Here are some of the highlights from the interview:
- When asked about what key things the organization did to ensure the success of the brand off the field, he pointed to the signing of quarterback Tom Brady. “That changed the entire culture of the organization,” he said.
- Khosla stressed that the safety of players, staff and fans were crucial to the success of their brand. “It always has to be first and foremost about the safety of the players, staff and our fans… A decade from now when people look back at COVID, they will remember how we treated them.”
- Khosla noted to Forbes the importance of flexibility in a winning brand strategy. “It was about communicating and understanding that the only constant right now is going to be change.”
- The Buccaneers have been tops in the league in customer service seven of the last nine years. And that helped the organization navigate the pandemic. “People were nervous first coming in. We had to constantly ask ourselves: ‘How are we going to make sure they have a really good and safe experience?’ We over trained and overstaffed. Most importantly, we put ourselves in the shoes of our fans around everything from driving into the stadium, to feeling safe at the concession stands. We did a couple of soft openings where we had our staff and family going through the various experiences and collected real-time insight. We were able to make adjustments because we simulated direct fan feedback. Anything can look good in a PowerPoint, but when you walk the stadium, you see what works and what doesn’t. We also launched an A.I. tool in our app to get some really good insight on the type of questions that were on the minds of our fans.”
