Don't Forget Your Tickets
Don' Forget Your Tickets is a podcast devoted to the unsung heroes of the spectator sports and events industries, the Ticketing Managers. We explore who they are, their well-guarded industry secrets, and how they entered the field. Beyond that, we delve into a broader ticketing realm, inviting experts from various fields to share their insights and stories. Our primary aim is to add value and highlight deserving individuals.
(The podcast was originally named TicketingPodcast.com)
Don't Forget Your Tickets
What it takes to land your dream job in Sports: Insights from James Gershfield, Head of Sports & Entertainment at Forsyth Barnes
What does it take to land a top job in Sports?
We're live with a new season of Don't Forget Your Tickets, and in this opening episode of season seven, James Gershfield, Head of Sports & Entertainment at Forsyth Barnes, reveals the key traits that separate candidates who apply from those who get hired.
With experience recruiting for Manchester United, Real Madrid, ATP Tour, and the PGA, Gershfield identifies three must-have qualities for Premier League clubs: deep industry experience, a revenue-driven mindset, and leadership that drives progress. Clubs ahead of the curve now prioritize AI-driven analytics, dynamic pricing strategies, and data-led fan experiences—a shift that’s creating a clear divide between progressive and stagnant organizations.
Tottenham Hotspur stands out as a case study in maximizing matchday revenue, leveraging pre-game entertainment and affordable concessions to drive higher per-head spending.
For professionals looking to break into or advance in the industry, Gershfield’s advice is clear: network relentlessly, bring innovation to your role, and “ABL: Always Be Learning.” Most importantly, if you find yourself pushing ideas your organization isn't ready for, it may be time to move on.
Don't Forget Your Tickets is powered by TicketCo and hosted by TicketCo’s CEO, Carl-Erik Michalsen Moberg. The podcast was originally named TicketingPodcast.com
Have you ever wondered what it takes to land a top role in sports ticketing or fan engagement, or what clubs are really looking for when they hire their next commercial leader? In today's episode of Don't Forget your Tickets, we're diving into the executive search world with someone who specializes in placing top talent at some of the biggest clubs and organizations in sports and entertainment. Our guest is James Gershwit, of sports and entertainment at Foresuit Bars. In this episode, we'll discuss career growth, the evolving landscape of ticketing and fan engagement, and what sets the best candidates apart. So if you're looking to take your career to the next level or just want to look inside the business of sports, you do not want to miss this one.
Speaker 1:Hello and welcome to Don't Forget your Tickets, the podcast where experts within ticketing and fan engagement share their stories and insights. In today's episode, we will be discussing the ticketing and the fan engagement executive role with someone whose profession is to find top-notch candidates to fill these roles and also other executive roles at the biggest clubs in London, uk and elsewhere. Welcome to James Gurfield, head of Sports and Entertainment at the executive search firm Fawcett Barnes. It's great to have you on the show, james.
Speaker 2:Likewise, Carl. Thank you very much for inviting me onto the podcast. It's great to be here.
Speaker 1:Great. So obviously careers in sports are super interesting, right, and I'm sure it's along a lot of people's minds and we're going to delve into that later. But let's start with some simple questions. Who are you? Who is James Gershfield?
Speaker 2:I think you gave me a great introduction there. So, yeah, I'm James Gershfield. I head up the sports and entertainment side of the business at Forsyth Barnes. Forsyth Barnes we're an executive search agency focused on three pillars, so we focus on, as I mentioned, sport and entertainment, being my bag, but we've also got departments focusing on the fintech market and the retail market Really exciting business at the moment. We've been going for nine years year on year growth, which is fantastic. The sport and entertainment side is thriving at the moment. It always is. It's such a great industry to be part of. We partner with some great organizations globally and it's a great place to be.
Speaker 1:I mean, sports and entertainment sounds like the funniest division, to be honest with you. But you don't have to answer it.
