IAM1196- CEO Focuses on Eco-friendly, Performance Based Turf Fields

Jeff Urban is a leading Sports Marketing executive. He is CEO of Sports Field Partners, a new entry in the synthetic turf space that focuses on eco-friendly, performance-based turf fields for all sports properties. Recently serving across multiple consulting engagements, Urban was President and Co-Founder at Whistle Sports, a company that creates, curates, and distributes breakthrough entertainment content for young, active males. Urban also served as Senior Vice President of Sports & Event Marketing at Gatorade and held that position for two years.

• CEO Hack: Minding and building my network
• CEO Nugget: What's your dream job and what are the experiences you need? Do you need a team experience?
• CEO Defined: Rebuilder

Website: https://www.sportsfieldpartners.com/

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Transcription

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00:26 – Intro

Are you ready to hear business stories and learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and level up your business from awesome CEOs, entrepreneurs, and founders without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresh values your time and is ready to share with you the valuable info you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO podcast.

00:54 – Gresham Harkless

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast. I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Jeff Urban of sports field partner. Jeff, it's great to have you on the show.

01:03 – Jeff Urban

Thanks so much for being here. Appreciate it.

01:05 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, super excited to have you on. And before we jump in, I want to read a little bit more about Jeff so you hear about all the awesome things that he's doing. And Jeff is a leading sports marketing executive. He is CEO of Sports Field Partners, a new entry in the synthetic turf space, which focuses on eco-friendly, performance-based turf fields for all sports properties. Recently serving across multiple consulting engagements, Jeff was president and co-founder at Whistle Sports, a company that creates, curates, and distributes breakthrough entertainment content for young, active males. Jeff also served as senior vice president, of sports and event marketing at Gatorade and held that position for two years. Jeff, super excited to have you on. Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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01:45 – Jeff Urban

Let's do it.

01:46 – Gresham Harkless

Let's make it happen then. So to kind of kick everything off, I wanted to rewind the clock a little bit, a little bit more on how you got started, what I call your CEO story.

01:55 – Jeff Urban

Yeah. So you highlighted some of the more recent positions. But I really got my start out of college when I decided to attend the Ohio University Sports Administration graduate program in Athens, Ohio. And for our industry, they are considered sort of one of the top of the top programs, if not the top of the top program. So I was able to take an internship out of that experience with the Chicago White Sox.

Did my internship with the White Sox in their sponsorship and marketing group, which led me to the Baltimore Orioles for my first full-time gig and then just sort of progressed out of the Orioles into an agency on the Miller Brewing account in their sports marketing group, where I handled territory and regional marketing across their sports properties, first in the mid-Atlantic states and then down in the southeast and southwest, and then left there to go to another agency. I'm sorry. I went to USA Today for a long run and had a great run with the Gannetta-owned property at USA Today.

Did a quick stint at Frankel before I landed at Gatorade, which is where probably most people know my career from. I did ten years at Gatorade, eight of which I was the director and two of which I was a senior vice president. And then my career took an interesting turn in that I had always had big brands behind me. Big USA Today on my business card, Gatorade on my business card, and Miller Brewing Company on my business card. And I went into the startup space with Whistle Sports, which is a whole new set of experiences for me, from fundraising to investor relations, obviously, to build it with just two of us at the start, to eventually scaling it to 100 people and both domestic international offices.

And that really whet my appetite for the startup space. And now we're about a year into sports field partners. I think my aim was to sort of bring all my experiences together from my startup experience to trying to create a brand, which is, I know we'll dig into some of this stuff down the line, but I think this opportunity really is trying, or attempting, in my estimation, to bring most of my experiences from the past together into sort of one, you know, sort of one opportunity. And, I mean, we're literally building it from scratch. So it's, every day is, you know, sometimes you're the CEO and sometimes you're the admin for a startup. I'm sure people can appreciate that as those who are listening have, have built it from scratch as well.

04:24 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, I appreciate you sharing that. And, you know, hearing that progression, you know, to everything that you're building. I think so many times we think that you know, the positions and things that we're doing in life is, you know, are there in silos. But so many times, you know, you hear the expression like, I've been training my whole life for what I'm doing now. It's a lot of times because building that progression leads you to the experience and things that you didn't realize that you might have needed or didn't know why they were happening, but they end up being very relevant in what you're doing as the CEO, entrepreneur, business owner, or as you said, the assistant or whatever you end up being throughout your progression.

