Jason Takefman is the former GM of Canada's Only Minor League Baseball Team, the Vancouver Canadians. He also worked as Content Marketing Manager with the UFC and as a Director of Corporate Partnership with the Vancouver Canucks.
He is now working as Sports consultant working with VC's looking to invest in private companies, contract negotiation for sponsorships, teams. He is also the Co-Chair of the RBC JCC Sports Dinner and the host of the IBWAA podcast, a weekly Baseball Podcast.
We talked about the right way to gain experience, dealing with nerves in the interview prep, advocating for diversity in tech and what she learned about herself from hiring a brand new team.
Follow Jason on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/jasonbtakefman
Full show notes and transcripts can be found here:
https://www.mtcpod.com
Like the show? Please leave us a review here -- even one sentence helps. Consider including your Twitter handle so we can thank you personally!
Jason Takefman is the former GM of Canada's Only Minor League Baseball Team, the Vancouver Canadians. He also worked as Content Marketing Manager with the UFC and as a Director of Corporate Partnership with the Vancouver Canucks.
He is now working as Sports consultant working with VC's looking to invest in private companies, contract negotiation for sponsorships, teams. He is also the Co-Chair of the RBC JCC Sports Dinner and the host of the IBWAA podcast, a weekly Baseball Podcast.
We talked about the right way to gain experience, dealing with nerves in the interview prep, advocating for diversity in tech and what she learned about herself from hiring a brand new team.
Follow Jason on Twitter:
https://twitter.com/jasonbtakefman
Full show notes and transcripts can be found here:
https://www.mtcpod.com
Like the show? Please leave us a review here -- even one sentence helps. Consider including your Twitter handle so we can thank you personally!
Ep 10 - Jason Takefman
[00:00:00] Christian Parsons: Coming up on, Make The Cut.
Jason Takefman: We're also not taught in school how to evolve. We're not taught that like, Shit's going to happen. You're going to be faced with a lot of hurdles and there is ups and downs and there is, um, things that might not go right, but you have to evolve and you always have to, you know, try to get better and, add to your arsenal because it may not come in handy right away, but it's going to come in handy down the road.
Christian Parsons: Welcome to the show. I'm Christian Parsons. I appreciate you tuning in. On Make The Cut. We deconstruct the career paths, work lessons, and practical advice of people who have built successful careers on the business side of pro sports.
From the NHL to the NBA, from football to soccer. These are the stories of people who make it happen off the field, off the ice and off the court. Our goal is for you to leave with a better knowledge of what it's like to work in the world of pro sports. Different jobs that you didn't know existed. And actionable steps to help you get [00:01:00] your next job in sports.
Today, we're talking with Jason Takefman. Jason was the former general manager of Canada's only minor league baseball team, the Vancouver Canadians.
He also worked as a content marketing manager with the UFC and was a director of corporate partnerships with the Vancouver Canucks.
He's currently a sports consultant. Working with venture capitalists who are looking to invest in private companies, contract negotiations for sponsorships in teams.
It's great to get the perspective of a professional. Who's been across multiple sports and leagues. I enjoyed, as we dug in to understand what he thought were the repeatable patterns of success that he saw across organizations. From baseball to the UFC, to the NHL. Now here's Jason Takefman.
Let's dig into the first couple of chapters of your career. I mean, you and I met when you were at the UFC, but you've worked all across pro sports. And I think that's why I'm really excited about this conversation [00:02:00] because you bring a perspective from minor league baseball, mixed martial arts, NHL hockey, and now working with VCs investing in, in sports.
Talk me through kind of the progression and the start it, you can.
Jason Takefman: It's amazing. First day we made it to the eight years ago. It feels like it's crazy. How time flies. Um, you know how I started in sports? I was at McGill. I was living in Montreal and I was doing a degree in psychology. And then I always thought that I was very interested in psychology. I wanted to become a psychologist.
I had this entire sort of career planned out and I hit a wall after my junior year. My GPA wasn't very strong and I was doing an internship at the Jewish general hospital. And I would probably have to go after my degree. And if I really want to get into, uh, to med school or whichever sort of psychological path, I want to go down and in for a master's I would have had to pad my stats and extend my BA.
This was July, 2003 and I was like, I hit a wall and I was okay. Like, I can't see myself doing this for the next [00:03:00] 12, 15 years.
This was the time when Theo Epstein in Boston became a general manager and he was 28 years old and he did not have he had a PR background, a PR intern terms of San Diego Padres. And I started to Google. Other people's history, other people in the front office. And it was, it was still very heavily populated with former players in front office types that either had like a Kenny Williams who was a general manager, the white Sox, he played for the white Sox or, you know, mitral CADing Serge Devard was a former play with the Montreal Canadians.
Same player. So, but there's people that were, you know, Cashman in New York. They were like, I don't want to use the term slipping through the cracks, but like, they were kind of defined odds against them to sort of ascend in an organization that they didn't really have. They were not former players maybe played in college.
Um, they weren't, they weren't quants. They weren't, they, they literally were just able to like, okay, like they're able to ascend. So I do as much research as possible. I decided, okay, [00:04:00] psychology is fun. And, but I'm going to try for a career in sports. And I called anybody and everybody, and I decided that. I was going to give this about a three or four year period to like, I got to get an internship.
That's how you start. Every single person says you have to get your foot in the door. You have to be able to, at the very least show that you're willing to accumulate information, accumulate knowledge, accumulate, uh, contacts, but mostly just like nuts and bolts, um, about the industry. And I tried for two years, I mailed everybody.
Like I literally, I mailed, I emailed everybody, uh, for an internship, professional CHL, uh, everybody and I was going nowhere. Like I was literally getting like very little responses. And then, uh, my friend was moving to Israel and, and he, he wanted to join the Israeli national hockey team because their program is a very developed, he was very high up.
Uh, he was very good in Canada, which is obviously [00:05:00] elite there. And at the end of the practice, one of their coaches said, you know, we're looking for interns who want to help us out. Like we literally just built an office. So he told me, and, I emailed the guy right away. He emailed me back. And then before, you know, it, I was my, my first job in sports was an intern for the Israeli national hockey team and had their office in Montreal.
And I was doing everything. I was, I was coordinating tournaments. I was doing immigration. I was feeding the players. I was meeting the parents. And I was in school. This was while I was doing five classes at McGill and working at radio shack and, uh, and doing this.
And it was, uh, it was amazing. I learned so much about the industry. I learned so much about, um, Sort of just like the pace of it and like the pace of it that like, it really doesn't have, I'm not a nine to five person and I don't even say that in a good way, but I'm just like, I'm not, I feel like I'm very off my game when there's a nine to five.
Maybe it's because a lot of my business that I did out East is when I was living out West or maybe it's because the opposite, when I was [00:06:00] with the UFC working with you, their head office was in Vegas. Like I was just, it was all over the place. So this actually suited me pretty well. Um, and then, um, I basically learned everything in a very, very ground level, like very grassroots.
Cause they were the point of the Israeli national hockey team was to raise money and awareness by doing a North American tour. And they were playing like midget, AAA hockey teams. And sometimes they'dbe in there, but then sometimes they would go to like nipping Ontario. And these guys would just beat 'em like 14 to one.
Cause it's not the same caliber at all. But just the, the, the, the experience and kind of like making sure everything was set up, but then also, you know, what are the, what are the values of internship or the internship that I found is that it teaches you how to prioritize. Like, I was still doing five classes at McGill, like I was still at, and I was driving from Montreal to Ottawa to make sure that like a banner was raised or like a sign was posted.
Like I knew like, okay, is this worth it? Like, you literally have to like, wait for some cards. And that's like, that's kind of cool. Like that's that actually taught me a lot about prioritizing and taught me a lot [00:07:00] about like, what is most important right now? Not just for like the organization, but like, for me also, like, is it school?
Is it, you know, I needed the 12 when I was 14 hours a week and radio shack I was working at, but like, w what is literally more important in the grand scheme of things? That's, that's a value that I truly found with it.
Christian Parsons: That's so that's so interesting because you talk about personal prioritization. There's a limit amount of hours in the day, and you need a base level of sleep. What I think you're going at is , what is, and not to discourage anybody, who's into school and getting really good marks at school.
