Unveiling the Art of Game Day: Insights from a Sports Event Expert

You're just in time to find out what it takes to put on a game on game day at a venue.

We have a guest that wrote a book on it and he's up to join us in just a moment to learn about the secrets of managing the game site.

It's all coming up in just a moment.

This is the Pigskin Daily History Dispatch, a podcast that covers the anniversaries of American football events throughout history.

Your host, Darren Hayes is podcasting from America's North Shore to bring you the memories of the gridiron one day at a time.

Hello, my football friends.

This is Darren Hayes of pigskindispatch.com welcome once again to the Pig Pen, your portal to positive football history.

And welcome to another edition where we get to talk to an author, explore another fascinating realm of football history.

And this one's really unique.

Having an author come up has a book about a subject that I'm not super familiar with and it really sheds some light on.

His name is Don Castonte and he's wrote a book recently.

Don, welcome to the Pig Pen.

Thanks for having me, Darren.

I'm thrilled to be here.

Well, Don, we really appreciate you being here.

I guess to start off with, why don't you tell us the title of your book, give us maybe the 5 second tour of what it's about and then we'll get into a little bit about you.

Yeah, feel free to pull me if I get too much into it.

I tend to ramble.

But the name of the book is beyond the Scoreboard, the Ultimate Guide to Sports Event Presentation.

And the gist of it is, is, listen, I've been doing this for 30 years in college athletics and professional athletics and there's never been a course or a book previous that really teaches people like me that are event direct, event directors who come in and, and produce games.

It's basically a situation where, Darren, you join an organization and you just pretty much pick up what they do because that's the way they always do it.

And you inherit basically what's been done because there's no other way.

Right.

And so I always thought it would be a good idea if I gained enough experience, if I could put a resource together that could really educate a lot of people and really four targeted groups here.

We're talking about, we're talking about students who are the future professionals out there in sport management and the professors, people that are currently in the roles of, in professional roles of event production or event presentation.

Interns, coordinators, managers, directors.

Then there's the Leadership group that oversees this particular area within an organization.

And Darren, you'd be amazed that a lot of the people that oversee this particular area have really never worked in that area.

They just, you know, they're VPs of marketing or corporate sales or whatnot.

They might be familiar, obviously, but they've never actually worked in it.

So the book gives them insights into what the department is, how it's made up, the staffing, what it should be, the types of documents that should be there.

Makes them better managers, really, for that group to understand the language and to be able to talk the terminology.

And then the last group is for fans to really pull the curtain back and let them know what takes place on game days.

You know, people have no idea.

So this is the opportunity for the average person out there who's ever gone to a sporting event to go, I want to know what they do.

How did they get to the game today and how did they make it happen?

So I put the book for.

For those reasons.

Yeah, you definitely have me falling in that last category.

And you really opened the curtain to me.

As a matter of fact, I just went to a Pitt Panther game, a football game at Acreshire Stadium about two weeks ago, watched him play Central Mich. Michigan.

And I took my daughter and my wife when we went down and, you know, just enjoying the.

The music in between time, you know, in between plays and not just the band music, but over the loudspeaker and all the different things.

And I never really thought about before, I just said, hey, I just show up and enjoy it.

But you folks that are in your business are.

Have a thankless job.

We don't appreciate what you do.

And you really make the game experience that much more enjoyable.

That's why it's so interesting to get a chance to.

About talk.

Talk to you.

No, I appreciate what you're talking about is I think what a lot of people kind of do, they show up.

They show up either for the reason that they're a fan of the game itself.

They're very traditional, they're there for the game.

But then there are a lot of other people.

Darren, My wife's not a fan of sports and you know, to get her to the game is sometimes very difficult.

So what are they doing at the game to entertain her?

What.

What are they going to do to create an atmosphere that I can watch the game and be happy with it, but at the end of it, she's had such a great time that she wants to go back and that's what our role is really, you know, and so to hear you say, you know, you go to these games, you hear the music and somebody's pulling those triggers, you know, they're pulling the strings and creating the emotions and trying to create memories.

And that's kind of the business that we're in is memory making.

Yeah, that's very, very cool.

And we'll get back into that here in a little bit.

But first I want to learn, you know, how does somebody, in your case, what's your story?