Speaker 2:I'm sure it is. I will answer it. I mean, it is the most fun to be part of. We've got a great team. We've got three offices at the moment. We've got the London Hub In London. We focus across the UK, europe, middle East and Asia. We've got a Nottingham office as well, and we've also got New York and the plans are in place to be opening up in the Middle East very shortly. But it is definitely by far the greatest division to work in.
Speaker 1:Sounds great, Sounds interesting. I mean, who is your typical client? I mean obviously sports and entertainment, but can you give us some examples and how you work with them?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so breaking it down, sports, we represent rights holders, leagues, governing bodies, federations, agencies. From an entertainment perspective, it can be your broadcasters, your OTT platforms, your ticketing platforms. So it is quite a broad market. I joke with my friends in the pubs and they say you work in sport and entertainment and recruitment. That's such a niche market. But then when you break it down, it's huge. I run a number of different teams that focus on a number of different verticals, from commercial and marketing, finance, legal technology, operations and performance. So again, you break that down. You've got five, six different teams there, but we've represented, you know, the likes of Manchester United, real Madrid, atp Tour, the PGA, some really household names, and it's fun, it's exciting and it's something to brag about, right, because we're all massive sports fans and it's just great to talk about.
Speaker 1:Definitely something to talk about at the pub, and one thing you can say is that, even though you can say it's a small niche, I won't quite agree on that but it's a big world right, so huge as you're saying. You mentioned a couple of the offices you have now and also that you're planning to open new ones. Do you work all over the globe or are there any geographical limits to coverage?
Speaker 2:No, I think, as you mentioned it there, it's a huge industry, right? Sport is global, so it'd be foolish for us to discard a certain region of the world. So we are a global organization. We have placed globally. There is nowhere that we wouldn't really touch. We've got a network all over the world but predominantly, like I said, north america, uk, europe, middle east is where we do most of our work great.
Speaker 1:so just a question, because we have listeners all over the world, right? I mean the podcast, especially in ticketing, but also in other roles, and I guess if you're a company who needs some good people, they should obviously talk to you. But if you are one of the stars, let's say in ticketing or working in the club, and you're progressing and you want to seek new opportunities, how do you do that? Do you reach out to you guys and then you assess the candidates, or how would you approach?
Speaker 2:it. I think for us a lot of our work is repeat business, the work that we've done placing top tier talent in our client base. It's been consistent and we always develop good people into great roles. So a lot of the business that we get is repeat. And that's crucial because we understand, once we've worked with a client, once we understand their values, their working environment, their goals, their ambition, what they're looking to achieve, but also, from a culture perspective, the type of people that are going to be successful in that business, we know what that looks like. So once we're given a mandated role, we really dive deep into it and I think we'll come onto that later in this podcast but we really dive deep into what the client is looking for. And then we will have that specific approach to go out there and find not just the right person that's got the right skill sets the right skill sets but the right personality, the right drive, the right ambition, the right career goals. That's also going to fit within that business.
Speaker 1:Great, great, and I think working in a Premier League club is probably everyone's dream, right? Yeah, If I wanted to work for a Premier League team I won't mention any names and I called you, James, and said what do I need to do? What do I need to know? I mean, what are you guys looking for when you're looking for a role like that?
Speaker 2:I think if you break it down to any client but let's take the Premier League right I think the Premier League clubs would always look for somebody that's got that technical and industry experience, first and foremost, To work in a Premier League club, it's 100 miles an hour, 24-7, 365 days a year. Some people think on the outside, if you work in football, you actually only work the season and then you've got two, three months off. That's not the case. So first and foremost, we look for that technical and industry experience. The other thing that is a crucial part in most roles is that revenue and commercial growth mindset when we're talking about ticketing or a commercial role within ticketing, having that understanding of fan engagement or somebody that's been within a customer service experience role previously. And that is for me one of the biggest things, Because I've said it previously in conversations that sometimes people look at fan engagement as a buzzword very similar to data.