But like, I have never, ever, ever been asked what my marks were at school, unless I was like applying, like I've never applied to grad school, but like, unless you're applying to grad school, like do marks really matter or does your experience in your learning and your network really matter? And it sounds like this internship provided you that.
Jason Takefman: The further we get away from school, the less it matters, what you majored in. Unless of course it's like a foundation. Like, you know, if you're in medicine, [00:08:00] unless it's a foundational core of what you're actually doing and your marks. I actually didn't do well in school. I, um, I had started university right after my dad had passed away and I just, I didn't realize it at the time, but like the, my first two years were just a blur because you're like trying to compartmentalize everything.
And of course in your first year of university, at least at McGill in psychology, um, they're trying to weed out people like these are not easy classes. Like they make it deliberately hard and that they Mark on a curve so that they weed out people who are not serious . So, so my GPA walking out of McGill was like a 3.1.
And my last half was a 3.5 with 3.6. So I actually, like, I always tell people that, like, I actually, I finished really strong, but no one's ever asked me that even when I applied to grad school, they just have to show that like, okay, like you, you like, here's your degree? Like literally here is the diploma.
Here is something from the school that they sent and that's it. Like nobody ever asked me anything about my marks. I actually think that working part-time should be a job in high [00:09:00] school. I actually think there should be core credits for it, or at the very least, if it's not working full time, it's maybe let's say cleaning up the high school or there's something where it's like data procurement or, you know, you have different, you have different departments, but I think that that would actually give people a lot better experience than just like course number 12 of a 13 course curriculum.
I always recommend people. I always recommend to people like get a, get a part-time job and, or an internship and learn how to prioritize and learn how to learn, how, like the real world works.
Christian Parsons: Our schools from an educational standpoint, aren't the best at. Setting us up for what we want to do in the real world, unless you have a super skill specific job. Like if you take an apprenticeship to be an electrician, like abso-fucking-lutely, you're, you're, you're absolutely learning that.
But if you want to be a GM of an NBA team, there's no course for contract negotiation with players, there's no course for salary cap restructuring, you have to learn on the job and the people who are [00:10:00] able to get into those rooms and gain that experience, even if they're not doing a contract negotiation , if you're just able to like shut up and do emails on your laptop and listen to what's happening and absorb that knowledge, that is invaluable because there are, 300 people in this entire world that have had that experience.
Jason Takefman: School is important. I'm a teacher's assistant at California state university in business analytics class. And how I met that professor was he was a business analytics professional that took my executive MBA at Washington state. And we had talked about business analytics in sports, and we had talked about, does Russell Westbrook shoot very much?
But then we started talking about like human performance and human optimization and like, why, why aren't stats used more for like social media or, or ticket sales or like re like, why do you, the players obviously important?
Like, why do you, why do organizations just stop at players? So we talked about also how we liked to have classes that were run and. Um, he said, if I [00:11:00] ever take over a program, this is how I want my program to be run where it's the students report to a company or a person, and it's all project based.
This is my second, uh, second year teaching it, uh, or second project teaching it. And the kids love it because I'm literally putting them to work with them, giving them projects as if they were working. The school is all project based. It simulates what it's like if I was giving them a project at work, if they were like in their entry level at work and they love that. And, and it's a lot more work than maybe other classes. It's a lot more work because you know, the way the class is structured . But, but they love it because it also, it gives them a chance to see like, Oh, this is what this is like. And I tell them. I'm going to treat this like a job, like the calendar invites have to be correct. We're really going to treat this as if we're going to work together.
Um, so, you know, your time is very scarce. Your time is very important. Like we're not going to sit, you know, chit chat for the first half an hour. There's obviously time for chance meetings, but, and they love it. And they think, and [00:12:00] this is the second time that they have found that this class is the most rewarding to them that they've done, because they're getting, they're changing their eye level.
And they're changing sort of almost like what type of, what, what part of the brain they have to use, because they're being put into real life situations. And I think that is just so, but I wish I had that. Like, I actually wish I wish that I had that when I was in university. I wish it actually some courts, I know that some programs REMS do that.
Like they set up internships like in financer, but I wish that that was the case that you can actually like get the pace of what working in an organization is like,
Christian Parsons: because even if, even if you do it and you've realized that it's not for you, that's a way lower cost of entry because it's a class or it's a semester. you haven't invested four years into degree. And then two years in and like, shit. Now I know that I don't like this career or line of work It's really low cost in that. I like that. That's
Jason Takefman: And your percent. I always tell people that, you know, when, when I, when you say like, I want to work in sports, is that when you want to say, well, I want to be a doctor and I'm 14 years old. And then the more research you do, you find out that are literally literally [00:13:00] 10,000 different types of doctors.
You can be an athletic trainer, you can be a surgeon, you can be a heart surgeon. You can be a, uh, veterinarian. You can like, there's literally everything. So in sports, the same thing, there's so many different spokes on the wheel. There's so many different aspects of the industry that it touches. You can do anything.
So the more you learn. I'll give you an example. Like when I was at Vancouver Canadians, I was an intern. I learned that I, I really loved the aspect of you all your priority was like, do we make the community proud? Like, does a community feel proud of the organization when you do something in almost any, you always have to ask that like, when it season ticket holders, say I proudly wear that team's name on my chest and I proudly spend money here.
I proudly book my, you know, my company getaway here. I proudly spend a hundred, hundred 50 hours of my summer there. And once you, once you veer yourself towards that, you kind of calibrate yourself towards that. It makes the decisions much easier. And I would have never learned that unless. Uh, I moved out here 15 years ago for an internship [00:14:00] and got that experience.
And conversely, I learned through my other experiences, but I don't like, or what I'm not good at or what, I'm not what I don't add value. And that's like, like, literally, like you said, like it is, it is so much more. I think when you, when you can parse through where you can sift through what you're not good at it, what you don't like or what doesn't sort of give you energy.
I think that is so, so valuable.
Christian Parsons: Okay. So if someone comes up to you and say, you want to work in sports, and you're like, that's great. There's 3000 different jobs in sports or whatever it is. You know, what advice do you give them in order to start parsing through that and figuring out what, what they like and what they don't like?
Or what, what matches with them or not?
Jason Takefman: So I always start off by saying, okay, I'm going to ask you for your hottest sports take. We're going to give you one and there were never that I'm never going to ask you for your hot take again. I promise. No one's going to, and it's like, it's funny. It's so disarming because when, when someone says I want to work in sports, you can just tell they're like dying to tell you, uh, about their hottest sports take.
Um, and that's usually what it comes down to. Uh, but anyway, so you get out of the way [00:15:00] right away. Um, I tell them, you know, there's different paths to go through. And the conversation 15 years ago, it was, you know, can you sell, can you sell tickets? Can you add value to our organization? But now it's just in the last six months, like you look at like NFTs, you look at, you know, Tik Tok's a little bit older, uh, you know, the blockchain Amazon's got TV, gambling is being legalized at a new state.
It seems like every month, um, there's teams that are, that's just in the last like six months, like there's, there's literally so many paths to enter. Um, there's so many different companies that need mergers and acquisitions, research, research, and development, human optimization. I, I always tell them which part do you want to get through?
Like becoming, let's say general manager or scouting is super difficult if you're not a former player and it's difficult because the very few people that sort of. Sneaks through the cracks become the [00:16:00] general managers, but you don't really see the 99 of other hundred people that don't, and it's very difficult because you also don't have the, you don't have the experience of playing 900 NHL games or, or playing hockey your whole life.
You see the game differently, and that's what you essentially, your competition is. I always tell people really, truly, what do you love to do? What comes naturally to you? Is it talking to people? Is it thinking sort of like an architect like using, um, you know, that side of your brain, which is very pragmatic and, you know, can you build something because there's different ways to get into the sports.
And then once we sort of figured out what they, what really makes them. Tick then you could say, okay, well let's streamline this and say, okay, well then you might be better off. And let's say like marketing game entertainment, you may be better off on the legal side. You may be representing players.
I mean, you might to be better off representing companies that work with sports teams, doing sponsorships, uh, doing maybe, you know, uh, [00:17:00] writing a textbook for a class or something in sports management. There's so many different ways, but I, but I always tell them, I go get involved at a, at a very low level somewhere because the very least, if you're applying for internships, people are going to take note that you had the hustle to be able to, you're not just sitting, just sitting around like waiting for your dream job.