How do you get into like that?

You know, I would never even know that that was a job.

You know, I go to sporting events all the time.

You know, it's a good question because I didn't know either, Darren.

And again, it's not, it's not something that's specifically taught either.

And there was no really sports management back in the day.

But I graduated with a marketing background and I got my first job in selling apples and cider.

And as much as I like apples and cider, it's not my passion.

But my girlfriend was living in Raleigh and so I decided to, on a whim go to Raleigh and I took a job as an intern for NC State or NC State in the athletic department.

That's where I found my career.

I said, oh my goodness, I'm a, I'm a sports jock by nature.

I love.

I have a marketing background.

Boy, this is perfect.

And I stayed there for a little bit.

Moved out to go to the University of Memphis as director of corporate sales and marketing.

Got a little bit more in the title, a little bit more experience there.

Stayed there for about a year and a half and then I got a call, I got a call from the San Antonio spurs asking if I'd be interested in a position that was more game operations event presentation.

So it was a crossroad for me, Darren.

It was like, do I stay with corporate sales and marketing or do I go more storytelling and fan engagement?

So I said, let's do it.

This is going to go to the professional ranks.

Let's do it.

And you know what I mentioned?

I found my career at NC State.

I found my passion when I got to the spot spurs.

And that's where, you know, I got into this game operations event presentation and, and fan engagement.

And then from there, you know, ended up going to the Kansas City Royals for 14 seasons.

I started my own company along the way where I produce and direct with Castani Group sports and event management and then left that and now do Castani Group full time.

And now I write books Too, apparently.

Yeah.

Right.

Author all of a sudden.

Right?

Yeah.

So, you know, I guess maybe you bring up a good point here.

You know, with your background, I'm sure, you know, with the spurs you had many years.

The team had a lot of success in the years that you're talking about, I'm assuming very, very good team that they put together.

Maybe the Royals, maybe not so much all the time.

How is that different from.

From your aspect of the entertainment?

Because do you have to like work a little harder for teams that aren't doing as well to get them promote things?

Interesting.

It was an interesting aspect to the job.

When I left the spurs to go and I went with the Royals, I went, as you mentioned, from a team that won multiple championships, top in, in, in the class, to a team that was kind of struggling.

Okay.

But it was an interesting dynamic for me too.

I had not been in that situation where a team was kind of in the cellar and struggling, but they had a strong fan base.

Okay.

They weren't selling out, but the fans that were there were strong.

And so I walked into a situation there where I had the mentality of bringing an NBA infused kind of baseball game.

And, and it was a lot of fun for me.

And to your point, you know, a lot of it wasn't so much, you know, putting the foot on the pedal and trying to do too much.

It was just, you know, trying to do it the right way.

And it was trying to create an atmosphere that didn't rely on the product on the field.

It relied on creating or maximizing the use of the music and the video boards and the entertainment resources to complement and enhance where we could enhance, but not overshadow the game itself.

So there was a fine line there.

So that was a lot of fun.

And it's a lot of orchestrating, a lot of communication, a lot of working and collaboration within the department or the organization to do something like that.

Yeah, I think one of the most interesting things that I found from your book is how you talk about, you know, you put it together, the team, I believe you call it your team of people.

I'm sitting there thinking, okay, your team of people is maybe your announcer.

And you know, if somebody playing the music, which is true, but it goes way beyond that, as you described in a book, which really sheds some light on.

To me, I learned something new.

Maybe you could describe, you know, who, who, who all goes into, besides yourself and you're putting a game on, you.

Know, you can't do it by yourself and nobody can ever do Anything like this by themselves.

And it takes a lot of people.

And you're talking about, yes, you'll have a full time staff.

You have, which is, it can vary based on the organization.

It can be three people, a couple people, all the way up to 10 or 15 people.

And I was in an organization with the Spur Sports and entertainment that we had a number of people.

I had about 8 to 12 people, 15 people at one time, full time, but that's only part of it.

Then on game days you have, you know, part time people, you have part time seasonal people, you have volunteers, you have a game crew, you know, and so when you talk about that, in addition to the production team and everybody else, you could be looking at a crew on game day, up to 60 or 70 people, if not more on bigger sporting events.

