Episode 261 Snippets: Miller Yoho of the Charlotte Sports Foundation

@njh287; www.dsmsports.net
On episode 261 of the Digital and Social Media Sports Podcast, Neil
chatted with Miller Yoho, Director of Communications and Marketing
for the Charlotte Sports Foundation, which runs the Duke’s Mayo
Bowl and the Jumpan Invitational, among other events..
What follows is a collection of snippets from the podcast. To hear the
full interview and more, check out the podcast on all podcast platforms
and at www.dsmsports.net.
Best Of The Digital and
Social Media Sports Podcast
Episode 261: Miller Yoho

Miller’s Career Path
“So when I went to school I was going to be a high school history teacher. I
walked into a high school class in college and was going to student-teach,
and I said these people do not like me. This is not a good fit. So I was like,
you know what? I really like intramurals. That's what I excelled at in college
rather than grades. And I went and I decided to do intramurals and got my
master's degree in higher ed administration and counseling and applied to
like 70 jobs, couldn't figure it out, and ended up at Queens [University]
which was D2 at the time, and they said, we can give you an internship. We'll
only pay you if you do jobs that are paid. So that's where I learned to do PA
announcer for women's lacrosse, everything, I did that for eight months and
eventually I became full time.

“It's a lot, but we have incredible agency partners who back us up. But it
could be anything from spokesperson to logo approval to social media. We
have 11 platforms, I think, right now between all our events and stuff. So
it's a busy life, but it's certainly a passion project. The reason I love it so
much is I grew up going to our games. I'm one of those rare situations in
the industry where you have a passion for it, because I grew up going to the
Meineke Car Care Bowl. It's funny, my favorite football game of all time
was a 2008 Meineke Car Care Bowl between UNC and West Virginia, who
we have in the bowl game this year. And that was my favorite because it
was my first football game. It was one of my first college games I went to
with my dad and this will be the first game that my two sons will go to
together, so I'm really excited about it…”

“I think to be in my role you have to first know your weaknesses, right? Like, I know I'm not a
graphic designer. I know even when I worked at video content, I shouldn't touch a camera, I
don't edit, that's just not my skill. So we have a full video and content production arm
company that I used to manage that we bring in. Paid ads and stuff like that, that's just such a
beast, I'll use an agency for that. All our creative looks, it's incredible agency called Luquire.
We're coming out of Jumpman Invitational; generally, I handle all PR duties. It was just too
much to do, so I bring them on to help. And it's just recognizing your weaknesses. But you ask
a really valuable question. I think project management is extremely important, especially in
the creative field, is understanding deadlines. So often we chase perfection and understanding
the creative process. If you chase perfection it’s never going to end and you're never going to
get the piece of content out or you're never going to hit the — you should aim for doubles, not
home runs. And usually if you do that and if you're good, you'll hit the home runs, you'll get
the the viral moments. But so many times I see people in my role, they almost try to squeeze
perfection out, or they get caught in the overwhelming amount of things that don't bring in
help or raise their hand when they need help, and they just get kind of bogged down.”

“[Skill development came] organically. It's every every skill set I had I've
done that job specifically or every part of my job. So I've done the digital
content side, I've done that as a single job. I've done paid social as a single
job, I've done PR; when I was at the agency I worked at PGA Championship
and learned that way. I learned video production. I was a project manager.
So every part of my job I've done specifically, and I think that's something, if
anyone's younger or starting their career, I try to tell people the first ten, 12
years of your career is building the toolkit, right? Like if you have the job you
want, look at the job description and what are the five pieces of it and then
go get the experience in each one of those five pieces. Then when it's time
ten, 12 years and you're applying for that dream job, and I certainly think I
have my dream job, you'll have the skill set to be able to do what you need to
do.”

“I was supposed to be running intramurals and stuff like that. I applied for
a job at USA Ultimate Frisbee and, like, I was supposed to do all these
other things, and I fell into this. And where I think the success is it's
showing up and being a good person. And then I truly think any
communications, any marketing position, you have to approach it as
support for everything else, whether your athletic department, a bowl
game, professional team — like, my job is to support ticket sales efforts, my
job is to support operations, my job is to support senior staff with talking
points and whatnot. Everything I do is in support of other people. Whereas
people might see my face or hear me talking or see the the content I'm
putting out there, it's all being done to message things for other
departments who are mission critical.”

About the Charlotte Sports Foundation
“So we're an eight person team. Our Executive Director is Danny Morrison,
who is probably the most decorated person in this field. He's the only person
I know alive who's been — and he was just named Business Person of the
Year in Charlotte today — he is the only person who's been a college coach, a
college athletic director twice — with Wofford and took them D1 and at TCU,
conference commissioner, president of an NFL team with the [Carolina]
Panthers, college professor at South Carolina, and now he's our executive
director. He leads a team of eight, and it's an incredible staff of people where
pretty much we all have our own silos, but what's unique is in a small team
you can stick your nose in places. So, like, I can go learn from the tickets
team or I can go see what's going on [with the] events staff.