Speaker 2:Sometimes it's just used as this buzzword. But the people, the candidates, the talent that understand what fan engagement is and the value that it can bring to the organization, those are the standout candidates, the ones that can articulate what fan engagement is and the revenue that it can generate and the importance that it can have. Those are the real standouts. And then the last one being having that leadership skills and that operational mindset, Someone that wants to go above and beyond, continuously learning, developing their skills to be better than they were the day before.
Speaker 1:So there's quite a lot that you need to work at a Premier League club, but that's what we do day in, day out is look for those people, yeah, yeah yeah, and there are people out there who does this for sure, and one thing that I was also thinking about is that the world is moving fast, right, and I'm sure the positions you are looking for now has changed significantly over the last couple of years. We've had guests on this podcast that is responsible for customer experience online, for example, who works in a completely different way than a commercial director did 10 years ago. Has the roles changed in any way over the last couple of years? As you've seen it predominantly in football and sports.
Speaker 2:Well, 100% yes, and I think if you look at ticketing and fan engagement as an example of this, I would say those are the two types of roles that have evolved most over the last two to three years and I think they're continuing to change. Now you look at organizations that could be hiring the same role. Let's take a ticketing executive right. Two different organizations hiring the same role. Let's take a ticketing executive right, two different organizations hiring the same role, but looking for two completely different people because one's behind the curve and one's ahead of the curve. And that, for me, is just really exciting because I can go to the guys that aren't ahead of the curve and say to them well, why aren't you thinking about bringing in someone with this skillset or this mindset? And it really challenges them. So it really has changed over the last two, three years and it's really quite easy to see where it's going as well. And I look at I mentioned it earlier, but we talk about data Today.
Speaker 2:I think if you take a ticketing exec, they just look at historical sales trends, basic CRMs, all to optimize pricing, inventory and promotions. I think fast forward to tomorrow. But I'm going to caveat that by saying there are some really great businesses that are hiring people and have people in their business right now that do this. But looking at AI-driven predictive analytics, that was going to forecast much higher growth over the next two to three years.
Speaker 2:Companies that currently look at adjustive pricing, like right now. It's not static, it's changing all the time. Look at airlines you look at a flight yesterday and you look at it today and the prices are different. It's going to be the same within sport. I think we saw it with the Oasis concert and people were screaming about it and how it was more expensive in one day than it was the next. But also that personalized offering. I think today as well, a lot of organizations are marketing to such wide audiences, whereas in the future there is going to be be and there is now a lot more personalized offerings for fans based on their behaviors.
Speaker 1:And speaking of behaviors, you mentioned data as a buzzword and I agree. I couldn't agree more. We talk, yeah, we need data, everyone says we need data, but do clubs actually understand the value of that data and also the damage it does to the club if they don't own it themselves so they can actually do things like you're saying now? They definitely believe in it.
Speaker 2:I think the struggle that they have is that they don't know how to act upon it. It's kind of so far in the future that they don't know what to do with it, so it kind of just gets put on the roadmap and we'll address it when we need to address it. The clubs that take the plunge and actually really buy into the data and the data that's available to them and then utilize that to generate more revenue are the ones that create that better fan experience. So I'm going to take Tottenham for example and this pains me because I'm an Arsenal fan, but Tottenham do it brilliantly. They spent millions on their new stadium great stadium, arguably the best in the Premier League, probably arguably one of the best in Europe right now. They had a massive project around how can they get fans into the ground a lot earlier than they were at White Hart Lane?
Speaker 2:Some people come into football. They go to a football match. They get in half an hour before kickoff. They might have one or two beers in the concourse and then they watch the game and then they leave, or they'll get to the ground earlier and they'll grab some food outside of the stadium at a local shop.
Speaker 2:Spurs have done some research and they have implemented proper fan experience. The food inside the stadium can cost less, if not the same as what it would cost you to eat outside. But then they've got activities, they've got events, they've got singers. They've got activities going on within the stadium before kickoff that entices people to get in earlier. Once you're in earlier, you get hungry, you get thirsty, you eat, you drink. You're driving more revenue into the club. So it's thinking about we've got 50,000, 60,000 people come into a game. What can we do by looking at data? That's going to get £10 per head, spent more each and every game, and it's no wonder that they have the biggest revenue within the Premier League at the moment on a match day. But then you look at other clubs that want to emulate that and want to copy that, but don't know how or it seems too far away at the moment. So it's a really, really interesting one at the moment.
