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Paul Speaker, former co-founder and CEO of the World Surf League, was brought out of retirement and hired one year ago by Seals owner Joseph Tsai to raise the bar on lacrosse in San Diego. Tsai, co-founder of the Alibaba Group and owner of the Brooklyn Nets, in 2017 paid $5 million to bring the Seals as an expansion franchise to San Diego.
Speaker said he hopes the team will draw 8,000 to 9,000 fans to their home games at Pechanga Arena (better known as the San Diego Sports Arena), which has a capacity near 13,000.
Speaker said a study over the past 10 months gave the team a deep dive and better analysis of its fans and potential fan base. Red Door Interactive’s findings showed that the Seals had a very “low awareness” inside the San Diego market. The team is working to fix that, marketing itself through social media, a real-time dashboard and other means.
He said the research showed that of San Diego’s more than 3 million residents, more than 1 million are involved in some way with the military. To that end, the Seals will have two military appreciation nights with discounted tickets and tailgate parties for military members and their families.
Speaker said with the big military presence and the high cost of living in San Diego, it was important to the team to keep the prices affordable over its nine-game home season, and that tickets start at $19.
Speaker said lacrosse, with the physicality of indoor soccer and hockey with a touch of American football, was the fastest-growing sport before the recent surge of pickleball. He said the competition for consumer attention is fierce and acknowledges that “San Diego is a different market than most.”
Although the region doesn’t have as many professional sports teams as other markets in size, Speaker said the competition for fans’ time is from “the weather and outside dining in the evenings and going for a walk, he said, followed by waking up early to surf (or cycle or run).”
The Seals are looking to draw in sports fans to lacrosse by making games at Pechanga Arena “an unbelievably fun, engaging experience with your family and your neighbors,” he said. “There’s music playing the whole time and it’s a ‘bang-on-the-glass, drink a beer and have fun in this unbelievable arena’ experience. It’s really about sharing time with your buddies, your friends, your family in a place where you can do that without breaking the bank.”
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