Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Stay Sporty goes beyond the box score to explore the real stories and jobs behind the sports and entertainment industry. Produced by the College of Hospitality, Retail and Sport Management at the University of South Carolina, this series is dedicated to authentic conversations and professional growth.
Join host Adonis "Sporty" Jeralds as he spotlights the personal journeys and professional insights of former students, alumni, mentees, and industry colleagues. From behind-the-scenes anecdotes to deep dives into industry evolution, Stay Sporty connects the dots between where professionals started and where they are today.
What to Expect:
The Journey: Candid discussions on career paths and pivotal moments.
Real Insights: A look at current roles, responsibilities, and industry trends.
Mentorship & Legacy: Reflections on guidance, growth, and wisdom for future leaders.
Whether you are a student, a young professional, or a fan of the business of sports, join us as we inspire the next generation and strengthen our community.
Automatically Transcribed With Podsqueeze
Sporty Jeralds 00:00:00 Hello and welcome to Stay Sporty, a podcast presented by the College of Hospitality, Retail and Sport Management at the University of South Carolina, where we have engaging conversation with industry leaders in sport and entertainment. today our guest is Matt Sarabia, Vice president, Event booking and transportation at MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, new Jersey. A good friend and former teammate of mine when we were at the Bobcats. So, Matt, thanks so much for being here today with me.
Matt Sarabia 00:00:33 Thanks for being here. I hope you're doing well.
Sporty Jeralds 00:00:36 Yep. Doing great. Doing great. So let's jump right into it. share with our audience how you got to where you're at at one of the busiest and largest stadiums in the world.
Matt Sarabia 00:00:49 Yeah, I mean, I think it, it kind of all starts with just with my upbringing. I kind of grew up with the public assembly, business around my dinner table. My parents were both kind of involved with it. So my mom was a regional property manager. She ran malls regionally.
Matt Sarabia 00:01:06 When I was growing up, and my father ran a small arena at Lehigh University where I would work for him periodically during high school, at events, wrestling tournaments, concerts, etc. so kind of, got into this business organically, following college. I didn't I didn't major in sports business. It wasn't really a popular or or it wasn't a major available a lot of places at the time. So once I got out of out of college, I was still kind of lost and trying to figure out what I wanted to do. And I was fortunate enough to get, connected with somebody that worked at Lehigh who had relocated down to Winter Park, Florida, at Rollins College. So just on a chance they needed somebody to run their gym and set up all their events. And so I moved from Pennsylvania to Winter Park, Florida for a job that paid me $7.50 an hour and it was a ten month position at Rollins College. So and that was probably a year or so or two years after I got graduated from college.
Matt Sarabia 00:02:11 So, I was only there a short period of time. I was fortunate enough to connect with some folks, and I opened up the Walt Disney World Sports Complex, Disney's Wide World of Sports, in the late 90s. And so I spent three years there and then had the opportunity to relocate to Atlanta, to work at Philips Arena, where I became the event coordinator. And I spent five years in Atlanta, and that's really where I cut my teeth and got super hooked in the sports entertainment industry NHL, NBA, concerts, all that stuff. It's a very busy arena, you know, the garden of the South, if you will. And then from Atlanta, I moved to Charlotte where we we got connected and I was part of the opening team at the Bobcats Arena, which is now a spectrum centre. spent a few years there and then had the opportunity to move up to the northeast and be the assistant general manager, for the soon to be designed and opened Barclays Center for the Brooklyn Nets. unfortunately, that project was delayed.
Matt Sarabia 00:03:15 And during that delay, I was able to really I just got super lucky and was able to join the new Meadowlands Stadium team, and that ultimately became MetLife Stadium. And so since 2009, I've been at MetLife Stadium. And that's kind of like the The Path. It's kind of like, relocate from the northeast down to the south and reworked my way back up the East coast. And, along the way, you know, picked up a wife and some kids. And, now we're all here in new Jersey, and we've been here for some time, and, you know, who knows what is next? But, pretty happy here now.
Sporty Jeralds 00:03:53 That's awesome. Matt, you, have spent some time in both types of venues. talk about what a and I share this jokingly. I think some of us, I'm an arena guy. I'm a unashamed. That's my love. you know, the dynamic nature of arenas. you're at a stadium now, I think. Arena guys. Thank you guys at the stadiums.
Sporty Jeralds 00:04:20 you know, you got, for somebody who has just one team, you obviously have two teams there and a lot going on, but we're like, okay, those guys, they got 10 or 12 football games a year and pretty much play golf the rest of the year. But share, share what a typical day looks like. And and even more so about how busy MetLife Stadium is with all the events that you guys do.
Matt Sarabia 00:04:43 Sure. Well, I mean, listen for the golf analogy. I played golf three weeks ago and it's the first time I played in two years. So, you know, part of that's weather, but also part of it, you know, how busy we've been. But, Yeah. Having cut my teeth in the arena industry, I think it really helped me to move into, specifically this stadium because this stadium is unlike any other stadium. So, you know, we obviously do 20 NFL games a year, 19 or 20, depending on whether one of the teams plays in, in, in Europe.
Matt Sarabia 00:05:14 But we also just if you just want to use last year or this year as an example, you know, we did 25 concerts and ten international soccer matches. So we did 35 ticketed non NFL stadium wide events, which you know, the 25 concerts measures up with most arenas.
