You Gotta Have Balls by Brandon Steiner

Author:Brandon Steiner [Steiner, Brandon]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781118172070
Publisher: Wiley
Published: 2012-07-13T04:00:00+00:00

On My Own

I did anything I could to stay afloat. I went back to hosting events at venues around the city: guest bartender nights tying together celebrities, charities, and liquor companies; fight nights; other celebrity events, like golf outings. All sorts of marketing campaigns for all sorts of bars and restaurants.

I sold fight night packages to restaurants like Mickey Mantle's and Tavern on the Green. I'd sell them the satellite broadcast, celebrity clientele, and the other necessary ingredients for a great fight night, and they'd sell tickets. I sold some packages to corporations that held fight nights in their conference rooms for their employees and associates. I built up a steady little business for myself. I even ended up helping to open a few bars as far away as Miami. All the while, it was becoming more and more apparent that sports moved people as much as celebrities did.

Still, as time marched on, more and more people were signing up for cable subscriptions and getting access to pay-per-view at home. I knew that soon they weren't going to need to leave their homes to watch boxing, or any other sport. The business model of organizing promotions and events around premium sports broadcasts wasn't going to last much longer.

The final nail in the coffin came in 1991, when Mike Tyson was convicted of rape. He had been scheduled to fight Evander Holyfield for the heavyweight championship in November of that year; I had lined up big fight events at several bars. It was going to be my biggest payday yet, and when Tyson got locked up, it became a crippling loss. I was going to have to find other ways to make my business work.

Before the end of the fight night era, however, I got a phone call from my friend Michael Ritz. And no matter what you call it—fate, luck, coincidence—that phone call was a product of years of hard work creating sports events at bars.

Michael worked at the Howard Marlboro Group, with a man named Don Raskin. Currently a senior partner at Manhattan Media Ensemble, at that time, Don ran the promotional department of HMG. Cutty Sark Scotch Whiskey had just hired the firm to create a promotional campaign; Michael recommended to Don that they farm out the work to me. At first Don was reluctant to give away any business, but Michael convinced him that I had a unique skill set to bring to the account, based on my experience working with celebrities to market restaurants and bars.

After all, in reality, I didn't have to be a competitor. If I helped create a great campaign for Cutty Sark, it would only reflect well on HMG, strengthening the trust between the two companies. (I'd be the What Else HMG could provide to Cutty.)

Needless to say, no sooner did Don call me with the parameters of the project than my mind started racing, dreaming up possible events for the whiskey brand.

I had recently done some promotions with bars that had Pop A Shot arcade games.

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