“We have the mantra of best idea wins. Oftentimes if you even look at how
we went about our bowl social media content, we now view bowl [teams]
selection, we think it should be treated the same way that the NFL does
schedule release day. We want to have fun content. So we did a whole
sorority skit, like we took my parents house and turned it into a sorority.
Well, that came from Kaleah, who does administration at events. She goes
on campus and she saw a Greek house and said that. And we took the team
through a creative process and then half the team spent a day in my
parents house that we turned into a Greek sorority and it was a full
collaborative effort. That wasn't my idea. I just kind of took the team
through the process and knew the platforms.

“But about Charlotte Sports Foundation, our mission is large sporting events
that have either an economic impact or affect the quality of life of Charlotteans.
And it's a really simple but specific mission. So we really focus on high impact
events that are going to have large attendance. We want people to feel Bank of
America Stadium, it's probably the biggest economic motivator in Charlotte.
When that stadium is full, people are spending money, they're going to hotels,
Uber drivers, restaurants — that's an economic impact, taxes are generated off
of that. And then also, I talk about the story of myself coming as a kid to games
and, like, we have to keep in mind, these are Charlotteans coming to games.
They're getting to go to college football games. They're going see Jordan Brand
activations that are insane, something that no one else in America could do.
And that's kind of where we fall in as a nonprofit and we're judged by success,
is what our impact is on the economy and quality of life of Charlotteans.”

“We're always pushing Charlotte Sports…We're always trying to push that forward.
Since 2021, the city's been on fire with events and the amount of things growing. We're
constantly pitching [events]. We pitched Army-Navy [and] we lost [out]. We're working
on other events. And then additionally, kind of our major events, our calendar really
starts in — we'll be starting in May soon, but this year, it started in September with our
Duke's Mayo Classic, which is our kickoff football game, this year it was North Carolina-
South Carolina and next year it is NC State-Tennessee. We've also done HBCU games.
We've done local rivalries. We just want diversity in that game. Then we launched the
Ally Tip-Off, which was Iowa-Virginia Tech, two women's Final Four teams, a little
player named Caitlin Clark played in that and that was one of the most rewarding
moments of my life. We put it together in three months. We developed the logo and
creative platform in ten days, which is just insane. And then we support the ACC with
their football championship game. We have the Jumpman Invitational, which we kind of
own and operate and work in conjunction with ESPN Events and obviously the Jordan
brand, we also work with partners in that. And then we have the Duke’s Mayo Bowl.

“Then next year, we were challenged to think of something, and I stole an
idea from my wife. We'll be starting something called the Meck Mile, which
is a running race. We do two laps around this 1931 year old stadium. It's
beautiful. You do two laps around it and you finish on the 50 yard line. And
we're really excited because it's going to be built where you can either walk
it in a heat and it could be your first race. Like, it could be the first thing
you do, there's no pressure or looking at you. You can go race your
friends…and then also we're putting out $20,000 prize money to get the
world's fastest people out there. So it's something where you can do it, go
have a beer and then watch someone go twice as fast as you in the same
exact sport.”

“We're talking and I'm looking at a picture of the Ally Tip-Off, it's the background
of my computer. Danny, our Executive Director, was speaking [about watching]
the women's Final Four, really the whole women's tournament, and fell in love
with Caitlin Clark and the way she played. He's an old basketball coach. He
literally picked up the phone and just started working the relationships. Then we
have an incredible board of directors, the CEO of Ally said, hey, if you pull this
off, call me first. And it was immediately done. But what's really important about
that event is also the team payouts were some of the highest we've ever seen. We
think it was the highest -attended women's basketball game in the regular season
in North Carolina history. There's a lot of things that went into doing it the right
way and Ally was an incredible partner in that. Then the Meck Mile was just one
of those ones where I kept waiting for people to say no, and no one really did, and
now it's in existence with an amazing sponsor in Albemarle.”

On KPIs for Charlotte Sports Foundation
“We still operate as a nonprofit, so we have to hit certain goals and things like that to keep the
doors open and for us to be successful. So ticket revenue, sponsorship fulfillment — the joke in
our office is there's rev gen and and rev spend, I'm obviously rev spend team, I'm the captain of
it. But I sit between tickets and sponsorship in our office so we're constantly talking about ticket
sales strategy and any money we pay on paid social, display, anything search should be pushing
either ticket sales or supporting a sponsorship. With that said, we've also taken the long
approach in understanding brand building is important. Like people have seen our strategy for
the Duke's Mayo Bowl started in 2014 when it was the Belk Bowl understanding that no one was
going to buy a bowl game ticket in October, so why not just be a part of the college football
ecosystem? Why not have fun? Why not make jokes? And by doing that, people developed an
affinity for the game and it became a destination rather than being matchup dependent. Now
we're still very matchup dependent, but TV tune-in, things like that, people see the Duke’s Mayo
Bowl as something they want to see. And we do have fans coming because of how much fun we
are, how we wink at the camera and do all that.

