. And it's, it's an unbelievable place. 0:40:18 - (D): The City is super independently team of all things too. It's awesome. 0:40:23 - (Sean Decker): It's cool. It's. It's a 4000 seat stadium. It's like a miniature big league park. It's 4000 seats. 4000 capacity. There's only like 1700 physical seats. Cool berms. We had a little over 4000 there for the Randy Rogers concert. And the number one thing people said is they didn't know it was there. And so like, clearly we got to do a better job marketing it. 0:40:39 - (D): But it's so cool and they do a really good job and they actually bring in pretty good players to play. 0:40:45 - (Sean Decker): We've had some great players before we bought the team. Palmero played down there. 0:40:48 - (D): Say Rafael Palmero coach and played and his son Pete. 0:40:51 - (Sean Decker): And Cavill is our manager. 0:40:52 - (D): Yeah. 0:40:53 - (Sean Decker): Oh, really? Yeah. It's a great story. Pete called me once. We bought the team, like every day wanting that job. And I was like, pete, we got a manager. And in the off season we didn't have a manager anymore. And. And Pete got. So. This is his second year managing the team. He won the regular season last year. We got upset in the first round of the postseason. But it's a great quality of baseball. I think we just had eight players in the All Star game. All Star game was last week. 0:41:12 - (D): We're gonna have to bring you in, Mike down there. We're gonna take you to Cleveland. 0:41:16 - (Michael Gruber): Yeah. Do some play by play. 0:41:17 - (Sean Decker): Tell me where you're going. I'll come sit with you. 0:41:19 - (Mike Rhyner): Yeah, let's do it. I gotta tell you though, I'm always on the lookout as I watch players and, you know, back in the day, get to know them and everything. I'm always on the lookout for managers and waiters, guys that I might. Might think will someday make good managers. And I was around Pete a good bit and I did not see him in that way. 0:41:42 - (Sean Decker): I'm gonna tell him that. 0:41:43 - (Mike Rhyner): I gotta tell you. 0:41:44 - (Sean Decker): Listen, he. I have a picture of me. This is a true. I have a picture of me on Pete's shoulders. He was one of my favorite players when he got drafted out or when we took him from Oklahoma State. And I have a picture of me on his shoulders. And listen, I think Pete would tell you this. Pete's been tremendous, by the way. But I had a few buddies that played for him when he first started managing, and I think it's taken him some time. I will say this, especially in independent baseball, we've got. There's some great, great independent baseball people. 0:42:11 - (Sean Decker): Pete loves it. And like, I'm telling you, that guy is on the waiver wire watching movement in minor league baseball every day. He's in Arizona every spring trying to project who's going to get a chance to play, who's not. 0:42:21 - (Mike Rhyner): Where are into it. 0:42:21 - (Sean Decker): Huh? He's. Yeah. I mean, and to find somebody that loves it at that level because, listen, everybody at that level, nobody is there to get rich. Right. So he's. He's there because he loves the game, he loves developing the players, and he's had some damn good teams. 0:42:33 - (D): Yeah. 0:42:33 - (Michael Gruber): Do you think you're going to ever recreate that picture with him? 0:42:36 - (Sean Decker): Well, I actually. So a true story. It's not. It's not. I have on the same day I was on Steve Buchell's shoulders. And this is a true story. I'll. I'll keep it pg. But when I was at the Rough Riders. Not. Not. Not after my. 0:42:49 - (Mike Rhyner): This is a podcast. You don't have to do that. 0:42:51 - (Sean Decker): Well, for. For Boost stance, I. I probably should, but fair enough. Boo gets the manager job in Frisco. And I had known him a little bit, and so I went down, I said hi to him, and the next day I found the picture and I took it to his office. I said, hey, hey, Boo. It's been a long time. Like, I. I don't know, but my mom has, like, my mom would really appreciate if you could do me one favor. And he said, what's that? And I said, can we recreate this picture? And I showed it and to him and he respectfully told me, no, no chance in hell. 0:43:21 - (Sean Decker): There's no way I was putting my fat ass on him. I think it was something like that. So. And I don't blame him for any of that. 0:43:27 - (Michael Gruber): Hey, you gotta ask the question. 0:43:28 - (Sean Decker): Yeah, 100%. I tried to take a shot in this world. Amen. 0:43:34 - (Mike Rhyner): Well, man, you guys have done a great job with everything. I mean, all across this organization. I look at it now and look at the way it used to be. And again, no knock on anybody who has been here before, but. But it's night and day now. 0:43:48 - (Sean Decker): It's. It's different. And like I said, I. The best reference. I mentioned this earlier when I left. When I left Frisco, I think there were. There were folks that questioned a little bit if this was the right thing in my career. Going from the Double A team in Frisco that was really Hellman. We were selling out all these games, going to the Rangers in 2010 with the team staring at bankruptcy and all of that. I got here in February and the current ownership group brought it in August. 0:44:12 - (Sean Decker): There's nobody that questions whether or not the Rangers is the ripe step for anybody to go from a minor league team to a major league team. And we're not done. I'm sure Jim talked about this. We have really high expectations on what we're going to do and what we can be and what we can be to this market specifically, and then for Rev, what we can be globally, for me and for our team. So I really just think we're at the start, and it feels like the start of the Something really special. 0:44:39 - (Mike Rhyner): Indeed it does. Sean Decker here with us today on your Dark Companion. Thank you, sir. 0:44:44 - (Sean Decker): We appreciate it. 0:44:44 - (Mike Rhyner): Really enjoyed it. 0:44:45 - (Sean Decker): Good to see you, brother. 0:44:46 - (Michael Gruber): Thank you, brother. 0:44:46 - (Sean Decker): Thank you. 0:44:47 - (Mike Rhyner): And yes, that is your Dark Companion for today. Thanks to the Rangers for helping set this up. Hope you enjoyed it. See you next time. 0:44:55 - (Michael Gruber): Bye. 0:45:06 - (Mike Rhyner): All right, I'm gonna go take my pants off. Your Dark Companion is a stolen Water Media presentation.