You're, you're actually being a little bit, you're being proactive and you can learn all these different things. And that I think is more important than the, where the internship is. And the, in the grand scheme of things.
Christian Parsons: Got it. Part of it is doing the interest introspection, figuring out where your specific skills, our interests, our passions are matching it with where we're sports organizations could be, and then get that entry-level job. So if if I'm 21 years old and I know way more about the Ethereum blockchain than anybody else, and you're like, okay, cool.
I'm just going to reach out to a bunch of player agents and be like, Hey, Gronk has a bunch of NFTs. Um, you know, a couple other players have a couple of NFTs. Do you [00:18:00] want me to help you set one up? Right. Do you want me to help you sit down with your player and explain that? And then that's like your entry-level in to it potentially.
Right?
Jason Takefman: that's, that's a perfect point. Uh, you know, a textbook would say like master something and then all the other doors open. Like once you become like in the top, like one to 5% of your field, and then everyone's going to kind of gravitate towards you because of when they're gonna want to know something about it, they're gonna want to go to the expert.
But now with DM-ing and social media, you can just like appear. And you can just like, if, if you DM an agency or you, you, and you say, Hey, look, you know, Gronk and, and Francis and Ghana just sold his for $581,000. And his was like three days old, like from this championship fight. If the right person answers, it can open up a lot of doors, especially with like, you know, very forward thinking agencies who are looking to add value and add revenue that it's not just the traditional, like, okay, how do I, you know, how do I get this person to be a spokesperson for a suit company or whatever?
Like, there's so [00:19:00] many different ways to make money.
And that is not something that you would have seen four or five years ago. So there's just, it's just even more. There's even like more doors open to get into the industry. It's kind of, it's kind of incredible.
Christian Parsons: Where the advantage, uh, new people have to enter the industry is where the new elements are flowing into the industry. Where that new, huge sources of revenue are flowing in, you know, whether it's gambling, whether it's, um, things on the blockchain, whether it's future analytics, whether whatever, whatever it is.
Um, even, even if it's just getting people's content strategies, right. You know what I mean? And being able to properly monetize those right.
Jason Takefman: And, and athletes, you know, having worked a little bit with athletes and a little bit with, with sort of celebrities, is that it takes, it takes a lot for, for them. To trust people because they're their entire lives. They always know that there's an ask at the end. And they always know that there's, that someone is wanting something from them in some capacity, whether [00:20:00] it's even free tickets, which may not be sort of a difficult thing for them to procure or it's like, it's something.
And when you're just like, no, actually I'm treating you like a business. Like actually I'm treating you. Like, I would actually a small business and I'm working out like, that's how you have to see yourself with the very least pay someone that you have to see yourself like that. Once you can properly communicate that and you're like, wait a second, like, you're focusing on your next, let's say player contract your next to that.
And that's great, but here's like, you're worried about the wrong thing. Like your player contract is a platform and you know, it's not worth getting stressed out over, over, you know, in the grand scheme of things, that minimal amount of money, what you really shouldn't, you, you, where you can make money, other places, you know, and that's where I think that athletes there's so.
They're just so much smarter, so much. Self-aware now they're, they're they're they literally treat themselves like little companies. And the advice I give to people is literally turn yourself into a company. Like you would be Christian Parsons, not so much Inc, but like Christian Parsons, like a company.
And you're like, okay, I'm [00:21:00] going to take in revenue. And in my speaking, in, you know, in my podcast, this is not like I'm literally going to create little mini companies under this umbrella company.
Christian Parsons: Really interesting. And I think the cool thing about that is. With the access to these athletes. you see them hosting their own podcasts, putting their own content out there and then investing in their own companies, which I think is really, really cool. I think one of the funny things about this, you, you know, if we were early two thousands, I feel like every NBA star, not every, a lot of NBA stars wanted to release a hip hop album.
Right. And now it's only Dame Lillard doing that. And then, but every, but every NBA athlete wants to be a VC. Like, um, I forget, I forget who, who the ownership company is that owns Top Shot, but Steph Curry, Kevin Durant are right alongside with these huge VC firms, like Sequoia going into to put that at like some crazy valuation, you know?
So
Jason Takefman: Draymond Green was asked a [00:22:00] couple of years ago, like, what's your plan? And he's like, I want to be a billionaire straight face and he's right. Like, I mean, listen, he's going to make, you know, 220 to $50 million from his NBA career. But you know, he he's, he was dead serious. He wants to be an investor. It's one of the great, um, you know, Kevin Durant has his own company.
Like he, he like, they, most people sort of have their own companies. In fact, you know, further to your point about like what you were talking about 20 years ago, like, like look at what Terell Owens would be like now. back then he was, he was loud. He was abrasive. He was a disturbance. He was, but now imagine he was a little bit before his time with social media, same thing with Chad Johnson or Ochocinco though.
He perfectly found that middle of the Venn diagram. But like those players that were seen as loud, like they would be trillionaires now with knowing how to monetize, knowing how sort of content works. And it's just a matter of like timing, I guess. And they just didn't and the players now are so smart.
They will just, they're able to learn from [00:23:00] that. And they are surrounding themselves. They're going to treat themselves like little companies. They're not little, but they are literally treating themselves appear surrounding themselves with the rich Pauls of the world. The, uh, it's blanking right now.
Who's uh, Kevin Durant's guy think claim claiming climate, uh, re uh, so like they're, they're surrounding themselves with like CEOs and COOs or people to run their businesses.
Christian Parsons: Yeah. The cool thing about sports is that there's always a built-in fan base. So if you're Kevin Durant and you start a company, you might be able to actually pull in a CEO or COO that's a little bit normally out of a reach because you are Kevin Durant.
Because you are on the Brooklyn nets and you're gonna pull and you're going to contend for a championship this year. And someone's like, I see that I want to be associated with that. .
Jason Takefman: imagine what he could do on his off days, living in Brooklyn now, same thing he was doing on his off days, living in Silicon Valley. And, and I don't even say that jokingly, like, like if he wants to set up 18 meetings, half an hour, each of just to [00:24:00] get in front of people, he can get in front of whoever he wants, not just because he has publicly made.
I think maybe close to a billion dollars with shoe deal, close to half a billion dollars in shoe deals and contracts, but, and, and advertising, but like he is forward thinking and, and, and that amount of power is like it's unheard of, or that amount of clout is absolutely unheard of. And it's really neat.
Like, it's really cool. It's, it's inspiring to see people, you know, one of the messages that Charles Barkley always said when we were growing up, like I'm not a role model. I don't look at me as a role model. And, and he's right to a degree is like, he's a basketball player and that's all he is. But. What I think people can take from athletes now is one they're diversifying their revenue opportunities.
They're leveraging their revenue opportunities. So it's not like circling back to the initial question. Like, you know, what do you tell people to get into sports? I'm like, well, maybe to get into sports, you need to have a foundation of doing four or five things in non-sports so that someone in sports would either see you, or you're better prepared to enter into a much bigger organization, like a sports team [00:25:00] once you've worked sort of your way up within your specific field.
So let's say in the example that you gave with like NFTs it's, you've worked with, let's say local singers, you've worked with local restaurants, you've worked with local celebrities. Then you kind of, you know, you, you, you can build NFTs are different because they may be gone in like six months. Who knows?
Cause there's so many, but like you get what I'm saying? Like you, you, you do something that will attract their attention a little bit more.
Christian Parsons: Totally. Totally, totally. And having a diversity of experience to your point to your point? The old textbook would be like, be the number one person in your industry. And then people will come to you. When really this new theory of skill stacking or experience stacking where like, okay, I have, I have experienced in this, this, this I in these five things and each of those five things might not be unique onto themselves, but that combination of them together is unique and puts me in a top 1%.
Jason Takefman: And further to that is very few of all the, sort of the studies that have been shown about like [00:26:00] great CEOs and great businesses is a great CEO above anything else. And like a problem solver or like a. I don't like to use the word generalist because it devalues everything that they know, but it's okay. Looking around corners.
What can I see about, you know, what is going to happen? Not just sort of staying in like a, for example, a finance field I've only been in finance, I've only done. She only looking at it through that lens. That's just an example of an industry. Um, but these players, they can say, okay, well, I've seen this before.