And so you're talking about managing from the production aspects to the game day atmosphere, to the sponsor fulfillment and the entertainment and all of that.

There's a lot of people that are involved in that.

But it also, like I said, it's communication.

And that's what this book does.

This book, I, as you mentioned, it goes into great detail.

I don't just say, hey, you have to have good communication.

I say, you need to have good communication.

Let me tell you what I did and let me show you what you can do and how I laid it out.

And this is why I did it through this way.

And you know, it's, it's done that way for a reason.

To allow people to level up, to maybe find their pain points or maybe find areas they didn't even realize they should be looking at.

And then once they get there and I lead them to what maybe a standard might be or what they can consider a standard for success, they can customize it and make it their own.

And that's what the book provides.

Now, I guess as a person that does this and you've done for multiple sports, is it a different type of entertainment because you have a different type of fan of somebody that goes outside to a football stadium or baseball stadium compared to an indoor arena like a hockey or a basketball game?

Maybe you could describe a little bit what you do a little bit differently to get those fans interested?

Yeah, I get asked that a lot.

And I can tell you this, Dan, with all truth, whether it's a high school game, a college game, a professional game, you know, I don't necessarily go in with a different mentality in terms of.

You talk about the core principles of event presentation, they apply to any level.

Timing, transition, execution, all those things, regardless of the levels and what sport it is.

That's the mentality and the mindset that I go in.

Now to your point, you talk about entertainment.

Sure.

You know, there is in terms of maybe hockey might bring out a different type of entertainment in some regards because of the demographics versus what you would do at maybe what NASCAR would do or what a basketball team might do.

But the, the idea of entertainment and incorporating them into a run of show that is in a logical systematic order that makes sense.

And then you're doing the, you're dotting the eyes and crossing the T's to make sure the transitions and everything else is, is making sense and it's positioned within the show correctly.

All of that's the same regardless of what sport or what level that you're in.

And I think that's an important point.

I'm gl brought that up to really get across with this book.

Regardless, these people who might be listening might say, well, I'm just on high school team, you know, this will, this what I'm putting in this book is exactly what you're, what I would do if I were doing it for like I already mentioned a professional team.

And it doesn't take a whole lot of money.

It just takes the understanding and the know how to do it.

Sure there are the bells and whistles that cost a lot of money in the technology side of it, but you don't necessarily need all that to make a really great presentation.

Yeah.

And I mean if you would have asked me before I read your book, you know what somebody in your job does, I would probably say okay, you know, get some, somebody to run some music, somebody, you know, whatever.

The scoreboard, if you got a scoreboard, maybe a gun to shoot some T shirts up in the stands or some hot dog.

What's the magic about a smashed up hot dog getting fired up in the stands or a, you know, a $5 T shirt?

People go crazy over trying these things.

You know, it's just a magical time when you go to game and they do it almost every game.

People don't realize, you know, and I talk in great detail as you know, about the mindset of event of a event director, a game director and how I would call a show and the types of cues I would use on a clear con system in terms of if it's, if it's in a hot situation where the energy is very high, this is what we're going to do.

If it's low and we're, you know, it's Kind of a, A down point.

This is what we're going to do, and here's what the plan B is going to be, and here's the music and here's what we're going to do on the video board.

The point is, yes, people don't have any idea when they're in the stands that somebody is sitting there talking to production, talking to the people that are on the playing surface and bringing it all together.

And they're kind of pulling the strings.

Right.

Of the emotions.

When they need to bring the crowd up.

They turn up all the energy by bringing the right music, bringing the right game prompts, incorporating maybe the mascot who transitions to the dance team, who brings out signage.

I mean, there's an orchestration to it and there's a lot of precision to it.

And that's what I talk about in the book in terms of how to get there.

What's that mindset?

What should you be thinking about?

Yeah, it's, it's fascinating.

And every team has their own traditions.

Or, I know, like I go to a Pittsburgh Steelers game, you know, there's a, a third or fourth quarter they're going to play, you know, sticks as renegade, and that gets the crowd fired up.

You know, the Dallas Cowboys, you know, they have the cheerleaders do their dance routine to get some fired up, and everybody has their own little tweaks and, and things.