“The same way with Jumpman Invitational, it's unique. You turn on the
TV, it stands out. The activations in game they had, they launched a global
marketing thing there last night. Like there's a lot of stuff that goes into our
events to make it be distinctive and stand alone.”

On working with the event sponsors, especially title sponsors and activating the
Duke’s Mayo Bowl brand vs. the Duke’s Mayo brand
“I think in terms of like social and we'll strip away the Jumpman Invitational —
we don't run [specific Jumpan Invitational accounts for that, we run Charlotte
Sports Foundation social for that….But let's say the Duke's Mayo Bowl. First off,
Duke's Mayo has an incredible team. Joe, their president, Rebecca. Sarah,
everyone through, they're aligned in what we're trying to do. They understand our
mission, we understand theirs. It's aligned. They push us. Their agencies we’re
very close to, they're based in Charlotte in terms of sports marketing, so there is
that constant healthy pushing to be the best possible. And we get it. They
understand and we understand and we want our games to stand alone. We want
in the crowded bowl season marketplace of 40 other sponsors, we want Duke's
Mayo to be unique, and we want the Duke's Mayo Bowl to be unique.

“Now, you do have two different brands. You have the Duke's Mayo brand
and the Duke’s Mayo Bowl. There are places they intersect and there's places
that they probably are not on the same train track, but the train tracks run
parallel. I shouldn't be doing something that they deem inappropriate in the
same way that they're not going to speak about the game in a way that isn't
isn't going to relate. So there's a lot of healthy conversations and dialogue.
We meet year round weekly just to talk through things and activations. And
we're blessed in that they’re like rocket fuel to everything we do, they provide
the substance to make all the marketing fun. So yeah, we view it as two
individual brands, but they're running in parallel tracks; like our goal in the
end is for us is to have the most impactful bowl game possible that drives
ticket sales, drives tune-in, everything, and if we do that, that's going to help
them sell as much mayonnaise as possible.”

“And they get what we're doing in social. They get what we're doing
everywhere around and they encourage it. And yes, there's been
conversations where they said like, hey, that doesn't align with what we're
doing, or hey, scale that back, and I understand that completely. And like,
those are the healthy conversations for us to stay in the same ballpark. If
we're not having those, if we're not constantly checking to make sure that
we're in line with what they're doing, then we're failing as a supporter of
them and we're failing as an organization because we need to be supporting
them. They're investing in us heavily, and we need to show ROI, which we
do, and I think everyone has seen this is kind of, I would say, the epitome of
what brand marketing via sponsorship should be. And what’s happened for
them and what’s happened for the game – that’s what happens when you
work in harmony together.”

On the origins of developing the unique, irreverent and fun personality of the bowl game
“For us, it started in 2014 when I first joined the organization. I mean, a fantastic executive
director, Will Webb, and I will always be appreciative that I walked in and pitched a vision
and he hired me on the spot. It was in left field, like, these organizations have to put butts
in seats in order for us to survive and I said, hey, every dollar we spend should be selling
tickets, but everything organic should never be a sales pitch because that turns people off.
We understand, in the college football playoff landscape, through November no one gives a
crap about anything about other than the CFP, right? Like, we understand that ESPN is
going to hike up their Tuesday showing the rankings, who's playing in the Premier Bowls or
whatnot, everyone's talking about that, that's where all the oxygen is. So why compete with
that? Why not look at the other 80-90% of the football conversation and say, hey, we're just
going to be a part of the landscape. Have fun. We used to do like best dressed sportswriter
competitions. I [once] got in trouble with Dr. Pepper because I made fun of [brand mascot]
Larry Culpepper and like I had to learn a lot and figure it out.

“There's a lot of trial and error and discovery and now it's become second hand in terms of
understanding, like, all we have to do is understand what college football is, which is
probably the most chaotic and flawed of all sports and constantly changing, but lean into
that and have fun and understand that it's also because of that it's beautiful. I would argue
college sports is supreme fandom, and college sports is probably the closest you come to
religion in terms of just how you feel in a stadium, like in Baton Rouge or whatnot. So lean
into that. And by doing that, it's the long term payoff of you create a brand that people
relate to. And then if you have a brand people relate to, if you're a West Virginia fan, you've
played in 2018, you’ve played in 2008, you've seen what we do. We're not even a Big 12
football game [and then] out of left field [iut gets announced that] you're playing in the
Duke’s Mayo Bowl they're excited because they know that it's a brand that's fun, it doesn't
take itself too seriously and they're going to show up and have the time of their lives. So
that's the payoff. It's a ten year bet, but it's paying off. And I think it's also paying off in
terms of, you see the college football landscape, I think in terms of pound for pound we
punch well above our weight in terms of where we select and whatnot.”