Cause they're generalists. They're on the court, they're off the court, they're in the board room. So then they can actually take that experience. They can say, okay, well, this is what I'm seeing. You know, this is a situation I'd been in before in this setting. This is a situation I've been in before in another setting.
And that's just more value, more experience, more, um, more things to learn.
Christian Parsons: . Absolutely. Absolutely. And like being able to, make those connections together, take those lessons and apply it from one field to another is incredibly valuable. So you've been across a lot of [00:27:00] different sports. Canada's only minor league baseball, the UFC, , professional hockey and now helping, helping VCs, value and negotiate contracts.
So to me, this gives you a tremendous advantage of insight over people. Who've only worked in one vertical. They've only worked in basketball or baseball or something, or something like that. What what's the common threads or themes that you see in successful people across pro sports that kind of talking about what you just talked about in terms of like, Hey, I'm taking the lesson from finance and applying it to this what's, you know, what are those common things that you see from like baseball to basketball, to hockey, all that kind of stuff.
Jason Takefman: The majority of sports teams that succeed are based on what their fans like. And they have a very high self-awareness of of who their fan base is and why their fan base, like it's, it's replicable, it's replicable. They know exactly why fans follow them. So I actually learned that at the UFC. The UFC you'll see was very unapologetic about being men 18 to to 49.
And I say that [00:28:00] because they weren't trying to be everything to everybody, they knew their base and then they were able to procure sponsors. It's easier to advertise because you know, where to advertise it.
There's no guesswork. I didn't really know that, like when I was the Vancouver Canadians. It's actually very simple. You just kind of follow the users. And then once you're able to you, you diversify what you offer them, but it still keeps the core value and you still keep the great foundation.
Um, so that's what sports teams.
With, with people, I would say that there's a lot of. There's a lot of humility. When you're working in a very vast organization, there are so many things that you don't know. And there are so many things that go on, um, moving parts.
Sports is like, you know, uh, deliberately trying to be a 24 seven content machine. And the problem with that from a personnel point of view is that you just hard to react. Like it's just, it's really difficult to be able to react to all that information at the same time, because you were a person or you're a department.
So I think the humility of knowing that, okay, I don't know everything. And how I got involved with [00:29:00] VC's was actually through that, which is someone that a mutual acquaintance said, well, listen to this just about two and a half, three years ago. Um, was, you know, I know someone who can use a little help in minor league baseball can use a little bit of help, um, in assessing the valuation of a franchise and.
Um, having never done that before, but I can tell them what it's like at the grassroots level or the boots on the ground. I can tell them what to look for and I can tell them, you know, which relationships are very key.
I can sort of tell them all these things. And that's how that kind of grew to. I would, I am able to be the guy who's worked in the office that can help them with the things that they don't know, because they're literally up on the 40th floor of a tower with finance and looking at the numbers and they know what a good investment looks like. But they may they may need to get someone who's been in the field.
And that's the value that I bring. And the VCs that I work with, the first thing they say is. Okay, we're gonna make you sign an NDA. And this is the first thing I say, no. Okay, fine. But we're going to have to be completely blunt and [00:30:00] candid with each other, because if this is going to work, I have to be 100%.
Um, like we, we, we have to have a relationship as a hundred percent fact base. We can't sort of dance around things. We can't worry about like, you know, putting things in writing and then something bad is going to happen down the road. And like eight years when you're with someone else, not that you can write anything salacious, but you have to be able to, like, you're looking at like, you know, hundreds of million dollars of an investment or a community investment.
Someone's putting their name on something. It's not the time to be shy or it's not the time to sort of hold your feelings back, especially if you're paying you for that stuff. So yeah, once if we sort of set that up in like, Hey, there's a lot of things I don't know, but I can teach you, but here's what I can show to show you.
Here's the, here's the gap that I can fill in or here's the questions that I would ask, but here's what I would look for. It makes the partnership, it makes the relationship that much better. And. And I only learned, I only learned that like a few years ago of like, Holy hell, there's like a lot, I don't know, like there's a lot.
And there's like, and it's so funny. Sports [00:31:00] teams now are hiring experts in other fields. Like you don't have to have a massive sports background to work for a sports team because they're like, no, we want to be, we want to hire, this is just an example, like a great social media voice.
Or we want to hire a like film director for content. Like we want someone who is, you know, good at making, you know, 20 to 90 second pieces that our fans want. And that's not necessarily someone who's worked at an arena for 15 years. It's someone that works. It's someone that works in film. And it's funny when, when, when you were at Sid Lee and I was with UFC, I could go to the Kris Manchester.
Like that is an incredible asset. Being able to articulate, uh, being able to articulate like. Apprentice and a thought and a feel and how you want some to be portrayed through sports. Through film, like that is an incredible, like, that's an incredible skill and it's, it's so valuable now.
Christian Parsons: Absolutely. And the great thing about Chris, [00:32:00] about Chris or we're, we're going to get a little bit of a tangent is that he, to me, he has continually honed his skills with side creative projects. Right. He'll go direct a documentary film and still work on Adidas or the North face or, or, or, or, or, or something like that.
Right. And, and one feeds into the other, going back to what we were saying about diverse, diverse experience, having those things gives you different points of view on how to talk to a different director, how to think about filming in a different way, how to, how to create a story that, that makes a lot of sense.
That's awesome.
Jason Takefman: We're also not taught in school how to evolve. Like that's the other thing is we're not, we're not taught that like, Shit's going to happen. You're going to be faced with a lot of hurdles and there is ups and downs and there is, um, things that might not go right, but you have to evolve and you always have to, you know, try to get better and, and pad your stats or add to your arsenal because it may not come in handy right away, but it's going to come in handy down the road.
And it's [00:33:00] funny, that was actually my first couple of months, um, at the UFC, when we had to put that thing together for Tough Nations. And it was like, okay, this is like, I remember like, you know, talking to Tom, my boss, like, okay, like this is a great prep. Like the video is excellent. Like the concept is great now, like where are we going to tell people, because it's a reality show and we can't necessarily ruin with the ending because we can't promote these like three, um, these three fighters because they may get cut.
So to speak if you're watching the reality show. And we, it was like the, the concept was there first, but it may not have been like the right, the right sort of house, because it was a reality show. It's hard to promote, like three fighters are supposed to be fighting a comeback city in three and a half months, but it's a reality show.
So like, we can't really promote them that well, because they may get cut. Right? Like, it's like a, Magnificant sort of as a survivor, if you're promoting three people towards the end and you have all the commercials during survivor about these three people, you're like, Oh, that, that kind of ruins it. Yeah.
Christian Parsons: You, part of, part of it is, is the, is the story telling of the actual show? And [00:34:00] then you're like, if it culminates in an actual physical fight that I need people to be at,
Jason Takefman: right. I think if we had to do that over again, we would, we would probably want to do something that is more about like, The greatness of martial arts and like learning this new skill and like, what does it add to your life? Like, what does it add? You know, it's not just about like fighting, you know, it's about vigilance, it's about learning.
It's about diligence. It's about, um, you know, calmness, you know, respecting your body, respecting other people's bodies. Like, you know, not like most mixed martial arts will tell you that, like they don't fight. Like they, they, they, because they know what they can do or they know what is capable. Like they, it's more of like a protection.
It's more of like a scaler, like the car, like a lifestyle and it's something cool. But then that would be the story that you eat something a little bit more evergreen, as opposed to like, you know, and
Christian Parsons: People from this country fighting people from that country like national pride, which is the easy is, is the easy hook. Right. But hindsight's always 2020,
Jason Takefman: and, and the thing is like [00:35:00] UFC is like, They're like the Kings of the 24 seven content machine. So they were just like, let's get an ultimate fighter series and like Australian Canadians, those are two most similar countries. Like literally that was the thought process. And you're like, okay, let's, it's, it's in English.
They both speak the same language. They they're both, there's a lot of up and coming fight. You could probably have done that series five times if there's like, it's a very fertile ground for fighter development. And I'm just like, okay, let's do it. And sometimes you don't have that much time to, you know, you, you, you don't sort of have the paralysis by analysis.