And it's amazing how, you know, folks in your, in your job duties find the right time to get them fired up.

You know, usually it works.

It gets the crowd fired up, it gets the team fired up.

And, you know, yeah, usually.

And, and, and like I said, it's a.

There's a lot of, you know, you have to have the intuition and understanding of how to read a crowd.

Right?

And that comes with experience.

And I think that, that being said, you also understand what your resources are available to you to be able to pull the strings.

And when you have to do certain things, you know what your inventory is and you know how to incorporate them simultaneously, one after the other in the proper order.

That reveals the type of energy that or the type of direction that you're trying to create.

It's, it's.

There's a lot to it.

You know, it's not as simple as, you know, just show up and then, you know, just call a game.

And I think that that's why this book is needed more than ever is because, like I mentioned for over 30 years, think about it.

With people are taking these roles, young professionals coming out have no idea what an event game director does.

And then they get into these roles and, you know, sometimes they're hired as the event director at a very young age and they just inherit, as I mentioned earlier, what they currently do.

And they stay in a status quo for a while until they gain enough experience to understand we aren't doing this right.

Maybe we should be doing something, something different.

So why not lower that curve a little bit, that learning curve.

Give them a book that understands exactly how to do it and guides them to get there.

And I think that's why the book is so important right now.

What do you feel was maybe your watershed moment to take you from that, you know, that youngster coming in, in the business and you're trying to, you're inheriting, you know, like you described in the book.

What was that watershed moment that sort of pushed you up to say, I'm going to take this up a notch and sort of do my own thing here?

Well, I, I can tell you, I mean, my first game was in Reynolds Coliseum.

It was NC State men's basketball against North Carolina on national television.

It was so electric, right?

And I was coming from the apple industry, remember, selling apples and cider.

So now I'm in Reynolds Coliseum.

And it was so electric that, that with the, the competitiveness in me as an athlete just drew so much energy in me that this is what I want to do.

This is intense.

This is really, really cool.

And I think where I stepped it up is I honed it NC State a little bit or I got the direction of where I wanted to go.

I, I started to develop it in Memphis, but I really got the tools and I really started to work on my craft more when I got to the Spurs.

And that way when I got to the Royals, I was able to really come in full force and kind of experiment and have a much better understanding of how event presentation really impacts game day experience for all stakeholders.

And for those that are watching this, I mean, just so everyone's clear, it's not just the fans.

We talk about the fans all the time, but the stakeholders being.

It's the fans, of course, but it's the partners who are putting in millions of dollars or thousands of dollars into a program.

What are you doing outside of just showcasing their logo or what are you doing that's going to bring value to what they need, exposure, whatever it may be, but not in a way where it's going to cannibalize your event, presentation or your atmosphere.

You do it where you can marry that with Your brand and kind of make it seamless and entertaining.

And then the third category, the third group of the stakeholders is.

Is the players themselves, the participants.

You know, we're there to help motivate them, inspire them, build connections with them, with the fans.

Right.

And so that's also in our goal of who our stakeholders are and then the organization itself.

So that's kind of the makeup of when we're talking today about who this is for.

That's who it's for.

Yeah, I'm glad you brought that up, because early on in your book, you have a couple very attractive and very complicated charts demonstrating your point there.

You have the triangle, and you have.

You have a sort of a wheel with the spokes of the wheel each being.

I'm trying to make it simple.

Yeah, right.

Yeah, I thought it was great.

You know, I'm reading what you're saying.

I'm looking at it, so very well done.

And early on, the book, you got me going.

I mean, the whole book is structured well.

But that was really something that I remember from the.

From early on, it's important for people.

To understand what event presentation even means.

Right.

Because they.

They.

A lot of people talk in terms of game operations, and a lot of organizations label their staff game operations.

But I've always been under the mindset that, you know, game operations is so much more.

Because within an organization, your game operations department is kind of your event team, if you will.

So they're doing the activities in the community, they're doing the viewing parties.

They might be doing a fan fest.

They're also doing game day.

There are a lot more than just games.

So when you say game operations, the mindset for the individuals working are those people that might be around them.

All they do is work on games.

So I always am a proponent of saying more.

It's an event presentation department.

Every event is a presentation.