Sporty Jeralds 00:05:36 Absolutely.
Matt Sarabia 00:05:37 You know so you know in in addition to that you know the stadium with the NFL and the non NFL stadium wide events. We we host, you know over 200 special events a year that's going to be sponsor events for both the Jets and Giants. Bar mitzvahs, corporate parties, inaugural galas, etc., etc.. Like this. This stadium is busy. You know, all the time. And, Yeah, like I said, it's well over, you know, 250 event days a year, you know, for a stadium. And that's, you know, part of that's the market. But also part of it is we're super aggressive and we're we like to, you know, we don't like to we don't like to have dark days if we can help it.
Sporty Jeralds 00:06:23 Matt, I know part of your responsibility is booking. Are you booking those special events or do you have someone else who's booking the smaller, you know, kinds of events?
Matt Sarabia 00:06:35 Well, we have a so my boss, who, you know, Ron Vanderbeek, he's the CEO of the of the building. He primarily books the non NFL events that are stadium wide ticketed events. And I assist him with that contract deals, things of that nature, advancing those days and running those events. We have a special events department who reports up through me and Iran that books all of the non ticketed events that go on throughout the year. And they also are responsible for assisting both the Jets and Giants with contractually obligated events that they have with all of their sponsors and partners. So once the NFL schedule comes out in May, both teams huddle up with our special events department and they start slotting dates on when they can do stuff. And that's all done with our stadium wide concert and major ticketed event calendar. Kept in mind that so all those special events can be moved based on the major events, because a lot of those major events might not have been locked in yet on date.
Matt Sarabia 00:07:38 So that's kind of how it works.
Sporty Jeralds 00:07:41 Yeah, yeah, I get it. Got it. You know, and I know, knowing you and Ron so long and even for those smaller events, you know, if it's a small luncheon, our name is on the line. Kind of. Every time someone comes into the building and we want the the attention, we want them to have the same experience from a customer standpoint, as someone who's coming to one of the NFL games or, you know, a soccer match. So, attention to detail.
Matt Sarabia 00:08:09 You know, it's not like it used to be where, you know, if you serve a cold beer and a hot, hot dog, you know, everybody's happy. It's it's different now. There's competitive environments. even though we're the only football stadium in the market, we still have competition. we can get into that a little bit later if you want to, but we, you know, the food's got to be good, even for these special FIFA tours and all these different small things.
Matt Sarabia 00:08:30 Like you said, the food's got to be good. The access has to be good, the service has to be good, or they're going to start to go somewhere else.
Sporty Jeralds 00:08:36 Absolutely, absolutely. Everybody's clamoring for business. Matt, you've already touched on a couple of times I have a thing as a parent, and I think a lot of us understand this. Our kids keep score. You know, well, dad, you did this for him or her? Why aren't you doing this for me? Or can I do this because you did that. You have a unique, situation, maybe LA, I think might be similar, but you have, the Jets and the Giants, which, in my understanding, they're supposed to be equal partners in the the stadiums. Can you share, how you're able to balance, that kind of tit for tat and make sure that both of them feel like they're both getting equal treatment from, you guys, as well as everybody that works for you.
Matt Sarabia 00:09:26 Sure. I mean, well, we actually are co-owned by both teams.
Matt Sarabia 00:09:31 So the Jets and Giants, as opposed to renovating the Giants Stadium or the Jets building a stadium on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. They came together to design and construct a stadium together. Just because of the costs and just because it's such a it's such a huge undertaking. And then they created an operating company to run the stadium on their behalf. And that includes all of the non NFL events and even their game day operations and running the stadium on their behalf. So we really literally have two owners. They're not two tenants or one owner and one tenant. They're both equal owners. it's kind of like that's why the stadium is, you know, largely gray. And design the way it is is because it's got to embrace both teams on their game days so you can light it up green, or you can light it up blue and red. So that's that's kind of like the easiest way to to explain that. But in terms of, in terms of dealing with both of them and treating them both equally, I have to be honest, they make that kind of easy.
Matt Sarabia 00:10:31 You know, the challenging times are when we have a Sunday game and a Monday night game or, you know, Thursday and a Sunday, the back to backs getting kind of touch and go because each team needs access to the stadium to be ready. We've got to flip the building. But you know treating them both equally is very easy because it's just very. Like this weekend, I work for the jazz. I mean, that's it. And I'm there here in the building today, and they'll be around tomorrow. And I've got my colleagues that I work with them. I'm working them for a long time. So I work for the Jets. After the Jets came on Sunday, I started Giants. We've got Giants and Packers next Sunday and I work for the Giants. And the Jets understand that and the Giants understand that. This week's a Jets week. So they kind of they respect each other to that to you know to that extent. So which is good. So it's not too difficult. the teams do things differently you know.
Matt Sarabia 00:11:25 So they, they sell their, their tickets differently. Different pricing club uses different parking was different. Now it's kind of like they're on the same plan. The ones more mobile and less, actual physical parking. But we can get into that if you'd like to, but they're very different. But once you spend a season or two with them, you kind of put irons itself out. So not not too bad, really.