04:55 – Jeff Urban

Yeah, I think that's very fair. In corporate or in business, much like in sports, using probably a tired analogy, very few people play for the same team anymore for their whole career. As much as that sounds altruistic and romantic to a certain degree, maybe to a large degree, most careers now are not this linear path of, I come out of school, I work for company x, I do 30 years for company x, I get a great pension, and I retire. I'm sure that still happens a bunch, but in my particular case, it was not as linear. And I'm seeing that to be more the norm. I'm not saying my path was the norm, but I'm just seeing people sort of getting this different set of experiences. And when I counsel, you know, younger folks looking to get into the sports space, I say, you know, be prepared for that. That's also a great opportunity. It can be frightening for some, but you have to be prepared for, you know, how you need to, you know, sort of acquire your skills.

05:49 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. And I think this is a time where there's so much disruption and change. As you said, you see it from sports, you see it, you know, in business, where it seems to be more of the rarity. When you get that opportunity to work for 40, 50 years or even play with the team for 20 years, and, you know, you get to retire with them, it's becoming a lot more of, you know, you start, start to develop those relationships, develop those skills, and then it kind of stays with you no matter where you go. So I wanted to drill down a little bit more and hear everything you're doing with sports field partners. Could you take us through a little bit more on what you're doing there and how you're serving the clients that you're working with?

06:21 – Jeff Urban

Yeah. So my partner and I are really setting out to create an eco-forward company that also delivers on all the performance attributes and all the attributes, frankly, that clients want when they're thinking about a synthetic turf field, which is largely driven by availability, ease and maintenance and year-round use. Those are all key attributes that any synthetic field should deliver. But having four kids and have been on thousands of fields, and I know you're a former athlete yourself, the fields of yesterday, while improving, I still feel that we can contribute to a greater good, which is being an eco-forward with organic infill.

So we don't do black chrome rubber fields. And I think that the science, or lack of science behind that is starting to get exposed a little bit. So we are really focused on eco-friendly, organic infill mix fields that deliver the same performance benefits as synthetic fields. But our goal is not to be the best synthetic field. I guess to a certain regard it is. We want to be the best-replicated grass field because most clients don't come to us and say, I really want a synthetic field. They say, I really want a grass field. But for cost reasons and maintenance reasons and for usability reasons, I guess I got to get a synthetic field.

So we're trying to sort of adapt to clients' desires and make it as close to the grass as we can possibly make it with all the attributes of a synthetic turf field. So we are certainly keen on a customer base, and we're a startup in a really competitive space. There are some big players out there, multinational companies that are competing out there. So there's an old adage or advertising campaign, and an educated consumer is our best customer. So we're looking for customers that really want to understand what's going down in their field. And we're finding that you know, for us right now, those are mostly private, smaller schools or top the tip of the spear schools that might be top football schools that really want to know what does my field do when I put it down? How's it going to act?

And those conversations, we're finding, are much more fruitful than maybe a public bid of a middle-of-the-road high school football team that's, you know, six and six every year, and just wants to put an, put a synthetic turf field down. So we're working hard to identify the sort of customers that fall in those two areas. Tip of the spear sort of programs is football, soccer, and lacrosse, where their field is used for top athletes and top programs. And with that is also performance centers and then also private schools where this can be their singest, largest, their single largest expenditure outside of salaries. A field expense for a private school, 700 kids or so, is usually on any given year, their capital budget getting used all at once. So we're finding that those conversations are much more fruitful with those two targets.

09:20 – Gresham Harkless

I wanted to ask you now for what I call your secret sauce, and you might have already touched on this, but this could be for yourself as an individual, the business, or a combination of both. But what do you feel kind of sets you apart and makes you unique?

09:30 – Jeff Urban

Well, I think certainly trying to lead with an eco message. It's certainly on point with sort of not just industry. I wouldn't say that there's an industry trend, but sort of call it a cultural vibe. Being eco-forward or eco friendly as well as with that eco is the organic side of it. So when I say Eco, our full system is totally recyclable. So from the pad to the turf to the infill, the infill mix is all recyclable. So that's sort of the eco message. And then one of the important components of that is what we call the infill, which most people would know as the black chrome rubber stuff that usually flies up and gets in their eye. For us, those are all organic materials.

I'd say that's our unique positioning. And I know this might be jumping ahead a little bit to some of the other areas you want to go, but in having that USP, I think unique selling proposition or position, an entrepreneur, in this case, startup CEO, has to really mind their network and say, hey, I'm putting my Rolodex on the line here. So where do I find folks that can help me get this USP out there get a sales contact out there or get a vendor opportunity out there?

