Cotton in the Hizzy

As the warm, blue glow of my Commodore 64 illuminates the keys of my laptop, I've somewhat reluctantly decided to join my fellow Wizards and OnGoal comrades as a contributor to the Hillcrest Road blog. My reluctance is twofold. One, I've never done it before and feel a wee bit outside the technology loop. Our web/new media/social networking consultants told us two weeks ago that email was dead. Dead, I asked? Obsolete I'm told. Ah, I concluded. Nuts.

Secondly, the folks that regularly contribute to Hillcrest Road do such a fine job, I'm not sure there is need for more content. The mysterious "Hillcrest" contributor, whom I'm sure I've never met, seems to know everything about our organization. They tell me Hillcrest’s hair is a thermodynamic miracle. I wait anxiously to see for myself. OnGoal president/owner Robb Heineman and VP of Development David “Hot” Ficklin are regular contributors, and give an insiders perspective that, frankly, as general counsel makes me nervous.

So what’s left?

As it happens, plenty. OnGoal is in the middle of a strategic expansion of its soccer, entertainment, consumer experiences and customer care properties. For example, one of our goals this year is to bring the international soccer experience to Kansas City through friendly matches with clubs from all over the world. We hope to announce shortly a multi-game international friendly schedule that will see some of the finest soccer teams in the world ply their trade right here in KC. This is just the beginning of what will be an annual tradition of supplementing an already fast-paced and entertaining MLS schedule with additional international games.

While stadium design continues to steam along, so does the design of other OnGoal concepts in and around the stadium’s entertainment district. An example of this is the pub we’re designing. We’ve had several design and branding meetings so far and the work product has been fantastic. I’ve been meeting with specialty beer brewers with the goal of creating proprietary brews unique to the Trails and crafted specifically for Wizards supporters. Not to fear, our supporters will be included in that (ahem) process.

In addition to our partnership with Mexican club Atlas AC, OnGoal is pursuing club and vendor partnerships on a variety of levels domestically as well as in England, Italy, Germany, Argentina, and China. More on this to come soon….

On the merchandising front, in the first season of OnGoal’s ownership of the Wizards you helped us increase jersey merchandise sales over 700% from 2006 numbers. The Wizards traditionally have not been strong in merchandise sales, for whatever reason, but when we brought it all in-house under the leadership of VP of Merchandising Jacques Tournoy, adidas took notice. As a thank you for such a strong level of commitment by Kansas City Wizards fans, adidas has decided to outfit CommunityAmerica ballpark with a 24’ x 22’ replica home shirt that will add significantly to the atmosphere inside the stadium. We found out Friday the shirt has been manufactured and is ready to ship. Inside a 24’ tube. Any of you with a spare 24’ trailer please feel free to contact our head of operations Chris Wyche…..

Once again for 2008 the Wizards exclusive broadcast partner Metro Sports will broadcast every League game not broadcast elsewhere by a national partner. New for 2008, Metro Sports will also broadcast every match in Spanish on Time Warner Cable channel 5. If you don’t have Metro Sports now is the time to sign up for Time Warner Cable or petition your provider to get Metro Sports as part of their programming bundle (they can do that now… just recently announced). We hope to announce a radio deal in the very near future as well…. That’s right. Wall-to-wall Wheelock on television, radio, and the web. This could be on.

So much more on the business front, but for now I’ve got to get out to the open tryouts. I was hopeful that the quality level was going to be high, and I was not disappointed. I know the cuts were difficult yesterday, and the final decisions made by the technical staff today are going to be even more challenging. Good luck to all the participants this afternoon, and cheers from the front office.

Greg