Sporty Jeralds 00:11:54 Matt, I know it was part of the the forward thinking and the design of the stadium, but, share with particularly our students, out there how you guys, you mentioned a Sunday in a Monday game. What's the logistics of. Okay, we got jets today, and we got Giants tomorrow. You know, Monday night. How do we how long does it take? What kind of numbers of men, you know, manpower. Do you need equipment. What is that like, to have that, stadium ready for the game at 8:00 the next night?
Matt Sarabia 00:12:29 So there's literally over, like, 1500 jets items that need to be converted to Giants items and vice versa on a back to back Ring of Honor photos on sweet levels, the field being painted like we don't rip end zones, we don't have end zone trays.
Matt Sarabia 00:12:49 We just we paint. Now it's a solid, field. So we we rinse, scrub and repaint for the for the team that's coming in after the Sunday game. Wow. And it takes, you know, all night and all the next day and you know our our gates open for a 815 game at 615. So you know it's a it's an 18 hour operation. you know, maybe, you know, 20, 24 hour operation in some cases. But, you know, we've done some creative things, like in merchandise and in, like I mentioned, the sweet pictures and stuff like that. Like the hallways of our suites are lined with all jets pictures of former players, and we just unscrew them and flip them and turn them around in their Giants photos. We have quick, quick turn merchandise, you know, shelving and stuff that has Giants on one side and jets on the other. So you can turn a lot. You don't have to re, you know, unload the whole team store and reload and it's all in there.
Matt Sarabia 00:13:46 So, a lot of that stuff was really well thought out. But I mean, it is, you know, it's not our most it's not our favorite thing to do to be the best. You know, we we try to appeal to the to the NFL and the scheduling, guru at the, at the NFL to try to, you know, mitigate the back to backs just because, you know, just because of who we are and just, you know, where we are. But, yeah, I don't think we think we only have one this year. We've had we've we've done it multiple times over the years. And it's just, you know, you circle that day and you you're just, you know, typically when you do a back to back like that though, there's another bye week or there's a weekend off where we can put something in a building or have a weekend off, which is, always nice.
Sporty Jeralds 00:14:28 Gotcha, gotcha. Now, the, I guess with the the Jets and the Giants, those are pretty much the same types of contracts.
Sporty Jeralds 00:14:39 But what about with concerts? Are you guys, you know, the old days when I was managing buildings. It was kind of one of those things we, you know, certain the promoters didn't ask for certain things and we didn't ask certain things for them. Is it all kind of one big family now is that you guys are still able to negotiate and carve out the things you really need to make your money and, and let them have their, their stuff.
Matt Sarabia 00:15:07 Yeah. I mean, without getting too, too deep into the weeds so that the football end of it, there's no contracts, there's no anything. It's just on Giants game day, all the revenue and expenses are the Giants. Gotcha. That's game day. It's all the Jets on a back to back. You know, there's a line somewhere on a clock that goes to the you know, goes over the the next team or whatever. So you figure that out. That's not that's not the end of the world for concerts. Promoters are always asking for things 40.
Matt Sarabia 00:15:41 Right. That's probably I don't know if it's more or less than when you were responsible for doing that, but there, you know. Now, listen, we have two baseball stadiums in our market, so so we're obviously the New York New Jersey market and it's the largest market in the world. Everybody just thinks it's just easy to book all these shows. You get everything and that's just not the case. You know they don't build, you know, 800 to $1 billion stadiums for baseball and not expect them to not have other events in their building to make money. Right. So it's a competitive market. A lot of those stadiums are willing to give up a lot more than, say, we are. we are we are not in the business of doing high risk deals. We want the deals to be fair. We want everybody to make money. You know the best. It's the old adage, the best deal is when both both sides get what they want or both, both wins. So that's the kind of deals we do with our promoters, what we try to do and what we've tried to do, once we open the building was Let's just make sure that the promoters that bring their shows here have the better experience here and make as much money as possible as they would at going to Citi Field at the stadium or some other, you know, well-run stadiums because they all are.
Matt Sarabia 00:16:57 So that's what we've tried to do. And so we have certain advantages over the stadium, you know, capacity, parking. You know, we have a lot of premium inventory that adds to your gross increases, your, you know, what your gross potential can be for a show because you've got a higher ticket price in some of those areas. So we we do that. We have great load in and load out, great production, amenities. You know, it's just we just we try to stand on that to be competitive. But in terms of, you know, what the promoters are asking for and deals, all of our deals are a little bit different with promoters, but a lot of it has to do with how many shows are you bringing to us? You know, like last year, Live Nation brought us like 15 or 16 shows. I mean, that's That's a lot. So we're obviously, you know, there's some things that we're doing for them and there's back to backs and, you know, sharing of stages and doing some things to keep their costs down that we try to do so that, you know, that we remain good partners with them.
Sporty Jeralds 00:17:57 Yeah. And I don't think, you know, I was fortunate the the building I managed, the Charlotte Coliseum was the largest coliseum in the country at the time. So that's an advantage you have. I always joked with my students that every promoter thinks they're the best promoter in the world, so you can use that a little bit against them, you know? Well, if you go to the baseball stadium, you can sell 50,000, but here you can sell 80,000, you know. And so that helps a little bit. But somebody who is smart realizes, like I can only sell 50,000 seats probably I'm probably better off going to the baseball stadium. But obviously, Matt, I'm, you know, I'm a little bit prejudiced. You're one of my buddies. But it's got to be more from a, I would suspect from a consumer standpoint, from a ease of loading all of those things, your stadium is going to be more conducive for a concert than sticking, you know, a stage out in the middle of the outfield, you know, at a baseball stadium.