On building that long-term strategy and payoff
“You go to pro sports — and we were talking about him and he's a dear
friend and I love his family, but what Dan [LaTorraca] is doing at the
[Carolina] Hurricanes [NHL club] and his entire team, it's a team effort;
every one of these things are team efforts, even if I'm the only person who
touches social media, but there's seven other people involved. If they didn't
trust what I was doing or believe in it then it fails. Everything has to be — if
you're building a brand, everyone has to understand the goals and the
methodology behind it. But what Dan has done, they [took] the ‘bunch of
jerks and now it's ‘cause chaos’ —the brand building around the Carolina
Hurricanes and the payoff is incredible.

“Now, [our CEO] Danny, my boss, always talks about, and it's tough is he
always uses his hands [to tell it] ‘we always builds a base’ with his hand. He
goes, if you do the work here, and then you start winning, everything is
exponential. But you have to lay the groundwork. You constantly have to
build the foundation of brand, of structures, of organization. You have to
constantly be working on that so that when the winning happens, and
eventually it will for everyone, then it's exponential and you're set up for
it.”

About what opportunities and success look like for Charlotte Sports Foundation
“There's two realms we operate in, there is corporate, which is the the part where we have, you
know, what is the Zoomph report of the mayo dump, like what is the [value of the] logos? What
is the value of the mayo dump for Duke's Mayo when that viral thing happens, there is that
part. There is the sponsorship fulfillment and we're crushing it in that. Like, I think everyone
sees Duke's Mayo as a household name — and it was before in the south, but it's expanded, and
in the south it's penetrated even more. And that's due to their trust and awesome and
incredible team.
“But also the payoff is the people going to the games, the engagement, what they're doing, and
creating a spectacle where the football game is still the most important thing. The people are
suiting up and going, but we also created an environment where it is fun to go to. It's different,
it's unique — it starts with social, but in the end, if you go in and people are chugging mayo and
whatnot, it's part of what we're doing all the way and everything's aligned.”

On the background of the mayo dump on the winning coach of the game
“It's been a process, and first off, everyone always asks, like, what do you
think of all these other bowls copying [novelty food/drink coach baths] and
whatnot? Well, the french fries [dump], the Idaho Potato Bowl has been
doing that for a while. And also, like, nothing is new, nothing is original,
but we just have a weird product. There should be more bowls playing in
this space. Everyone should have fun. There's no competition we all have;
like, we're not competing on TV times, we all kind of have our slots and our
brands don't really compete and we're not competing for ticket sales
because there's different fan bases, so the more the merrier, it should be
more fun. I just want to say that.

“But the mayo dump, it started in 2020 when we announced the teams and
announced the new [bowl game] name. We started talking about what to
do, and obviously that was announced in the middle of pandemic. We said,
hey, we got to figure out this mayo dump. There's 1500 people in the
stadium, and we kind of teased it with a picture of a cooler, and then they
dumped white Gatorade on Paul Chryst, who was then the Wisconsin coach
and the internet reaction was immediately very frustrated. But in the end,
like, all content's good, right? It got great reactions and then they broke the
trophy, so another viral moment. People moved on and the conversation I
had was, like, this is amazing. I'm glad we did this huge engagement, [but]
you can never fake people out again. Like, you can never do the joke again.

“So that started January 4th of 2022. We started working on how to do it, and there
was a lot of different ways we thought the stage and things like that, and the field's
artificial, and we settled on working with the stadium, who have been incredible
partners on this, doing it in the tunnel. And I think it's so unique that you do it in
the tunnel. It's the coach sitting there, the check is there for donation, and there's a
sense of anticipation. Every other [coach dump] they're chasing the coach and stuff
and it happens. But this is the one where they're on a stage waiting and sitting. So
it's become that and now we have to figure out the media. Like, I have a sketch on
my board where I'm trying to understand where photographers need to be, what's
the safe way to do it because the amount of photography and it's just been a growth.
“And I think what's been really cool from the beginning of actually doing the mayo
dump is there's been the $10,000 donation to charity from Duke’s, and that's good
people doing good things.”

About looking at success metrics knowing the peaks can be big but
ephemeral
“We have condensed seasons. So the kickoff games don't do as well as bowl
games and the kind of neutral site things like that don't do as well as
postseason games; the reason being is when you're in season, people look to
the teams for information, when you're in postseason, people look to the
actual event or the organization. So a lot of stuff leading up is a lot more for
like kickoff games, things like that, it’s more fan information, what is the
mood, what is the feeling? All that stuff like beautiful pictures. In-season for
the bowl, the month of December, it is a lot of sponsorship. It is a lot of
information. It's a lot of things like that and just trying to generate as much
attention as possible and build affinity for what's happening.

