Treating Fans Like Kings - basketball

Basketball Digest, Nov, 2001 by Brett Ballantini

GM: Fans aren't shy. They won't tell you what you want to hear. That's why it's important to be on the floor, to listen to their concerns, because they come up with great suggestions. We don't take anything they say lightly. Without the fans, we can't exist.

BD: Is there one piece of advice you'd suggest other NBA teams follow?

QM: Take care of the fan. Our people hear it 1,000 times. Our dad used to preach it to us. We'd say, "Dad, you're giving us the same speech 1,000 times," and he'd say, "You're going to hear it 1,000 times more." It was always the same thing.

JM: Pay more attention to detail. For instance, if you're a fan walking into the arena--these arenas can get confusing--you come up to a security guard and ask where a particular concession stand is. I don't want the security guard pointing, saying, "It's over there, go left, go right." I want the security guard to say, "Let me take you there." All of us have to get back to that. We have a long way to go, believe me. We're nowhere near where we want to be.

BD: Were those the types of things you noticed in those 20 years between ownerships, when you were going to games as a fan?

JM: You notice it everywhere you go in life. With the computer age, you know what people forget to do? They forget to cater. On our business cards, we have our home numbers. We have our cell numbers. If anybody wants to get hold of me. they can call me, I don't care. I'm here for the customer. That's the way we were brought up. We're fanatical about it. There's no magic wand; it's compete dedication to the customer.

Catering is a forgotten art. Not returning phone calls, screening phone calls, all that stuff drives us nuts. We take customer complaints very seriously. Some are good, some are bad, but I try to answer every letter. The worst thing you can do is not respond.

We're here watching the team; we're not absentee owners. Good or bad, at least the fans have confidence that you're here with them. You're going to make bad decisions--we've made plenty of them--but at least we're here to take it, good or bad.

BD: Do you take losses hard?

GM: [Laughs] Losing's not easy. When we first took over the team, we'd live and die with every single loss. I mean, there's 82 games! You can't get too high and you can't get too low. To be a professional owner, you have to take everything in stride.

JM: You hate to lose. [Laughs] You're competitive. These fans are so starved, 14, 15 years of losing, losing, losing. It's more fun for us when we see fans enjoying themselves. We don't want them coming to the game to see the other team, the other players.

BD: What have been your biggest thrills since taking over the Kings?

GM: Every year we've produced a milestone. We've broken a lot of Kings records. Each year is an achievement in itself. And there's no doubt that this year we have the best team we've ever had.

JM: Finally getting to own them. These teams are hard to get. There's 29 in the world and owners don't want to give them up. We overpaid, believe me--but you have to get the vehicle.