Sporty Jeralds 00:18:57 No, no disrespect to those guys, but to your point, everybody is trying to make as much money as they can, and they're going to try to do and create creative ways to get that money, man. You know, with the non baseball.
Matt Sarabia 00:19:10 And those those other stadiums may be as a directive from ownership may be a lot more flexible with the revenue streams and sharing and doing things like that. And so we, you know listen we we try not to get into that, but we, we try to do our best. I mean, we have certain acts and promoters that have not wanted to bring certain acts here because they're they're scared that they couldn't sell, you know, because of our size and their capacity. But you can always you can move stuff around to the production prospect perspective. And I will say and obviously, you know, because I work here. But I will tell you that this is one of the better stadiums to see a concert in. You know, high and tight.
Matt Sarabia 00:19:49 There's no bad seats. The acoustics are as good as they can be, considering they don't have a roof. and a lot of ways, domed stadiums sound a lot worse. But, you know, it's a really good experience to come here. It's better than an amphitheater or a baseball stadium, in my opinion.
Sporty Jeralds 00:20:03 Yeah, absolutely. Man. You, we we were together a few weeks ago, and we both kind of shared, that it's better to be, Oh, it's okay to be number two. And I think we want to I want to amplify that with our students that, we all aspire to that corner office sort of mentality. I want to be the big boss, but, you know, assistant coaches, you know, the vice president, a lot of of value in not having the headaches and dealing with some of the things that the top person does. Can you share a little bit about how you're comfortable in that space and and how you do your job and support Ron, who's a buddy of mine as well.
Matt Sarabia 00:20:48 Yeah, sure. I mean, listen, I've been I've been really fortunate and most of the people throughout the years, you probably know. So whether that's Atlanta, Charlotte here. so I've, I've been fortunate enough to learn and work for some of the best people in the business and people that embrace the old school nature of our business, but also embrace the new school. And, you know, one of the things that, you know, Ron and other people that I've worked for, allow, allow us to do is do our job to the best of our ability, but also let us make decisions and do things and do our jobs and support us. The stuff that, you know, if you're as you're looking to advance and climb, you know, I think somebody told me it might have been might have been Trey Mizell down in Atlanta or somebody somebody down in Atlanta. I mean, I think I think he told me, you know, the further you go in this industry, and the further you get away from the events, the less likely you're going to like your job.
Matt Sarabia 00:21:44 Right. And I just didn't know at that time I was younger and I was like, he doesn't want to talk about, I just want to make more money. And and five and, you know, get titles and all that stuff. But he was right. So I the one thing that I've been fortunate with is that I've been able to advance, but I've also been really I'm still close to the events, whether that's booking, contracting, running them, running the building we run. We have a pretty lean, team here. And Ron, you know, you know, he's he's the leader of that group and he reports directly to all of our owners. The benefit of that is that, I mean, for me and for other people at my level is that he does he gets to it all stops with him. I mean, it just, you know, at the end of the day, he's responsible for this and he's responsible for the ownership. And that's a that's a huge responsibility. And it's not it's not something that, you know, that you want necessarily all the time like I'm able to do new things and still participate and still, you know, have a good, have a good profession and have a good career.
Matt Sarabia 00:22:44 But I don't have to worry necessarily about all the things that, that he does. at the end of the day, there's, there's usually one guy, whether that's the owner of a football team or a basketball team or the general manager or something like that. Like there's one guy and it's a it's a heavy bag of bricks. So, you know, he he allowed he listen, he gives us enough of that. He exposes us to a lot of good stuff. if we do something wrong, he, you know, get a chance to learn from it, and he gets to expose us, you know, he'll listen. Something happens, and it's my fault. I mean, don't don't tell ownership that this is what happened and stuff like that. But he does it based on the fact that he's the leader of the team, that, you know, when things went wrong and went right. And thankfully, for the most part, things go right a lot more than yeah, and they go wrong.
Sporty Jeralds 00:23:29 Well, it's a tribute to you guys because we've seen a lot of our colleagues over the years. Matt, who aren't in the spaces they were in, and we know they got sideways with someone personally. and yeah, tribute to to Ron being able to navigate, those owners and we know, you know, just being quite frank, the, the, the, the on field, records haven't been great over the last few years, so we know that kind of, makes it even even tougher. you know, that people are looking at other, parts of the business more critically, maybe, than if if we're winning. and so tribute to, to you guys and I, I can see what you mean. I the most fun I had probably was when I was an event manager and just kind of being there every day and, and working through the challenges and, and seeing the, you know, the lights go down and the, you know, the band come on stage or whatever. and that was tough for me as I became the manager of the venue to not sort of stick my nose.
Sporty Jeralds 00:24:34 And the team had had set up the plan. And then I come in at 5:00 that afternoon and say, well, we only have 25 police officers. You know that I had to really resist that a lot of times.