You just kind of do it. And there's something kind of cool about that. That's another thing I learned UFC is like, is like, sometimes you just got to go and sometimes you just gotta do it. And like, you know, with, with, with having done the marketing for the three countries, like you have like an eight hour window to like, okay, here's the creative like this, this fight was just announced.
They're doing a press conference in 19 hours in a country that's like halfway across the world, literally like. There's no time to think about it. Like this is happening. Like, let's go, we're moving. Like what do you like it or not [00:36:00] like, if this is happening,
Christian Parsons: That's I mean, that's so cool. The lessons that I'm pulling from this is like one from a team perspective, know your know your audience, right. Two just having that humility, three being ready to evolve and change. And four what you were just saying about the UFC, being able to like, sometimes you just got to roll, got roll with
Jason Takefman: you have to roll. And you know what? You can talk about that with trades. Like you're part of our organization has made, you know, two very large trades and, and, and it's look, you have a chance to get to one of the top, one of the top defensive players in football Jalen Ramsey, what's the cost? Well, the cost is a lot, but like, look at what you're getting and you can sit there and debate it all you want.
Same thing with, you know, gettingMatt Stafford. You have an opportunity to get a great quarterback? Who's probably hungry to work in a, in a, you know, with expectations are high. Okay. You let go of your first overall pick or you've you've developed and, and is, is. Gone to the Superbowl. But you sometimes have to just take the chance and there's something to be said about that, where you just make a, you know, once you weigh out all the options, you just kind of do it.
And, and that's, uh, that is a [00:37:00] very impressive, it's very impressive with front offices and sports teams and leagues can do that. Cause not everyone can, and it takes a lot of like, I don't know what the word is like gumption or just like belief in your system and processes are like, they just believe in like what they're doing.
And they know that not every decision is like in Moneyball, everyone's around the table and making a decision there's time. Like, no, you sometimes have to make a decision pretty quickly. And if it adheres to your core values of what you're trying to do and who you are, let's do it.
Christian Parsons: And the tough thing about that, just to build on what you're, what you're saying and pointed to another decision from a different organization I've been with is, is like being able to understand the emotional and fan impact that it has. the first thing that you said is like, know your audience and know your fans, right?
Do your fans really love this player and are really attached to this player, like DeMar DeRozen for the Toronto Raptors, or would your fans really want to win a championship? Right. Oh, sorry. Not win a championship because that's guaranteed want a higher percentage chance of [00:38:00] winning a championship with, with, uh, with Kawhi Leonard,
Jason Takefman: Right. And also, so I never liked the concept of like fans don't know. I actually think if there's like, like fans know. Fans are very in tuned and smart and they understand, like, I think Raptors fans understand where they were at and if it wasn't going to be LeBron, it was going to be Embiid.
And if it wasn't going to beEmbiid, it was going to be Kawhi. The ceiling was hit. So if you're able to get something that can, and yes, it's incredibly risky, but like if it, if it checks off a lot of the box that you're trying to do, including winning a championship, but there's a very big risk involved.
Like, I don't know, you kind of owe it to your fans to do that and not become stale. Not that DeRozan had becomestale, but like fans know when, like you're not going to evolve when you have to take, when you don't take a chance. And, and that's, that's unfortunate, like for the, for the Raptors, it's very fortunate, but listen, a lot of teams, it's very unfortunate when they just kind of stay static and they're either too afraid or they don't have the right processes or they didn't, they don't [00:39:00] think a little bit about what's going to happen.
And then apathy sets in an apathy is like the worst thing in the world when everyone's like, yeah, it's the same old, same old, like I know these guys and that there's really going to happen. And that's awful.
Christian Parsons: Yeah, because you're just trying to get either stay the same or not get worse, which is terrible or get like 10% better. But the, the, the amazing thing that I love about pro sports is that generally there's one winner.
Jason Takefman: Right. It's very definitive.
Christian Parsons: it's really clear that, you know, 29 other teams or 31 other teams or whatever it is, aren't, aren't gonna win a championship. Or in a ring, there's one person who gets their hand raised and one person who doesn't.
So I think, when it is, when it is as clear as that to have to be winning, sure, you could want to make the playoffs if you're not playoff team. Or you could want to make the conference championship, if you're not that you know, but, but fans want a championship, right? Fans, to your point, smart fans know what it takes generally, right?
Uh, you know, 80 to 90% of what, of what it takes. And then the other 10 to 20% [00:40:00] is why the GM is the GM,
Jason Takefman: Right. From a fan's perspective, like there needs to be hope. And you have to be able to sort of trust the people, making decisions. I hate the term bandwagon fans. I think, I think fandom, if more sports organizations looked at fandom as a two-way street, as it gives something for fans to be able to believe in you for. The way I explain it to people is if you went to a restaurant your entire life, but then all of a sudden this restaurant was like, not cleaning the floors, the food was bad, the service was bad.
The bathroom was dirty. Like, why would you keep going there? Like, why do you owe it to them? If they're the ones who have given up, why, why should you continue to give your money? There? It's the same thing with, I think it's the same thing with a sports team. It's just obviously different variables. Um, as you know, sports, like the term bandwagon fan is seen as a bad thing, and it's actually not, it actually keep the organization accountable and it's sort of create, it should keep the process accountability accountable.
Um, and it should [00:41:00] make you say, okay, like how do we either a keep the bandwagon fans or make people go there? It's the same thing as a restaurant, like. I live near eight or nine restaurants. I only have to go two or three. And what, what is it that they're doing? Is it a strong loyalty program? Is it a great happy hour?
Is it you're able to make reservations? Is it great staff? Is that they don't kick you out after an hour. Okay, sports team, do they? It's funny. I remember your, your, your, your, your podcasts with Russell, and you're talking about, you know, fan experience and like when do people, I actually think the experience in the venue starts months, maybe even years before they actually get into the venue.
Because if you have, let's say a sports team that has a high commission with their ticket people, and you are just getting hammered every five days by someone to renew your three game ticket back. And you're like, listen, like I take my grandparents to these games. I've been coming here. I do not need some guy.
Like you're not going to be in a good mood. It doesn't matter what music you play. It doesn't matter what night it is. Doesn't matter what ha like everything has to be. Is the community [00:42:00] going to be proud of what I'm doing. And it has to be just like a brand. It has to be consistent. Like it's going to do something or like if the content team talking to the game presentation team at the game presentation, like everything falls on the marketing team, like, is there a PR like it's everything touches each other.
But if, if, if you have that one aspect, like as a community to be proud of what we're doing, is my fan base going to be proud of this? And if that's the, if that's the guiding light, then that kind of makes the decisions a little bit easier, right?
Like it could, you can't have, like, you can't have like, Oh, we're going to honor a season ticket holder every game. But then that season ticket holder gets caught like 12 times in a three month span to renew because they have to hit their numbers before a certain point because they have internal budgets.
And that person's like, geez, like I just, just want to watch a hockey game guys. Like I don't need it, you know? So, and they're all connected. They're all connected.
Christian Parsons: I think what you were just saying of like is my audiences, my fans going to be proud to wear this Jersey or to wear this crest or to come to the game and, and, and keeping [00:43:00] it in mind that teams have to earn fandom. Teams have to earn fandom. It's not a given. Especially now, especially with gen Z, what the research is saying right now. The amount of kids that are basketball fans that were born in Los Angeles that are, uh, that are warriors fans because of Steph Curry is gonna freak people the fuck out.
Right? The amount of the amount of, uh, kids that were born in Toronto, you know, in the, in the nineties that are actually Chicago Blackhawks fans and not Toronto maple Leafs fans because of Toews is, or Pittsburgh Penguins fans scared the shit out of the execs at, at, at the Toronto Maple Leafs and MLSE.
Jason Takefman: And, you know, what's even front of that is one. Think about how many new fans the Brooklyn nets just got by getting to global powerhouses like KD and Harden, who you see their faces and feet and their skills and their shoes in. Seven continents, six continents.
[00:44:00] And that gets very easy to follow an athlete. I love LeBron. LeBron could be playing on Mars and I would be cheering for him, literally like, like he, like, it doesn't matter. Like
Christian Parsons: Shout out to space jam 2.
Jason Takefman: Spanish. Spanish.Yeah, shout out Bill Murray Yeah. Um, like it, doesn't it. I follow the person and that you have, I can get the NBA package.