Speaker 1:I think you're touching on something super important, because you are say you have 50 000 people in 10 pounds. 10 pounds per head, that's 500K. Do that over 10 matches, that's 5 million. This is a numbers game. As you're saying, if you're able to build on that fan experience or fan journey, see them as a customer, keep them for longer, increase average spend, I think you have a huge opportunity. Even if you're a small club, right, you don't need to do exactly like the Spurs. Obviously. You can tone it down and make it fit for your club and I think that's why it's so important with innovation inside the organization. And if you look back I mean speaking myself and my experience, I mean my mother. She's had the same job for 40 years, right? She's never moved a position. This might be a controversial question how often should you change job in sports?
Speaker 2:That's a really good question. I guess it depends on the career growth that you have within your current organization. I've spoken to so many clients that are now at the very top, that have been there 15, 20 years because they've grown through the organization, because an organization will value quality and if they see someone that's got that drive that comes in as an intern, but they've got that drive, they're in early, they're the last to leave and they've got that ambition to get to the very, very top, you're not going to let that person go. So I would say it all depends on the current situation of your role. If you can't see growth, or your boss is not leaving and you can't challenge your boss to move on, or there is that glass ceiling, that's when you know it's time to move on.
Speaker 2:Also, if you're challenging the status quo around something that you should be doing differently now, whether that's a commercial role, whether that's a ticketing role, and you're throwing great ideas because you've seen a competitor do something that you believe should be installed into your current organization and they're like not sure, don't think we're ready for that. You're better than the organization that you're in, so then it's time to move on. So I can't really give you a two-year, three-year, four-year answer. It all depends on the evolution of your role and how quickly you can get the promotion, get the next promotion.
Speaker 1:And if you can't see that promotion, then it's time to look elsewhere. Exactly so what you're saying is time. That's not an indicator at all. It's just about if you're able to move on inside, learn new things, and you should stay. If you stop learning, you need to find new friends and colleagues, right?
Speaker 2:Exactly that, and I think it comes back to the innovation piece as well the innovation of the organization. If the business you're working in is not innovative and they're not thinking about how they can be a disruptor or how they can do better than their competitors, then you're not in the right business for me.
Speaker 1:I think it's interesting, like leadership takeaway as well. Give you an example we have a super I mean very ambitious guy working in TicketCo and I had a sit down with him and we discussed career opportunities, right, and what's your dream in the future, what do you want to be? And he said one day I'm going to be a commercial director, that's my goal. And I said, well, all right, that's a great goal. But I'm going to ask you, james, what's your advice to people like him that wants to be a commercial director? Yeah, what should they do? I mean, imagine being a 19 year old, 20 year old, today, you want to be a commercial director of a football club. What should you do?
Speaker 2:You've got to assess where you're currently at right. And one thing for me that is massive is networking and personal brand. So I don't know who you're talking about, but say there are 19, 20, 21-year-old guy or girl that's in the business, business in a sales role, that wants to be that commercial director. Great, hold on to that person because they've got goals and they've got ambition and they know where they want to go. But if I'm that person right now, I'm going to then start connecting with every single commercial director in every single football club, not just in the premier league, in the championship, you know, in league one, in the Bundesliga, in La Liga, in every single league, and I'm going to follow their content. I'm going to send them a message Do you have 15, 20 minutes? I want to pick your brain. I want to be a commercial director one day. Tell me your journey. Don't be scared to ask questions.
Speaker 2:A lot of these commercial directors, ceos, ccos they all write blogs. They're all on podcasts. Go and listen to their podcasts. Go and read their blog. Understand what they do from a day-to-day perspective. That's got them to where they are today. Learn from that individual and emulate what they do in their role into your work right now, even as a sales exec, even as a senior partnership manager, act as if, act as if you're the commercial director in that business. If you're scared, if you're frightened, if you're hesitant, and if you don't learn and you don't network, you'll never be a commercial director. Love that.