Matt Sarabia 00:24:46 Yeah, yeah. No, it's and listen, I mean, yeah, the results on the field haven't been great. But the non NFL stuff that we've been able to accomplish here has been really good. and I mean, one thing that's a testament to Ron and you know, our CEO who you met when you were here, Mark, and stuff like that, is that for the most part, Ron's management team, when we opened the stadium in 2010 and 11 are still here. There's only a couple that now we brought in new people. We staff has grown a little bit, but I mean there's, you know, there's like five, six, seven people that are been here 15 years. I mean that that says it all like, and, you know, I've learned being at grass isn't always greener on the other side.
Matt Sarabia 00:25:31 Just from my opening remarks about my, you know, moving up the East Coast at different places. You know, some of those places weren't always the greatest places to work. But you you learn that if you land somewhere that is good and the culture is good, then it's like, it doesn't matter what your title is, you want to find a place that you're like, respected, and you can work hard and learn. But it's not like you're working for crazy people. I mean. Right. Say, but that's what's crazy. People don't last. And, you know, sometimes you get yourself in a bind. But like, for the most part, you should be able to, you know, if you find a place that you like, don't get antsy about being a free agent or leaving. That's advice I would give younger people in our industry.
Sporty Jeralds 00:26:16 Yeah, it's a it's a truism. And I you go back to that working for $7.50 on that first gig. But, you know, you you said something that I tell our students that, you know, people don't leave jobs, people leave people.
Sporty Jeralds 00:26:29 So if you're a leader and you've got constant turnover, if people are not out there and you're helping them get better opportunities if they're leaving. You gotta really look in the mirror and say, what is that I'm doing wrong? That these people continue to and I have this kind of churn in my, my organization. So, yeah.
Matt Sarabia 00:26:47 I mean, the best thing that's ever happened to me professionally, I've told you this. If I got laid off. Yeah. After closing on a house and having our second daughter, I got late. I mean, that's not a good feeling, but, you know, it's the. It's one of the best things that ever happened to me. It allowed me to, you know, I was out of work for only like 4 or 5 weeks. Which is another thing. If you treat people right throughout your career, when you get jammed up, you can go out to 300 or 400 people with an email and say, hey, I'm, you know, things haven't gone well here or the economy crashed.
Matt Sarabia 00:27:20 I need a job. You can go out to people and do that. So, you know, when that happened to me, with the delay in the Barclays Center, I was able to connect, having worked for the nets and laid in the building that Ron was working at Izod Center, Continental Airlines Arena. I was able to connect with him. And then I interviewed and I landed here, and I've been here since, like so, without having, you know, that adversity sometimes, you know, you don't find the best opportunity or the best thing for your career.
Sporty Jeralds 00:27:48 Yeah, absolutely. I know part of your job, Matt, is transportation. When I was at the stadium a few weeks ago, had a great experience. I, I was staying out in new Jersey. I took the Uber over, but then me and my my son and my future son in law caught the train back in, and that was seamless. I mean, it was awesome. Talk about it a little bit.
Sporty Jeralds 00:28:12 Maybe the how you can get so many people back to their respective destinations seamlessly. after particularly like a big football game, big soccer match, concert, whatever the case might be.
Matt Sarabia 00:28:26 Yeah. I mean, that's really as it relates to NFL operations here at the building. That's that's Ron wants me primarily dealing with that. Like, that's my number one. responsibility is implementing the team parking plans and working the ingress and egress and getting people in and out of this property as seamlessly as possible. You know, we had, 77,000 people here last week for the Giants 40 Niners game. And when you have that many people at the stadium, I mean, you're like the third or fourth largest city in the state of new Jersey at that time. You know, like it's it's just a lot. And so what we're doing in many respects is loading and unloading a small town or a small city over the course of an eight hour a day or ten hour a day. So, you know, what makes it possible is obviously a lot of coordination and a lot of planning.
Matt Sarabia 00:29:28 But it's also, you know, a lot, a lot of things are, impact that, you know, attendance, whether score of the game. Things of that nature. But, we are you know, we're blessed to have a lot of parking. We're also cursed to have a lot of parking. We have when you have a lot of parking, like you have parking problems, you don't have a lot of parking. You just don't have anywhere. But, you know, you gotta figure out a way to bring them here and get them out of here. So, you know, we have I think we have 22, 23,500 parking spaces, not including what we use across the street at the American Dream for football games. And then we also, you know, we have a capacity of doing 10,000 people an hour through new Jersey transit on a train. And we also do 2500 to 3000 people from Port Authority on a bus. So we've got four modes of transportation and quote unquote, parking or arrival and departure means here it's going to be public transportation, Personal parking.
Matt Sarabia 00:30:35 Rideshare. And then it's obviously the bus and train. So there's that. Those are the four modes to get in and out of the property. So we have a pretty robust rideshare operation too, which is our number one headache. specifically post event. Yes. There's post NFL game, post event, any event, any concert, anything. You know, girls night or boys night out for all the concerts. And they're not nobody wants to drive. And you know, we got thousands of cars trying to come on this property while we're trying to get thousands of cars out of here. And it's it's very it's very challenging. But yeah. So we we're blessed to have a combination of, of those modes to get people on and off the property. We're also our location is very good. You know, we've got 3 or 4 major interstate highways that are around this property. So you can get here from multiple, areas in the region, which helps. So.
