In the buildup to Front Office Sports’ Brand Marketing Huddle at the LA Stadium Premiere Center on July 11, we’re introducing you to the huddle leaders who will be lending their expertise to the conversation.
Today, meet Sean Brown: Senior Marketing Director at Laundry Service. Brown will be one of the leaders of the huddle “More than Numbers: How Brands are Approaching Sports Marketing Today”.
Brown developed a passion for sports early in life hearing stories of his father’s basketball playing career at the University of Maryland and watching his hometown Pittsburgh Steelers, which his uncle Larry Brown played for and won four Super Bowls in the late 70’s. It was around the same time that Brown began to take notice of the power of marketing within sports.
“I grew up watching, playing and just being surrounded by sports culture,” Brown says. “And in the 1990’s, you really saw what marketing was doing with sports, specifically with Nike and other brands telling meaningful cool stories around athletes. That was very interesting to me. Eventually I realized there were people actually building out these story arcs and working on products. I always knew if I couldn’t physically play the game at a high level, I wanted to continue to be involved and immersed in sports professionally for the rest of my life. The business intrigues me, always has.”
Brown attended the University of Pittsburgh where he played basketball and subsequently graduated with a degree in marketing. His career has included stops at SLAM Magazine, Nike, and Super Heroic. He joined Laundry Service and Wasserman in 2017. The diversity in the types of companies he has been able to work for is something that Brown is able to appreciate in retrospect.
“I’ve been able to touch so many different facets of what this industry encompasses,” Brown says. “I really consider myself a multidisciplinary executive. I think the ability to be multifaceted and having various different experiences throughout my career with incredible companies in different forms has been beneficial to me whether that be media, sales, content or brand marketing.”
Brown’s early realization that he wanted to work in sports helped him find his way into the sports. A key piece of advice Brown gives to young professionals is to figure out their passions early and pursue them. His other piece of advice is to divide goals into a list of subgoals in order to make them more achievable.
“You’re going to have to go through some steps to get to your ultimate goal. It’s all a process you have to appreciate. I also had to think what’s the next step in my life? What’s the next step to being a better executive? Who am I helping? How am I helping them? What verticals of business haven’t I learned about that I would like to? What can I do to push myself and the company that I’m a part of forward?”
READ MORE: Inside The Huddle: Brands & Sports Marketing with Lane Joyce
As the world of sports marketing continues to constantly change, Brown reminds us how important it is for athletes and marketers alike to never stop learning.
“There are so many different and interesting ways now for an athlete to broaden their portfolio as a brand and the way that they portray themselves to the world,” says Brown. “You have athletes who have been famous since they were 14, 15 years old. You are a brand early with the increased prevalence of social media. So not only keeping up but being ahead of the curve with how marketing agencies, sports agencies, brands and athletes should communicate to the world is really important.”
Meet Sean and hear more of his thoughts on the current brand marketing space at the Front Office Sports Brand Marketing Huddle at the LA Stadium Premiere Center in Los Angeles, CA on July 11. For tickets and additional info, click here.