Speaker 1:And I'll pass on the advice or this episode actually to Anna also. Same goes with ticketing and one thing that I've seen we've been interviewing a lot of people in ticketing ticketing professionals who's worked in there with the London Olympics, I mean, world championship in skiing, I mean there are so many interesting guests that's come into ticketing, but there is no education in ticketing, right. So what they've done is exactly what you're saying. They have started volunteering inside the club, they've been engaged, they've been talking to people inside the club, they've been engaged, they've been talking to people inside the club and then all of a sudden, they get more and more responsibility and eventually they end up running a whole ticketing team and getting pulled in for all these amazing events.
Speaker 1:So I think what you're saying be good at networking, which today is easier than ever, right, because of LinkedIn but you also have to stand out. So, yeah, some really good key takeaways. And, speaking of key takeaways, james, we have traditions here, right, we do things the old way. We have traditions, and one of them is to sum up with two to three key takeaways from this conversation. What would those be?
Speaker 2:I'll give you a little bit of a longer answer here. I get a number of people reach out to me on LinkedIn that are either fresh out of university or they've been in an industry for 10, 15 years. That's not sport or entertainment, but they want to work in sport or entertainment. They want to be involved in that because that's their passion, and they always say what do I need to do? So that ties into my three key takeaways, because I say this a hundred times a week. We've touched on it Network. You've got to be networking, you've got to be attending conferences, you've got to be there listening to key speakers, but that's not enough. You've got to be prepared when you're networking.
Speaker 2:So when you're going to these events, there's always some form of ticketing platform. There's always a networking platform that shows you who's attending. Reach out to the people that you want to speak to Arrange a quick 15-minute chat with that person. Don't be scared. So be networking and be prepared when you're networking.
Speaker 2:My second piece of advice is to always challenge the status quo. So we spoke about it earlier. If you're a ticketing exec and you want to be speaking to the commercial director or the head of ticketing or the ticketing director and you see something that another club is doing that you're currently not doing in your organization, challenge the status quo. Take it to the senior leadership team. Bring those ideas to the table. Don't be scared, don't hold them in. And my third key takeaway is what I call ABL, and it's always be learning right. Always listening to a new podcast, reading a new blog, reading articles, looking at what people are posting out on LinkedIn, looking at what other companies are doing in the marketplace. Just always be learning. But then tie that back into key point two challenge it. Take it to your organization. See if they can adopt what they're doing in that business into your business.
Speaker 1:And great key takeaways. I'll take a couple of those myself for sure. Thank you so much. It's been great to have you here. Thank you so much for participating. Thank you.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me. It's been great.
Speaker 1:If people want to reach out to you, James, how do they do prefer email, LinkedIn? What do you do?
Speaker 2:Yeah, linkedin is great. I'm on it, I'm active, I do practice what I preach, so I do post a lot. So, either going to the Forsyth Barnes page on LinkedIn searching for myself, james Gershfield, or just searching for me on LinkedIn James Gershfield, head of sports at Forsyth Barnes Email Forsyth Barnes Email. Jamesgirshfield at forsythbarnescom. I think you have a podcast as well, right, I do have a podcast Leaders of the Game. You can follow that Good plug there, carl. Leaders of the Game podcast. It was launched this year. We've had some amazing guests. Hopefully we'll be having another guest from the ticketing platform very soon.
Speaker 1:But that's also a page on LinkedIn Leaders of the Game podcast Sounds great. Thank you so much, james Cheers. Carl, you've been listening to Don't Forget your Tickets, where today's guest was James Gershfield, head of sports and entertainment at the executive search firm Fawcett Barnes. Thank you so much for listening and thank you to TicketCo for powering this podcast. My name is Carl-Erik Moberg and until next time, have a wonderful day.
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