And that's one of the things I think startup CEO was very different than mature CEO in that you're literally spinning your hat every hour like, okay, now I'm the supply chain guy, and the next hour I'm the. Not that a bigger CEO isn't all those things as well. It's just I think the granularity under which a startup CEO has to really be involved in sort of each aspect of, I'll call it the major disciplines where you would normally have reporting line structures of supply chain head, sales head, marketing head. All those would be sort of functional leads. You are those things. And that's the good side and sometimes the bad side of it.

11:16 – Gresham Harkless

I wanted to switch gears a little bit and ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an app, a book, or a habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

11:28 – Jeff Urban

I think there's sort of two things. One is I was taught at a very young age professionally, that your network is really your wallet. So I'd say I've tried very hard to mine my network, to build my network too, I've used the term plus people like us, that I can build a network of people like be nice to people, they'll be nice back. And I think that's sort of one of my keys. And sometimes it backfires because sometimes you're too nice in bigger business. But I'd say I'm trying to keep in mind my network would be sort of one of my significant hacks. And it seems that Rolodex is an old term that most younger folks don't really even know, maybe not even know that term. But I see the art of mining the Rolodex as a little bit of a declining art. And so in that regard, I take great value in trying to stay connected across the network.

12:31 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So I wanted to ask you now for what I call a CEO nugget. You might have already touched on this, but this is kind of a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. It's something you might tell a client, or if you happen to have a time machine, you might tell your younger business self.

12:42 – Jeff Urban

Yeah, I've used this analogy for a long time, and it seems, I think, least resonate with probably more younger folks as they're thinking about getting into the business. Often at my age, I'm significantly older than you are. The interview question was, what do you want to be when you grow up? I'm not sure anybody asks that anymore, but I take that and sort of turn it and say, if you could have your dream job, do you want to run a team? Do you want to be the CEO of Nike? So what's your dream job? And if you see yourself sitting in that chair, then what are the legs that you need, the experiences that you need to sit in that chair?

I always knew that I wanted to run somebody's sports company or run my own sports company. I didn't really know what that meant or that it was a brand that it was a media company or what it was. But as I was thinking about that, I knew that I needed to get team experience, which I did with the White Sox and the Orioles. I knew I needed to understand the sort of agency ecosystem and cycle of interaction, client back to agency and strategy et cetera. So, and then I also knew I needed both brand and to be on the revenue side.

I got that with USA Today and obviously with Gatorade. And I thought those experiences and the order didn't matter. And I probably didn't, my 23-year-old self didn't know that those were the chairs at the time. But certainly, as you go through one of those experiences, like, okay, check, I've got, I've got that experience. And then you start building the legs to your chair so you can hopefully someday sit in front of somebody and or say, I want to start a company that looks like x because I've got these experiences.

If you're going to go raise money. People are going to want to know you have those experiences, or if they're going to, if you're going to run their company, they want to know you've got those experiences. So I've always used that as sort of my analogy for,, the folks that are just starting to crack into the business. And it was born out of, as I said, that tired question about what you want to be when you grow up. And I've tried to take a turn on that.

14:47 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So now I wanted to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different, quote-unquote CEO's on the show. So, Jeff, what does being a CEO mean to you?

14:57 – Jeff Urban

It means that I usually frame it up as it means that I'm the lead builder. This is my second startup role and I was president of the first one and I'm CEO of this one. And having the final decision for a small company usually means, like we talked about before, that you are the supply chain person. So you're talking to the supply chain person is talking to the marketing person. But in short, I think it means that you're the lead builder.

15:26 – Gresham Harkless

Well, Jeff truly appreciates you for throwing that curveball question to me. I appreciate you even more for taking some time out. What I wanted to do is now pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know and of course, how best they could get ahold of you. Find out all about some things you and your team are working on.

15:43 – Jeff Urban

Yeah. So our website is www.sportsfieldpartners.com and that'll give you a breakdown of who we are. There's also a phone number for reach out down there and look forward to anybody who's got any sort of leads that they're looking to redo a field or a complex or anything. We're willing and ready partners for you.

16:01 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. To make it even easier, we'll have the links and information in the show notes. So thank you so much again, Jeff, for all the reminders, and all the great work you're doing in creating your own lane and building that path. So thank you so much again, my friend, and I hope you have a phenomenal recipe.

16:12 – Jeff Urban

Thanks. Enjoyed it. Thanks so much.

16:15 – Outro

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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