Sporty Jeralds 00:31:29 Yeah.
Matt Sarabia 00:31:30 Yeah. I mean, that's.
Matt Sarabia 00:31:31 And we, you know, listen, we've done traffic studies and I mean, both traffic studies we've done recently are just they say you're basically what you're doing following a major event here as you're doing an evacuation of a small city.
Sporty Jeralds 00:31:42 Yeah.
Matt Sarabia 00:31:43 It's almost like emergency evacuation. But it's you're not it's not it's not you're not closing the new Jersey Turnpike or Route three or the Parkway. You're you're just maximizing your volume out as fast as you can do it, which essentially is emergency evacuation.
Sporty Jeralds 00:31:57 What a what a great visual that paints for us, evacuating a small town. Matt. Well, some of the challenging events we talked when we were together about, how intense, fever are in their preparations and and wanting, I guess, everything to be really tight. Talk about some of the challenging events you do have at the stadium other than the football games.
Matt Sarabia 00:32:26 Yeah. The most challenging events are the ones that are not coming here in a rhythm. They're not tours, right? It's not Beyonce, it's not Kendrick, it's not Coldplay.
Matt Sarabia 00:32:38 It's like because those guys are out and about. Unless you're an opening date of a tour, they're pretty much coming in on schedule. No matter if they're going to stay for one one show or three shows or whatever it is. Beyonce played five shows. You know, they're coming here in a rhythm and they've got their load in and load out and all of their stuff kind of like ironed out. It's the stick built, it's the one offs. It's the WrestleMania is WrestleMania was super challenging. We have done two WrestleMania this year. SummerSlam this year was the first day. It was a two day SummerSlam that was super challenging. Army, Navy, Army, Navy is not just a football game. Army Navy is like no, it's it's it's it's it's own thing. And it's it's it's like one of the greatest events you can go to, but it's, you know, it's it's a massive undertaking. So it's those one off events that you're only doing once in a while, or that only happen once a year or once every few years that rotate different sites that are that are the most challenging by far.
Sporty Jeralds 00:33:39 Got you. you know, one of the great things about being an arena, guys, we didn't have, kind of that, that weather component as much as you guys do. that's something I want you to touch on. when you're doing one of those big events and you get notification of some severe weather approaching, talk a little bit. You're talking about evacuating a small town. when the event is over, talk about protecting a small town when severe weather is coming. Shelter in place and some of those challenges you guys face.
Matt Sarabia 00:34:16 Yeah. I mean, the planning for those events are is done. You know, let's just say the the show or the event is on a Saturday. We're looking at the weather on Wednesday and Thursday because looking at it any earlier than that, it's to, you know, unreliable forecast. But heading into Wednesday, Thursday for a Saturday concert, you start to get an idea. And so usually on that day, a Thursday we would or Friday we would schedule a meteorologist to be on site.
Matt Sarabia 00:34:47 Like we'll actually have a meteorologist on site from the. Yeah. The morning of the of the event. And what we'll do is based on what they're looking at and seeing, we'll schedule. This is all done through our VP of safety Services and Security. in coordination with State Police Ron, our president myself department heads. He'll he'll schedule an initial weather meeting, you know, 11:00 in the morning, something like that, to talk about the timing of the arrival of potential weather, because it's when the weather arrives based on where you are in your day impacts how you respond. So if the gates to the to the event don't open up until 530. We've got bad weather arriving at 230 or 3. You've got thousands of people in the parking lots, but the gates aren't open, so they need you to go to their cars or go to the walk bridge, or go across the street to the mall. As you get later in the day, you're continuing to have weather meetings, and we'll have those weather meetings based on what we're seeing.
Matt Sarabia 00:35:51 We can have those weather meetings every 45 minutes to an hour. We all go to the Situation Room and we talk about what's going on. and then we make decisions based on that, you know, and we try to do is and I know this will probably be asked in one of your classes. So what we try to do is we try to schedule a weather relocation or somebody will call it shelter in place. We call it a weather weather relocation. We try to we try to have the weather relocation scheduled. And this is no matter if there's somebody on the stage or there's nobody performing or there's nothing happening or the buildings just just got opened. No matter what the attendance is, we try to schedule that weather relocation 20 minutes before the weather's supposed to strike us, or it's supposed to be lightning within an eight mile radius of us. So it's 20 minutes in advance of that, because we need 20 minutes to clear the stadium Bowl and put people on concourses and ramps so that they're already out of the way before the weather gets.
Sporty Jeralds 00:36:48 Gotcha.
Matt Sarabia 00:36:49 Sometimes. Sometimes that means our VP of security and a state police captain get up on stage. You know, the artist is gone off the stage. They say they get on a mic, a hot mic, and they say that half of the floor is going away from the stage, and the front part of the floor is going past the stage, and the rest of you are going into the concourses, and they'll do that on a live mic, old school. And then we run. Then we run the audio in the video and we keep the loop running during the, you know, during the, the relocation. And then we start to get word on when it's going to pass and when we're going to release the bowl, and then when the show is going to start and we, you know, we go backwards in it, we start to release areas and, and back then the artist comes on stage and continues.
Sporty Jeralds 00:37:34 Man, that is that is amazing that every now and then I'm glad I'm not a manager of a building.