I can get, I can get any, and I can just, I can watch 70 of his games even more like, so it should scare people that not even gen Z, but like. I dunno, like if, if, if, if you're a worker and you grew up as let's say a Leafs fan, like here in Vancouver, and it's so different because the Canucks are 50 years old, the Habs are a hundred years old.
I know so many people who moved here and there, my friend that my, my friends are the second generation, but like th the first generation their parents, like, yeah, I follow the Montreal Canadiens because they were on TV in the sixties and seventies. And I watched their games at 4:00 PM here in Vancouver .
And that, that would like the lack of like civic, pride and nationalism, I think is actually in the long run, going to do sports teams. [00:45:00] Good. Because it's gonna make them work harder for the fandom. But I think that, like, it should scare people a lot that they're like, I can just change a channel or I can just watch something else, or I can, I can, there's a zillion, other forms of entertainment I could do that.
Don't involve a sports team. And then you're like, okay, well, what is this? Then? It's like, what does a sports team done for you? Right. Like, what if, like, what is like, what do they raise prices by five to 10% every year? Because what cause they, cause they got lucky drafted the right player. They raise a price, you know, you're paying $12 for a beer and there's a zillion different reasons to not like a sports team or at the very least to like not follow them.
And the sports teams have to give them a, give them a reason to.
Christian Parsons: Yeah. And I think just keeping that in mind is my community going to be proud? I have to earn this fandom. Every single interaction that I have with them is really important because to your point when I was talking with, with Russ about game presentation like you're not leaving because of a seven second clip, like you were saying, or one cheer or one thing you're leaving because you had a good time and you had a feeling about that and everything that you should [00:46:00] do should be building towards that.
Whether you get a sales call. You know, the person shouldn't be a complete a-hole about it because that's going to leave a sour taste in your mouth. Sure. They might hit their number. But that is going to sour your experience to come back again.
Jason Takefman: That's an organizational structural thing because you can't have one department that is like, Oh, we're warm and fuzzy here. And we're working on this. And then another department that is totally cannibalizing it. And they're the ones that are actually in touch with them in the off season. And we worked really hard at the Vancouver Canadians to like minimize personal commissions very much.
The sales person is the hero. It was just, it's just, it's a very archaic way to look at it because people come to the ballpark for a million different reasons. And it wouldn't be fair for the reasons that people show up at the ballpark are for some, they don't control.
Like if they come there because the ballpark looks great, sent the grounds crew, get commissioned for that person, like right. For that, for that season tickets. So something, well, so if you minimalize the personal commissions and you make it about a team and a group, now you're talking about, okay, now we can, now we can implement our structure and listen, it's very, it's much easier said than [00:47:00] done, especially with like a cadence or a 12 person company.
You want to maintain a consistency of is what we're trying to do in line everywhere is every interaction. Uh, is every interaction, at least in the front office, I was players a little bit different. Um, although sometimes it's not because you would actually think that Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozen and Valenciunas, like you would think that they were like born and bred Toronto.
And they were huge fans because they had the FA like the organization gave them and the city gave them a reason to be massive fans. I think like Valenciunas even came to a playoff game after he was traded.
Christian Parsons: yeah, absolutely.
Jason Takefman: Like game gave him one or two to where land was it? The Orlando series or it was one of those, like, that's crazy.
Think about that. That's insane. he knew that the Raptors have one of the best in game experiences, certainly for playoff games. And he wanted to feel a part of that knowing because a has tended to make the playoffs and B there's not that many arenas in the NBA they're like that for playoff games.
Christian Parsons: Cause you're talking about Valenciunas is coming back and, and the, the thing that he knew or that he felt before walking, walking in for that is like, he knows the fan base, [00:48:00] respects him and appreciates his control contributions, even though he's not with the organization anymore. How amazing is that?
Jason Takefman: It's amazing. It's, it's unbelievable. And they also knew that he was a high round draft pick and it didn't, it didn't work out. Like it's so different in sports where like you're seen as like a bust or like the whole term, which is like another thing. Like we can do a separate podcast on that, but it's a very bizarre thing that like, your life is determined at like 24 years old that like, you're not good at something.
Um, but
Christian Parsons: that week or that we can predict what an 18 year old will be doing at 24, which is fucking bananas.
Jason Takefman: of the most bizarre, it's why most teams in human optimization have turned to a lot of human performance and psychological, um, professionals outside of the sports industry to be like, okay, like we need to help with this. Right. And they will all say in some capacity, the best predictor of having great players, just having a great system and having a great environment so that you, they can't get in trouble or there's accountability, or you make like [00:49:00] you cut your losses early, or you, you, um, you provide them, let's say like I was in charge of player operations, the Canadians, like you take care of the coaching wives.
You make sure that they're staying at a very nice place just to make sure they have a car. You make sure they're introduced to people in the community so that they can have a life edit. It's a small thing. Yeah. But it's a big thing because it's a bunch of little things to kind of make the big things.
Christian Parsons: Absolutely. Absolutely. And, and, and if you're in an organization that gives thought to the little things, then the big things make a difference. Then the big things happen,
Jason Takefman: Hundred percent. if you worry about the little things, like, if you worry of that, what's keeps you up at night.
Like the really small things then like, you'll be great. Cause we've got the big things handled then you got like, but if you're worried about like this really small things, and if more or less, if you have the big things handled, you'll be in a great position. Like a great, great position.
Christian Parsons: Makes a lot of sense makes a lot of sense. So going back to the advice that you give your students, if you can, so let's say you're teaching this class and a student comes up to you and they say, Hey, I want to, [00:50:00] I want to break into, let's say like partnerships or content or, you know, sleep performance for a pro sports team.
What's an actionable step that they can take to bring them closer to the goal. You said you sent out, you like get the internship, but I sent out like, I was in two letters or hundreds of letters or whatever it is, today's worlds a little bit different. What, how does that, how does that adjust?
Jason Takefman: What I would do.
I mean, if you really want to sort of really analyze things, the quick and dirty answer is go to your nearest sports organization, asked to volunteer. If you can literally does it have to be professional. So if you're, let's say in a university, go to your athletic department, see if you want to write. See if you can be a team manager, see if you can, um, do anything, help out with food and nutrition, help out with practices, setting up stuff, set like everything.
See if you can help out with that. And then you'll kind of learn everything from a much smaller level, but it'll give you a much larger picture of everything. Um, but then when I tell them is find out things that you like from organizations and. [00:51:00] This is a, and you want to also work for, for companies that, you know, do they promote a lot internally?
Uh, do, do the managers or directors help other people in their career? Uh, do they themselves move around a lot or is it, are they sedentary at their job or they've worked for a company for 20 or 30 years because you want to be able to find the right person. It's also going to help you and create that environment where it's going to be positive also.
And you can learn a lot of things, both positive and negative that you can apply to different, um, that you can apply to your next job. And I always tell people, go write stuff down that you like, like if you like it, that, you know, um, We'll use a term like Melanie, just cause I don't want to say her name, but like she liked it that in her third week she recommended something on the, on the database side that her company not only loved, but they bought the software for her to be able to use it at their 60 other locations.
And she is going to be teaching coordinators at the, you know, to properly use this in her [00:52:00] third week. And I'm like, that's incredible. So you want to be like, look, so you want to be able to find a organization. That's going to be agile. That's going to listen to you. And it's going to create the environment where you can actually speak up.
And when you can make a business case, a rational case as much as possible. So if you could parse it through and you can sift through that aspect and sort of like, you know, where you're going to be able to work best. That is a very good way to start because you can get a dream job in sports. But if it's the wrong environment, it's just not going to be very good for you.
No matter what, right? And I think that if you, if you look at sort of qualities, like MLSE is like super reputable for like developing leaders for diversity and inclusion and, and, and like listening, like they, they, they like listened to, so you would say, yeah, just do anything at MLSE. Like, literally, if you, if, if I'm sure there are people who volunteer at a very low level, because you can, you just want to be a part of that.
And there are people go out and go run other sports organizations. Right. And that's a very good sign. Like other teams want their people, other [00:53:00] teams want their ideas. Other teams want their leadership structure. That's, that's also a very good sign that I'd tell people, like, look at what other people that when they leave the organization, where are they going? Like where, and what are they doing? And like people leaving because they're taking a lateral jump. Cause they just want to get out of there but like pay attention to those things.