“But when it goes to the off season, say January, it drove me crazy, you'd see all these
bowl games just trying to post through it or, you know, get through the the off season
and do countdowns or greatest plays and all this stuff. Well, if I'm a Furman fan, I don't
really need to watch Furman highlights in my bowl game [social media feed], I'll go to
my team to see it. Ir I don't really care about great moments in the bowl game. But why
can't we be part of college football culturally? If it's the NFL Draft we don't need to talk
about who are the famous people from the bowl — and we can we can say, you know, X,
Y, Z is playing the bowl, that's fine. But why can't we have more fun and just call the
draft like the retirement league draft, like if you’re retired from college you’re going to
NFL. Why can't we just continue the brand and be more opportunistic and probably post
less? You're not going to lose as many followers, but also you'll be more appreciated if
you just pop up on a random night when something's culturally happened and you just,
like, throw a mayonnaise joke in there and pop back down. People love that. You don't
always have to be ever present and always have to be, like, fully on your talking points as
a brand when it's not in season. You can kind of lean into whatever.”

“If you're chasing impressions, you're just eating empty calories; I think
impressions so much are empty calories. Granted, I judge a lot of success
on impressions in bowl season and stuff like that. That's fine and it allows
me to kind of gauge where fan bases are in terms of if they're on Twitter or
Instagram, things like that. Like, I view that sort of [through] impressions.
But if you're chasing impressions as your main [KPI], especially in our
world — I think by now we all realize that…we should view that as not a
way we should gauge success.”

On allocating time and resources and being choosy about the platforms
“We brought back the Sports Foundation's Instagram this year and that's been a big
success. We've been running more ads and seeing a lot of growth because we now
understand that, culturally, people are going there more specifically because we have
such beautiful imagery, why not just use that? And then like our Charlotte Sports
Foundation Twitter is more news and stuff like that. When it comes to events that are
non-event branded social, we use those. So like Ally Tip-Off, Jumpman [Invitational]
are all Charlotte Sports Foundation. And we just know, going back to our formula, we
know [during] the regular season no one's really going to be going to us for anything
other than news and stuff like that. So what we're going to do is lean in more on
Instagram, show photos, show the feeling, do all that. When it comes to other stuff, like
I need to figure out — the Meck Mile is a running event. I mean, I run, but I need to
figure out how those people communicate and talk. We don't have a Twitter platform
for that, I didn't launch one.

“We're playing around with TikTok for the bowl game and seeing what
happens. We've been doing it for the past three months and with some
success, and I encourage people to send me notes of how to get better. But
it's mostly just chaotic stuff we do in the office to have fun…It's event to
event. I have to sit down and figure it out. I'm not someone — I've never,
even when I ran my content strategy business, I advised a lot of people to not
set content calendars. I just think a lot more thematic, especially if you're in
the live event world. Like we live in a really horrible time with a lot of tragic
things happening, so anytime someone creates a content calendar and
schedules tweets out a week away, that's terrifying. Like, what if something
happens and ou forget to delete a tweet? What if the context is lost? Like, I'm
so much more of a fan of understanding the themes you need to hit or your
checklist and then being opportunistic around it.

“So when I think around content for the bowl, there is no content calendar.
There is a checklist of, hey, I need to hit these things probably each day,
but I'm not pre-writing content. It is what I'm thinking in the moment or
what I'm trying to do. Like literally if it says ‘Thinking about mayo’, I'm
probably just thinking randomly about mayo.”

About when the bowl teams get selected and working with their staff
“So the first thing is I try to equip them to best understand — like North
Carolina is in our bowl game this year, they've been to the stadium enough,
[so] I don't need to do this with them. But for West Virginia I help their
content team with how to do their job effectively. So when they come to the
stadium, helping them best understand how to get where, like where's the
video editing space, how to get up and down the press elevator. The same
with our events. I'll be with them saying, hey, here are the good shots, here's
this. Because they're far more resourced, they're far more equipped to show
the behind the scenes of what their team is doing. My job is not to show the
team experience; like I should overview it and I should amplify their content
and I should provide context.

“My job is to open up the the curtain, to show, hey, this is the team event. Here's what it
looks like to have a 300 pound man getting in a stock car. And then on bowl game, my job
is to make it that it feels like the game is talking to you like you are a part of it, you're a
friend of the game. I should not be doing play by play. I should not be doing any of that.
The teams do it far better than me and are far more equipped. And plus if you're
following us on Twitter, you're probably going to be following us watching the game
anyway, so I should be talking to you along with the video stream. Same way with
Selection Sunday. Like, why not just be talking to the fan bases as a fan? People get mad
because we'll be like, we still don't know who we're taking. That's the truth, we still don't
know. Or if things happen, like we'll comment on it or whatnot.
“Like, going back to my belief, like there's no content strategy. Like yes, we’ll package the
content we want to put out there, but there's no — let me rephrase it. We do have a
content strategy. There's no content cadence specifically built out. Everything changes so
much and you have to be nimble, which is also the benefit of having a one person team.”