Matt Sarabia 00:37:42 Because weather. Listen, weather is the worst part. At a stadium with no roof. I mean, it just is, like they joke about it. The people that worked at Giant Stadium all those years, and they said they they had like, one, like, shelter in place, maybe. And they used to just go up on the roof and look, they would just, they would look to the west and or and, and say, well that looks pretty bad. You know, like that's the way it was 30 years ago. Now it's you've got all this information and in the interest of safety, you're able to really time things out and you can really look at things all the way right up into the last minute. And there's a lot of. We're in a unique location where the stadium is, where the weather, the weather coming our way often splits and goes around us. Like, just by the way, the mountains are how low we are, where we are. So, you know, we don't want to, we don't want to.
Matt Sarabia 00:38:40 We don't want to relocate 25 to 30,000, 40,000 people. We don't have to. So we we use that that technology.
Sporty Jeralds 00:38:48 Yeah. That's awesome. Thanks for that. For sharing that. Matt. Future, anything you can think of in terms of events of the future or where the industry might be going that, would, would intrigue our audience.
Matt Sarabia 00:39:07 I mean, I listen, I think the most encouraging thing is that live events are like they're fully back. Like, we are from the from, the the pandemic. I mean, you know, obviously we were back two years after, but I mean, like, really now it's it's we're wall to wall. And I think one of the, one of the cool things is that I'm surprised every year or every few years about the artists that can sell us dated, you know, back back when we first opened, it was like, okay, what are the stones? When are you two, when Springsteen come and when are all these people coming? And then all of a sudden, you know, Coldplay got big.
Matt Sarabia 00:39:41 We did, you know, we did two system of a down shows this summer. You know, we did Kendrick Lamar and SZA. We you know, we like all of these artists that you would think, no they're not gonna that's lighten up a little bit more than they can chew in terms of, you know, selling a stadium. You know, Jonas Brothers Chris Brown sold two, two shows this summer. Like, you know, not all these artists I'm super familiar with or do I know when they release new music? But I can tell you that I'm connected to where, you know, My Chemical Romance had 45,000 people in this building. That's an arena show, right? So that's the encouraging thing about live, live events. And I think that live entertainment is also getting more and more creative. I mean, I got emails about a polo tournament in our stadium and, you know, lacrosse in, you know, our state rugby in our stadium. You know, things that don't fit golf, live golf events, you know, things like that.
Matt Sarabia 00:40:36 So like that kind of stuff is is pretty cool. But as you know, as you mentioned earlier and you know, anytime you build a multi-million dollar stadium, you can't just have 82 baseball games or whatever. Like you got to have other stuff. So, hopefully that's the thing that I see that's exciting is that there's enough to go around for everybody. some of it's good, some of it's bad in terms of technology. Technology is kind of exciting, but it's also, challenging, you know, mobile tickets, mobile parking, you know, things like that. That's that's tough. you know, the one, the one good thing we will probably talk about is in closing, But this doesn't seem like a business that we're not going to need people in anytime soon. Like we're going to need people. You're you're bringing people. You need to have people.
Sporty Jeralds 00:41:27 Right.
Matt Sarabia 00:41:27 Right. You know, if you're if you're bringing robots, you don't need people, but you're bringing people that are spending money and they're taking their time out of their day to come to your place, you're going to need people there to deal with it.
Matt Sarabia 00:41:36 Not just everything's tech. And, so that's that's comforting to know.
Sporty Jeralds 00:41:41 Yeah. Real quick aside. Matt, how many people, if you even have a handle on this, how many people does it take for? 82,000. A sold out event. You're parking concession. Any idea how many people it takes on on one of those days to make everything work?
Matt Sarabia 00:42:03 Yeah, I would say you're looking at, like, 4500 people. 5000? Wow. That includes your your your concessions is your largest right group. So that's 1800 to 2000. Then you've got safety services. Guest services. State police. Parking and traffic. Transit staff? Yeah. You're you're looking at. You're looking at 4500 people, something like that. And then if you're doing a a Super Bowl or a World Cup, maybe more just because, yeah, you've expanded your, your building and carved it up into different areas you have to control. But yeah, that's that's about the number.
Sporty Jeralds 00:42:42 that's that's awesome. You you just jig something in my memory there.
Sporty Jeralds 00:42:47 So you were there when you guys did the Super Bowl. the question I had was, you know, your favorite event of all time, and that popped into my mind. But that what what is. And this doesn't have to be what? MetLife Stadium. anything stick out in all the venues you've worked in? Like, man, that was pretty cool. Or, got to meet this person, whatever the case might be, anything stick out. That was my best favorite event of all time.
Matt Sarabia 00:43:17 Yeah. I mean, it's hard. It's it's hard. I mean, it's like if you if you want to talk about favorite events, the sporting event might be Army-Navy. Wow. concert's too many to list, but I'm a. You know, I like the bands that make the building feel small when they're like, U2, the pros, the ones that really do a good job of making you feel like even if you're in the 300 level, that you're part of the environment. Gotcha. And then like non-sporting or non entertainment events, we do this thing every six and a half years.