Christian Parsons: Well, yeah, MLSE has two of the best stories in that, in that, Tom Pistore, started as an intern, went up all the, all, all the way up to our run ticketing and is now running the company that owns the New York Islanders. Dave Hopkinson started the same time as, uh, as an intern with Tom Pistore.
And now is president business, president of MSG, which owns the Knicks and the Rangers, right?
Jason Takefman: That's incredible. That's incredible. And people are taking, people are taking note of what they're doing in their learning, the very valuable skills at that organization that other organizations are valuing. If you're working for a company that doesn't develop leaders, are you working for a company where like, you don't get promoted a lot where they don't work on development?
Like [00:54:00] that might not be the best cultural fit for our company,
Christian Parsons: So thinking about that, you've been in a bunch of different organizations, small, medium, large, let's say you're interviewing someone, you're at a sports team . They're coming in at about an eight out of 10, in, in the interview .
What's something that they can do to put themselves over the top and make a really easy hiring decision to you for you. So you're like, yup. That's the person.
Jason Takefman: That's a good question. So I try to be, I try to be as less emotional as possible. I tried to be as to not, let's say fall in love right away, but you want to be as objective as possible. So for me, I always like when people ask questions, um, and I think asking questions is very important because it shows that you've paid attention and it shows that you're actually, it's a two way street.
Like you want to know. Um, you know, you want to know, um, how things are going to work once you're on the inside. And the problem with interviews is that it's all, it's like cosplay. Like you're not actually going to get real stuff. I actually don't like interviews.
It's [00:55:00] funny. Another one of your podcasts, you talked to Teeka Cookson. And she was like, I hate interviews also. Cause they're very nerve-wracking I'm like, of course the nerve wracking because you're just, you're sitting there. Both people are faking everything and you're, you're just, you're talking and you're trying to use like, you know, as complete sentences as possible, but not actually saying anything, both sides.
And then when you actually say something, it may not be the right fit because it may have come on too strong or it may like, you're just worried about how things are going to proceed because you don't know each other. Um, but I like to hear people that have sort of a diverse experience and, um, I like work ethic.
And I know it's very, I like people who have let's say get, had part-time jobs or volunteered somewhere else. I like someone who asks questions. And from that experience, they can ask the right questions. They kind of know the lay of the land a little bit. Um, and I like people who have showed continuity at an organization before. Entry level jobs, not so much about like being promoted, but it's mostly about like, you know, like do the value work and you work the same place for two or three years because that shows that that's a very good, it's a very good thing to have.
Like, it's a very good, um, [00:56:00] like it's a very good relationship that you have. And you've probably seen a lot of things there for two or three years. There's really, I tried to so hard to say, okay, um, don't put a lot of stock into the interview and don't put a lot of stock into the references because the references are also cosplay. so you want to be as objective as possible and you want to be able to sort of, you know, they're not going to ask references.
Tough questions and they references. I may not answer tough questions because it may be illegal in some States to not get, to give someone a bad reference or at the very least say something where like, you know, I don't think I do well at this or whatever. So there's not sort of a, there's not sort of a magic silver bullet.
If you listen to everybody and, and they were able to say, well, I saw this through my lens and then saw this through their lens and this person's going to be a fit because of this.
It leads to a much, at least to a much better answer, at least so much more well-rounded answer.
Christian Parsons: Even if you're trying to remove all emotion out of it, you're trying to be as objective as possible. Having other perspectives is helpful because it'll overlap and hopefully cover some of those things that you might [00:57:00] not have seen.
Jason Takefman: It's impossible to not be biased. And the other thing is that the more you know about your company and the more you know about the job that you're hiring for the better it'll be. So you can add, answer and ask the right questions, and you can really like narrow down what you want to, you know, what you want to look like. Now for a senior job.
What happens when shit hits the fan?
Like when you're stressed, what happened? Like, like how do you, how does this organization handle stress? Like, am I going to get yelled at on a Monday? Like for somebody that like, how does it work? Can handle stress.
Christian Parsons: That's a great question. That's a fantastic question.
Jason Takefman: That's weird. Because a lot of, a lot of companies , we don't know how we handle stress. Like we don't know how we bunch up. And it's easy to say like, Oh, well this person gets quiet or this person gets this and that. But like, you have to say like with companies and what do you know, do they get more?
Do they just start yelling at people? Like, do people take it out on their staff? Do they, do they let's say give away free tickets? Like, do they like, like, what do they do when there's a, when there's a. What is an [00:58:00] impass? Do they believe even more into their processes and principles or did they just abandoned them?
Like would they just be like, Oh my God. Okay. That was fine. Let's just throw it away to the side. And let's, you know, I gotta get, I gotta move these tickets. Cause they've got to hit my concession threshold to get that bonus. Or like, you know, do you change your pricing structure of your sponsorships because you want someone to buy it?
You just want to go to them. Okay. Well, or do you say like, no, we actually put a price on what we do and, and, you know, for the other, if it's not the right fit, like you could ask so many different questions about that and you could find out a lot about what a company does in times of stress.
Christian Parsons: It's interesting because there's no right answer there.
Jason Takefman: Right.
Christian Parsons: Because a lot of the things that you're just talking about are very, very tough decisions to make, but understanding decisions that they've made in the past and the way that they think about making those decisions, the process that they have and helps you understand and project forward. To be okay, I might not have a ticketing sales thing or partnership sales thing, but knowing that we're inflexible and we really value our brand, and the price of the price.
That's cool. Now I know. Yeah. [00:59:00] Or vice versa and being like, actually, we're really flexible to whatever the market's willing to bear. That's cool as well.
Jason Takefman: So many different sort of ways to go around. Like, because when you're an intern, you're not a part of those meetings where let's say everyone's yelling at each other and that stuff, but you, but you feel the brunt of it.
And if anything, you're the one that has to sort of do the brunt of the work because you're the ones going to be told what to do and you have to sort of react to that change. Of course. And I think that, um, You can learn a lot about companies in times of stress.
Christian Parsons: Absolutely. Absolutely. And a lot of, especially pro sports organizations over the last 12 months have probably learned a lot about themselves. .
Jason Takefman: And you don't know what's going to end. NFL is different, it's outdoors, but let's just like basketball and hockey. Like they can't confidently say there's going to be fans or at the very least more than 20 twenty-five 30% capacity, um, by next year, even because they just, because they don't know
I'm also, uh, I'm on the JCC sports center board and we had to do ours online this past year. [01:00:00] And we brought in magic Johnson and I brought in, I mean, he set up a zoom in his kitchen. We had to adapt and get people.
Okay. How do we get it to that? People are able to still have a great experience. So they'll be able to raise money for our silent and live auctions and make people proud to be investors in us. And it made us think like crazy. And then what we did was saying, well, listen, , let's not get rid of this virtual.
Even when we're going to go back into the room, quote, unquote, let's actually keep a virtual component of this because we learned that. Some people, whether it's in actually, I'll give you an example. We did it, we did a provincial wide 50, 50, and provincial wide car giveaway. We had someone in Williams Lake
I think it was about six or seven hour drive away from Vancouver. And we had someone in burns Lake, which is 12 hours drive from Vancouver. When both things they never would have attended the event because it's a Vancouver centric of live event. And you're like, okay, how do we use this to our advantage? Like, how do we, you know, do we maybe even do a 50, 50, a second time in the year?
[01:01:00] Do we do two car giveaways? Do we let's say spend a lot of money in marketing in, you know, do we do partnerships?
So it allowed us to think differently and we cross all of our revenue thresholds. Um, we, we were incredibly happy with how everything went and it allowed us sort of really did take us out of our comfort zone. And it really did take us out of like how we have to think about the experience when you don't have any experience.
And it's so hard for sports teams because. Part of going to the game is going to the game, like it's going there and the excitement and they don't have that. And that's, that hurts. Like that's a very, that's a, that's a, that's a tough thing to be able to process if you're a sports team.
Christian Parsons: Absolutely.
Absolutely. One of the things that I wanted to talk about. In our prep, we had a pretty cool conversation just about decision-making in sports. I want you to talk a little bit about what you're, what you're doing now, because I found that to be like a fast, we just talked for an hour on that.
