Peter Schwazer and Kevin Herron of the Austrian Football League's SWARCO Raiders pose for a photo at the Oakland Raiders Napa Valley Training Complex.
Servus Raider Nation,
Today it's my turn to tell you about our visit to the Oakland Raiders training camp. My name is Peter Schwazer and I'm the club manager of the SWARCO Raiders, the Silver and Black's sister-team. Just like my fellow Tyrolean, Kevin Herron, I'm excited to be here. Although our goals of what to bring back home differ. While Kevin is all over practice and the coaches on the defensive side of the ball, I'm interested in the front office perspective.
Therefore I was very happy when I got introduced to Oakland Raiders General Manager Reggie McKenzie the other day. He gave us a very warm welcome. I have many questions regarding all kinds of things: sponsorship, ticketing, marketing, merchandising and gameday operations.
How do The Raiders work with sponsors and involve them in team activities? What do they do to increase season ticket and single-game ticket sales? What kind of marketing tools do they use and what is working and what is not? How is the merchandise department run? What do they do to upgrade the gameday experience and how do they manage all the different aspects of a gameday? Thousands of questions I hope to find answers to.
I will get the opportunity to meet with several people of all these departments later in the week and I'm really looking forward to it. The SWARCO Raiders may be one of Europe's best-run teams, but there's still a huge gap compared to the NFL. And of course we want to close that gap. There's a lot of room for improvement for us and all European football teams. The sport is growing in Europe and we need to take every opportunity to learn from the best.
I'm looking forward to the upcoming days and I hope you keep reading our blogs.
Thanks,
Peter Schwazer