Matt Sarabia 00:43:55 It's called the Agudath of Israel. And it's the it's we did the 12th and 13th cycle of it. So its first year it was in June. The second time we did it was six and a half years later. It was January. And then we're doing it again next summer. In 27, 27. It'll be in June. And it's they they read a page of this document. it's primarily Jewish reading this document every day. And on the final day of reading, they have 70,000 people here in the building. Wow. Celebrated. And, you know, the relationships that we have with these rabbis. These are the coolest thing ever. I mean, like, it's like, it's the coolest thing ever. I mean, you know, they're just such good people, and, and and that's a, that's a, that's a high threat event.
Sporty Jeralds 00:44:48 Yes.
Matt Sarabia 00:44:48 75,000. And they have other events that are part of it in arenas in different parts of the country. But the main event and reading and celebration is is here at our stadium.
Matt Sarabia 00:44:59 And so we're doing that for the third time. And that's probably like the coolest thing. You know, you just watch it and you're watching, you're looking at it and you just can't believe it. Like it's just it's phenomenal. Like the you know these people are that involved with their faith and that they're they just have such discipline to read a page of a document and study it a day for six and a half years, and then they celebrate the last page. It's really, really cool. Really.
Sporty Jeralds 00:45:25 Wow. That's all. Thanks. Thanks for sharing that. Matt, the, the final kind of winding down here. you know, I was up, as I mentioned, visiting the New York area a few weeks ago and was in Times Square. if you could have one piece of advice on a billboard in Times Square that you would want to share with, particularly at young people, trying to build a career. We love venue management, but just trying to build a career in this industry, sport and entertainment.
Sporty Jeralds 00:45:57 What would, what would it be?
Matt Sarabia 00:46:02 Well, I got a lot I got a, I got a few that are that are doozies. and most of them are. Most of them are clean and don't include profanity, which is so I can share them with you. But I would say, like some of the, some of the, the standard lines would be, you know, spend money like you own the company, like that kind of thing when you're making decisions as you're coming up in the business. But that's too little. That's too easy for Time Square. I would say something more along the lines of, stop texting and emailing and hopefully speak with and listen to people. Wow.
Sporty Jeralds 00:46:41 Perfect.
Matt Sarabia 00:46:42 Yeah, I mean, I, I tell people that either work for me or I just work with, you know, they get into these conversations on text or on emails and it's just pick up the phone. You're just so much lost if you're gonna if you're going to and if you're going to exceed or succeed in this business, you're going to need to be able to speak to people face to face or on the phone, like you're going to have to talk to people.
Matt Sarabia 00:47:06 People don't like younger generations, don't seem like they're super interested in doing that. So if you're good at that, you've got an upper hand?
Sporty Jeralds 00:47:13 Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. that. Remember your manners. You know, please. And thank you. Yes, sir. No, sir. Goes a long way because, your generation man is still in leadership positions. You know, and we appreciate face to face communication. doing being respectful. all of those things that we kind of grew up and our parents taught us. So, man, it's been great.
Matt Sarabia 00:47:38 Leader. But, I mean, you can. I don't want to scare people, but you can kiss your nights and weekends and holidays away, like, kiss those goodbye. That's another one. You can put it. But I wouldn't put that in Times Square because you have. Nobody wants to be in this business. You know, that's that's anywhere under 30 years old. and then also, like, you know, you should embrace different in changing circumstances.
Matt Sarabia 00:48:01 That's one thing that my dad, he actually he actually helped me write a cover letter one time when I was looking for a job. Years and years and years ago, my dad and my mom were really good writers. They were communication majors. My my mom used to do radio. My dad did radio. My dad actually helped produce Jack Buck's radio station in Saint Louis when he was an intern. When he was. Wow. You know, do you remember Jack? Not Joe Buck. Jack. Right. The voice of the animals or whatever. But he always said that if you embrace or you're good at, you know, different in changing circumstances, then you're probably in the right place. And so I like that. I like circumstances that change. And they're going to change this business always like you just if you if you're not prepared, like if you don't think they're going to change, you're in trouble. So. Yeah. anyway.
Sporty Jeralds 00:48:50 Well, that's good stuff. One of my favorites. The only person who likes change is a wet baby.
Sporty Jeralds 00:48:55 And so, we gotta embrace change, man, and be flexible. Yeah.
Matt Sarabia 00:49:01 Yeah.
Sporty Jeralds 00:49:02 Any closing thoughts? Anything you can think of that you want to finish up with Matt?
Matt Sarabia 00:49:07 No, I mean, I. Listen, this is great. I think you're I think you got a good little, format here. I think it's going to be good. I hope you, you know, I look forward to seeing some of the other guests you have on it as you go. If you just let me know how these are going to be distributed or to watch them, I'll keep up with them. I think it.
Sporty Jeralds 00:49:22 Was. Well, that's, that kind of leads us into the, the, the, the outro, as they call it. But we'll we'll keep you posted. this has been a magnificent as you might imagine, we have quite a few students, from the northeast that come to our, our university. So I know they'll be even more interested in, in hearing something that they, you know, from someone who works at a stadium that they've been to throughout their life.
Sporty Jeralds 00:49:50 So, with that for our audience, please share this episode with your friends and colleagues. Stay tuned for other episodes of Stay Sporty, which will be available, wherever you get your podcast. And until our next episode. Have a fantastic week. And, thanks so much, Matt.
Matt Sarabia 00:50:09 Thanks for having me. Appreciate it.