We didn't actually talk about other stuff.
Jason Takefman: Yeah. So [01:02:00] what helped me in decision-making is, so I read a book by Annie Duke. So, so Annie Duke is, is one of the most famous poker players ever. She is. I think she has grossed the most amount for a female poker player, but she wrote a book about decisions thinking in bets.
And the premise was basically like a poker player. You have to be able to make decisions when you don't have all the information and you have to actually make decisions in a quick amount of time. Um, and then she talks about things like resulting, where you may be made to have the wrong process, but it worked out or you have the right process.
And let's say like, but like the, she actually talked about the Seahawks when you threw the ball from the one yard line that was actually the right thing to do. It just, it did not work out the throw wasn't very good or whatever, but, but, but it was actually the right thing to do all things considered.
And, but it didn't work out then you're, you're blasted for it. And you may want to think about doing something differently next time, even though there was actually a fluke thing that happened and he doesn't want to disrupt your processes and it really changed my opinion on how to [01:03:00] make decisions.
You're never going to have all the information. Nothing is very perfect. And you sometimes you have to make decisions with very little information and you just have to be able to say, okay, what do you hold dear? What, what is important to you when you're making a very difficult decision?
Let's say looking for a job is money important to you is, is lack of travel time important to you is being able to work from home. Okay. Well, all these things line up, then listen, sometimes you gotta go all in with only having 30 to 40% of the information and it, that decision making process and how teams and how even people and celebrities make decisions is like, it's incredible.
You'll often hear, um, will Smith and you'll hear Leonardo DiCaprio and Meryl Streep. Talk about , what do they look for when they make movies? And they all actually say the same thing where it's like, okay, what's important to me. A great director who knows me, who knows a story that I want to tell and who knows sort of how to get the best out of me.
And is it in a genre that's going to gross very well. Or at the very least also, you know, go in line with things that I [01:04:00] hold very valuable and everything else kind of trickles down from there. And it's actually really neat to hear about how they actually make those decisions. Now granted that they have a lot of people thinking for them to have a lot of time and they have a lot longer runway, but it's really interesting to hear, um, why people make the decisions they do and the processes they take to make decisions.
And it's a lot easier said than done. It's a lot easier to be like, Oh, well, I think of this, this, this, and I'd go into my spreadsheet. And I think about it, then I go for a walk and that, that doesn't happen all the time. Right? Like that. So the more you have things written down that are valuable to what you're trying to do long term can help guide you.
Um, to make the right decisions are at the very least, uh, make decisions that are in line with what you're trying to do and your vision.
And to be able to be able to make a decision, to be able to sort of have four or five things that help your guiding principles to be able to guide every big decision off of that, especially for big decisions is so invaluable.
And it's so helpful. Like it's so helpful.
Christian Parsons: And there's [01:05:00] two, there's two things I want to call out on that that are really, really important that you said. One that I think a lot of people will gloss over is having it written down. Having your process or your decision making criteria written down, because if you don't .
I'm personally very good at tricking myself and post rationalizing it to say yeah, that was part of the process. But if it's written down, I can look at the piece of paper or look at the document. And you can say, this is exactly how we are evaluating players.
This is exactly how we're evaluating an opportunity.
Jason Takefman: A hundred percent. And you'll find that with, let's say evaluating players, that a lot of teams, they might be better off spending more money, not necessarily on scouting, but like development, because they know that the difference between player and player B is negligible compared to well, let's create a great environment for them.
Let's create where like they're getting their salt levels tested or they're getting their physical aspects tested. Like they're doing all these tests on them physically to optimize them better. And that will, that may yield a much higher rate of return or a much higher success rate than scouting. [01:06:00]
Christian Parsons: The cool thing about that is especially in the salary cap era, that's where teams that are richest can also double down on an advantage. Fun story, a couple of years ago, uh, Adam Brooks, who is a player for the Toronto Marlies, uh, Kyle Dubas who's the, who is the GM of the Toronto Marlies at the time actually, put him on a different development program.
Normally you draft a player, you throw them into an AHL team or, or, or something like that. You just have to play a lot of games, play a lot of games, play a lot of games, play a lot of games. They actually had Adam Brooks do something different, which is for the first six months he worked out only with personalized coaches, skating, coach shooting, coach nutritionists, strength, coach didn't actually play with the rest of the Marlies and the team.
And then six months in, they integrated them into the team. And they did that not because they knew what was going to happen, but. They wanted to test something different. They wanted to see if player development could be better.
Jason Takefman: And, and that's so the term in a book, it takes what it takes, which is, you know, Russell Wilson's [01:07:00] company about like personal, human performance. Consciously competent.
Like you want to know what works and then be able to replicate it. People attribute too much to either luck or too much to environment that they don't control. And I think there's a lot more than we control that people don't really talk about because we don't either, we want to seem humble or we, we, we don't know that it works out.
And we always think that like, Oh, like this was so lucky or this was like, you know, but no, but the more, you know, like, okay, well we took this decision and this is how we made the decision and it worked like let's, let's actually look at the let's look at the process that we took. And like, what were the things that we did well.
Because the things that we do well, let's replicate them in other aspects of our business or in further decisions. Adam Grant on his latest podcast actually called it in some companies that have process accountability. And they, they look at the, they look at the process of something regardless of the outcome.
The outcome is irrelevant compared to the process that you take because of the specific [01:08:00] company, the things that you do, uh, mean a lot. And if you stay close to the process and the different levels of stuff like that, that's going to yield the best results and part of the best results of saying no, and not just rubbing your head against the wall to try and fit a round peg in a square hole, just because you have a lot of sunk costs and time you spent a lot of money or you need to validate your existence in this company, you're able to say like, no, this doesn't work.
Process accountability, like what did you do when these decisions?
And you'll find it, if you could really look at it, can try and detach yourself as much as possible when you made these decisions. Like when you decide to move to LA, like when you decided to leave Sid Lee, like what did, what did, what did you think about, what did you hold valuable and what things worked and what things didn't and try and replicate the things that worked.
But I don't think that's like a super hot take. That's like. That's you, you would tell that to anybody, right? Like it's the same thing when you would be drafting a player. Like, what did you do that led to the result that you did and the stuff that worked replicated?
[01:09:00] Christian Parsons: Absolutely. Absolutely. It's funny when you're what you're talking about. I actually have a decision tracker that like, I actually like, like with, with big life decisions, I actually write down, um, and I revisit them six months in a year in. With small and big decisions, just so I can learn from it.
Right. Because ju just because like, maybe moving to a different city or taking a new job or whatever was the right decision or wasn't the right decision. But , as long as I understand the process of it. And it also forces, uh, a consistent process in the decision making, um, which is helpful.
Jason Takefman: Totally. And, and you know, what, if you're able to have the self-awareness to put yourself through the ringer, like to literally put yourself objectively, to be able to say like, look, I want to get better. And the only way to get better is to kind of look at the things I did wrong with the very least to evaluate things like that, then good for you.
Like that'll work, but that's a very, that's very cool that you do that.
Christian Parsons: All right. So we're going to wrap up here. Is there anything that I haven't asked you that you want to say to our audience?
Jason Takefman: That's a good question. Uh, not really, no. I always love [01:10:00] talking to you. Like we hit it.
Like, it's funny. We, we talked to, like, we just talked for an hour before, um, and that will be about an hour and a half here. I, you know, you got everything else that I wanted to say, like, this was awesome. Uh, you're great at this and I really appreciate you having me on.
Christian Parsons: Thanks so much, Jason. I appreciate it.
My pleasure man.
. Wow. So we talked for well over 90 minutes and there's a lot of stuff that we had to edit out for the sake of time. But Jason is definitely a rare breed of sports professional. Who's been across different leagues in sports and not just team sports, but also individual and combat sports as well.
Once again, I'm Christian Parsons. We're starting to build a community out here on Make The Cut. If you have any suggestions for show guests or want to reach out, you can reach me @ThisIsParsons on Twitter and Instagram. You can see our show notes and transcripts at MTCpod.com. That's M-T-C-P-O-D dot com. I hope that you're able to learn something valuable from every single episode of the show. If you found it helpful, I [01:11:00] ask that you share it with friends.
Now, get out there and get hired in sports.