“We can [collaborate with players and coaches]... Alright, let's talk about, like
our bowl voice — I don't think a coach is ever going to really relate to]...Players
we more so just amplify their content in the end. Like, I want them to have an
experience where they don't feel beholden to do everything we need them to.
We do have a media day [and] I might ask them random questions, things like
that, and and try to engage them that way. We'll show the fun they're having.
But in the end it’s a bowl game and the event should be a reward for the
student athlete. They're the ones being rewarded and I shouldn't be
interrupting anything. And that's just my personal belief. Like if I was an 18, 19
year old guy at the Duke's Mayo Bowl, it'd be really annoying to have a 36 year
old guy with a phone and a microphone walk up and ask questions. I'm sure I
could create something fun and stuff like that, and we've done it before, but I
want their time to be their time. That's kind of my philosophy.”

About incentivizing players to participate in bowl games and the future with
payment to players and NIL opportunities
“So NIL is interesting. What people don't realize is [for] bowl games, the
NCAA says a player cannot directly or indirectly promote an event they're
playing in, even afterwards. So that ‘indirectly’ leaves a really wide gap. And I
disagree with it at times, but I understand the approach is the fear is pay for
play. I would argue pay for play is probably already happening in other places,
but I completely understand. So what we do is we create a marketplace where
we have a place that players can enter and then we promote the marketplace.
So a way that you can engage with them, whether it's almost like a Cameo-
type thing or if you're a local business, while players are in town have them
stop by your pizza shop and create content. So we want to create a NIL
marketplace.

“Then we also do stuff; like Chad Ryland was a graduate and last year was
our bowl ambassador and we did an NIL deal with him, and he went and did
interviews for us. And then he also went to a food bank and donated his time
as part of that. But there's this whole — everyone thinks NIL and player
payment is bowls are going to get to a point where they can pay a first round
or second round quarterback just to play in their game which will affect
ticket sales. Well, first off, I think any player that has the ability to go to the
NFL Draft, I do not fault them for it because going to the NFL Draft when
you can is important because, one, that's a huge monetary thing for your
family, but it also gets you one year closer to your big payday. The second
contract is the most important thing. And that's why these players go early,
like go a year earlier than what you would consider is [because] they get to
their second contract faster. So financially, I don't not fault a player for it.

“Secondly, let's just make up a number. This is not a true number. Let's just say I had
50 pennies of marketing budget. And let's say I paid the 50 pennies to a player to get
him to play in the game. That player is not going to generate 50 pennies worth of ticket
revenue [compared to] using those 50 pennies on SEO, on display, on paid social. No
player, for a bowl our size, is going to generate the amount of ticket revenue difference
for them playing than I could using digital methods in my perspective. Even if you go to
a large bowl and they are able to pay, say you pay $80k to play in the game, it's a tough
argument for me to say that that $80k for him to play in the game — the return on ad
spend on that is probably going to be 3 or 4 times if you use a digital method, if you
actually use tried and true things. Whereas I don't think paying [the player] $80k is
going to generate a return on ad spend of 3 or 4 just from him playing. So that's my
perspective…To me, that's just burning cash. Instead, you should be putting that money
to actual legitimate ticket sales and, let's go back to what we just spent 90% of our time
doing, creating a brand, a bowl, an environment that is fun to go to where it doesn't
matter who's playing.”

“If they're truly a fan of the team, they're going to show up no matter what.
And if they're truly a fan of football, we can create a environment they want
to go to. No one player is going to generate the amount of ticket sales it
would take to keep [the player] there.”

On marketing and content strategy once the teams get announced
“What's insane is that the majority of ticket sales for a bowl game happen
in the first week, so there is no time for optimization. So our targeting is
broad and it's geo. So we go Charlotte, we kind of kept it to Charlotte
because it’ll cover a lot of UNC fans. And then we went to the state of West
Virginia and we look for alumni, we look for students, and we look for fans
of the teams. It is very broad. And then Charlotte, we [target] college sports
fans. It is the broadest targeting and it's terrifying at times. But it is
effective. And most of our sales come from search because it's more, you
know, people are looking for tickets when they do the search.

“And then we get results and things like that, and we shift and we change
and do things. But it's those first four weeks we have to hit. And you also
have to flip logos. You have to do everything. Like you have to create nine
different variations of each creative to launch. And this year no bowl
projection had West Virginia, which is from a conference we're not
associated with, or North Carolina playing in our game. So we had to
recreate all the creative overnight.”