It gets them thinking that there's always a beginning, a middle, and an end.

There's a story to be told.

I want my.

I want my staff to be thinking in terms of presentation.

And that graph that you're talking about and really what event presentation means is you have on the outside wheel, you have the organization, and then you have in the middle of that wheel.

Right.

So you have the rubber and then the middle where all the spokes come together, that's your event presentation.

So you have the organization, the event presentation, all the spokes leading to it is everything that needs to be incorporated into that presentation from an organization.

League initiatives, the ownership requirements, government affairs, Public relations, community relations, sponsorship group sales, ticket sales, on and on, PA announcements, special effects, on and on.

There's so many different things that lead into or want part of that event presentation.

Somebody's got to take all of that and coordinate it in a way that it creates a cohesive event presentation by taking advantage of all of the available resources to create added value to everybody and make it seamless.

And.

And it's a very, very challenging thing to do because, like I said in the past, there's never been anybody to kind of educate you on how to do it.

You just learn or you kind of just go along with it.

But now there is a book out there that kind of sheds the light on it.

Yeah, most definitely.

It's a great educational source to help somebody out, I guess.

Okay.

When you have the.

The events that you're going to.

I know as a fan, you know, if my team wins, I know it's been a successful day, a successful trip to the stadium or the venue.

I mean, I'm sure the business office look at, you know, what ticket sales and what revenue they made from, you know, concessions and everything else that they.

Gone.

What is a successful presentation or game day for someone in your position?

Yeah.

So a couple of things, right.

I'm always reading the crowd, taking the vibe of the crowd, you know.

You know, we are in the business of having fun.

We're in the business of being creative and innovative.

And.

And that's exciting because we get to go behind the stage and kind of the curtain and kind of come up with these wacky ideas sometimes.

And we test them, we rehearse them, we do things strategically, but we get to put it out there in front of people to see if it.

If it's going to be a home run in baseball, so to speak, or not.

Right.

And sometimes they.

They don't.

They're not as successful, maybe.

And you see it because you can read the reaction of the crowd or you see how engaged they are with it, and that's fun.

What other job you have that you can do this in front of thousands of people?

You know, take the Savannah Bananas.

I mean, the crazy kind of ideas and how people are drawn to that.

And Jesse will tell you, Jesse Cole, you know, it's fans first, and they'll come up with any old idea and just put it out there.

It's okay to fail.

Right.

Because it leads you to the next greatest thing.

And for.

For me, that's what's exciting about it.

And, and, and, you know, we'll.

We always Try different things.

So success is seeing the fans reaction.

Success for us is how well orchestrated everything goes off.

So people don't see any dysfunctional kind of moment where it's obvious something went wrong.

The audio went out, maybe the mics went out.

Maybe they didn't have their.

The promotional pieces that they were talking about.

Maybe the contestant wasn't there.

Something goes wrong.

Right.

If you go to enough games, you see those types of things.

Not if you read my book, because I go through all of what you need to do to make sure you don't do that.

But my point being is a successful game is having a clean event presentation.

And so that's always good.

And then of course, you look at the fan surveys and you find out from, you know, the fan relations group or the fan experience group, you know, how are we doing?

You incorporate the right questions in there so that people are asking and looking at the types of stuff that you're hoping to get some feedback on and then you react to it.

Wow, interesting stuff.

Don, why don't you go ahead?

Let's mention the name of the book again and where folks can get it.

Yeah, the name of the book is beyond the Scoreboard, the Ultimate Guide to Sports Event Presentation.

It's available right now at all major retailers, but Amazon, Barnes and Noble and.

Yeah, and you can also get a Kindle version as well.

All right, folks, well, if you're driving or don't have a pen and pencil to write it down, don't worry.

In the show notes of the YouTube video or the podcast that you're listening to, we'll have a link to get you to attach to Don's book and get you connected so you can get your copy as soon as possible.

Don, we really appreciate you writing this book and sharing this information and opening the eyes of this guy.

Especially as I go to these games.

I'll be looking at the games much a different way coming up here, especially this season, and really appreciate you joining us today to tell us about it.

Darren, thanks for having me in here.

Part of the pig pen, and I've enjoyed it and thanks again for having me.

That's all the football history we have today, folks.

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