On the composition of the fan base that attends the game
“I think you have to cast a broad net. But I think for us we're in an NFL
stadium and things like that, and also it's the holidays. So a lot of people
for a bowl game assume it's college students; they're usually home [for the
holidays]. Some come and we certainly encourage it and we work on
keeping a ticket price that they can get in, but is usually the the 30 to 60
year-old fan. And then in Charlotte it's people looking for things to do or an
engaged fan base here.”

What game day is like for Miller
“Jumpman Invitational is nuts. Game days are the calmer days, but it's still
like 80 calls leading up to the game. So just constantly, so many things like
it's the amount of phone calls and texts and fire putting out and stuff like
that, and in a good way. It's like, right. Like, [for] Jumpman Invitational,
there's eight teams, two hotels, one arena, three sponsors, Jordan Brand —
and Jordan Brand had ten agencies involved that I can think of. So there's
just a lot that goes in and we're an eight person team. It's a lot of
communication, talking and getting things set up. So that's what those
game days are like.

“And then a bowl it's just getting up. I generally try to get the stadium
early. I'll kind of have like, here's my checklist of things I need to hit on
each platform and go from there. I'll have content creators I'll work with.
We'll kind of have the strategies of getting social up, things like that. I work
with Regan Moran, who's awesome and does a lot of our Photoshop
creative and stuff like that. He's in Iowa, so we're doing everything via text.
Then I have a photographer and him on a text and photographer on the
field shooting texts to Iowa and he's building graphics and sending them to
me. Then we have our content team who does more of the brand
storytelling, they'll be on the ground. Then we'll have kind of a quick social
videographer this year I'm excited about testing out.

“So it's just kind of running through things, hitting all the stuff, and then
it's really just trying to understand sentiment. And once again, I don't do
play by play. I don't find it interesting. I don't think people look to a bowl
game for a play by play. They'll look to the teams or they'll just watch the
game. I remember, like I found my favorite post I can remember, I was
wandering around the game and I found a South Carolina [fan], like an
eight year old boy asleep during the game. I think they were losing pretty
badly and I asked his parents to take a picture, they said, yes and think I
just tweeted like ‘Great day for a game’ and he’s just passed out. Just things
like that.”

“[When the mayo dump happens] I am supervising media on that. And then I get a
photo, I get video of it. Generally Duke’s [has people there]...[Duke’s rep Sarah]
usually captures the vertical video and I'll try to get horizontal. So we kind of tag
team it that way…I'm sure everyone who's listening to this can appreciate [that
after the game] there's the photos coming in, you're posting, you still have that
momentum, so you're getting going. So I'm looking forward to January 28th. We
have a couple days off coming up. I think everyone on our team has the calendar
circled. I mean, our job is — I have post game. Most people leave the stadium, but
I still have post-game interviews and then recapping and then that continues for a
few days, which is great.
“I love what I do, there's no complaint. As I said, I grew up going to our games, so
it's a passion. Like, my boys will be at their first football game ever together.
There's a lot of fun things that happen and I wouldn't change my life for anything.”

Excluding anything Duke's Mayo Bowl, Miller’s favorite or most
memorable campaign in his career so far
“I wrote content for a Hot Wheels monster truck. That was fun, when I was
doing freelance. But I think probably the most beneficial one was writing
paid social for a drywall company. That was interesting. It taught me a lot
about how to be creative,writing about something really boring. But
probably I think the thing that I've enjoyed and learned a lot was I worked
with Visit North Carolina social media when I was at the agency. So there
was a lot of travel, a lot of first person content, a lot of figuring things out
in a brand voice that I wasn't familiar with.”

The most viral social post from Miller’s time with Charlotte Sports
Foundation. And also the most memorable interaction on social
“I think the first time I went viral was — I always joke that Alabama's
always eligible [for the Duke’s Mayo Bowl] until they're not. So it's like
2015, they're winning like 30-0 in the SEC championship game and I was
like, we can finally confirm Alabama is not playing in the — it was the Belk
Bowl at the time, and that went viral. I also like that when the Belk Bowl
left us as a sponsor, we entered the transfer portal and then never tweeted
until Duke's Mayo came [on a sponsor]. I really enjoyed that.

“Interactions — there's a lot of fun random ones because a lot of people
don't like mayonnaise, so you just get a lot of fun interactions that way.
Like, U.S. senators sometimes will comment or stuff like that. It's just
there's a lot of randomness that happens in terms of where people line up,
because mayonnaise — and Duke's Mayo is really a fun product to work
with because from my perspective, you either love or hate mayonnaise. If
you hate mayonnaise, I'm not going to convert you to liking mayonnaise;
like it's just not possible. But if you like mayonnaise, Duke's is such a
superior product that people, once they try it, don't go back and are fiercely
loyal.”

What should we know about the Queens University?
“Well, it just went D1, which is cool. But they won like seven straight D2
swimming national titles, but they started the year after I left. So the year I
was there I was driving around and in eight inches of snow and in a
minivan full of swimmers in Ashtabula, Ohio. And that was kind of a
realization that maybe this isn't; I need to probably shift to different roles
in my career.”

What's an idea for the Duke’s Mayo Bowl that Miller hasn’t or couldn’t do
“I have a couple ideas I don't want to give away; like, I have a selection
team announcement that would be really funny. And then I have, I think
we got to change the mayo dump a little bit next year, shift it around, or
come up with some ideas. So I'm not going to give away too much.”

The platforms that consistently work the best for Duke's Mayo Bowl. And
also, if Miller had all the resources in the world, what's the one platform he
wishes he could spend more time on
“I wish I could spend more time on TikTok. I think our brand voice lines up
well. I just need to spend more time and it's just tough. And then we do
best on Twitter…I opened [Threads] the first night and I've been turned off
ever since. I'm also intrigued by Bluesky; I like the people there, they're
nice. But Threads was tough just because…like, when I logged in and it was
seeing people I don't want to see. And then it's also not chronological,
that's just something we struggled with, especially since we only exist in a
certain time period, so we need to be chronological.”

The most memorable game Miller has been at in person
“I think there's like, just moments, like the College World Series is a moment
everyone should experience. That's just a really remarkable one. I think the
Super Bowl, something I've been trying to focus on — and this is not the
answer to your question, but it allows me to go on the soapbox — I think a
lot about that Michelob Ultra commercial [on the golf course], where it's like
everyone's holding a phone, except that one guy holding the Michelob Ultra.
It's like, I'm really trying to focus on going to sporting events when I'm not
working, to just not take photos and stuff. I know we all have like the camera
that takes a million photos and they're all beautiful, but I'm trying to not
take as many photos at games and I'm trying to like, actually, live in
moments, and I'm finding that to be really rewarding.”

The sports team[s] whose social media Miller most enjoys and why [local
and non-local teams]
“I'm not a hockey fan. I mentioned him earlier, but I think what the Canes
do is really cool. We'll call it the local team, The Carolina Hurricanes. And
then, I mean, I think everyone probably should say this — the LA Chargers
TikTok is just really great, and brand voice aligns with how I view it should
be.”

The best meal to get in Charlotte and where to get it. Also the
best use of mayo in a food/meal
“I think the best use of mayo is a simple tomato sandwich in
the summer. It's two pieces of bread, mayonnaise on both
sides, salt and pepper on each side, sliced tomato, put it
down, preferably at the beach, slice it in half, and it's
amazing.
“But I think Charlotte has incredible food options. I'm a
father of two kids under the age of five, so I don't get to
experience a lot of them often, but I have some places that go
pizza by the slice that's relatively cheap and TCBY next to it.
And that's pretty much anytime I have the kids and mom's
out of town that's our go-to food location…We can go to my
hometown Gastonia and get some really good barbecue.”

The number one tip Miller would give to a bowl marketing director
“I think it would be [to] sit down and understand the fans. I think we
oftentimes try to talk to fans like they're NFL [fans] or whatnot —
understand fans…So often the creative curse is we think of an idea, we post
it, and then the audience doesn't react to it. You should always go from
understand your audience, understand the platform and then create the
content. Work the problem backwards in terms of what you're building.”

The school with the most intense fans
“West Virginia fans are really fun right now. Tennessee fans didn't like me.
We didn't paint the end zones, [so] they got after me, but I think we're
friends now. Clemson fans can be a little bit annoying. I say that as an
alum, so don't get mad at me.”

Miller’s Social Media All-Star to Follow
“So there's a guy who's out there who I think puts out the best perspective,
and he actually has a newsletter he puts out. His name is Braly Keller
(@BralyKeller on Twitter). He works at Opendorse and he does awesome
stuff. I think he has the best voice, best knowledge, and is way too young to
be that smart in terms of that space, and I think he's going to go incredible
places. I really enjoy his content.”
Also check out Braly’s newsletter ‘NIL Blitz’

Where to find Miller and Charlotte Sports Foundation and Duke’s Mayo
Bowl on digital/social
Charlotte Sports is @CLTSports across social
Find @DukesMayoBowl on Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook
Follow Miller @MillerYoho on Twitter and LinkedIn

@njh287; www.dsmsports.net
Thanks again to Miller for being so generous with his time to share
his knowledge, experience, and expertise with me!
For more content and episodes, subscribe to the podcast, follow me
on LinkedIn and on Twitter @njh287, and visit www.dsmsports.net.

Episode 261 Snippets: Miller Yoho of the Charlotte Sports Foundation

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