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Standing at a towering six feet six inches, Bobby Graham \u201909 was a force to be reckoned with on the court for the Panthers. Now, Bobby uses what he learned on and off the court to help him navigate the ever-changing world of ticket sales.<\/p>\n
Bobby graduated from Chapman with a degree in Business Administration before moving on to the University of Rochester Simon School of Business where he got his MBA. From there, Bobby started his career at American Express in the global payment strategy division. A promotion got him running the Global Client Group, heading portfolios for big-name companies like eBay, PayPal, StubHub and Ticketmaster.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s when Bobby got a call from StubHub to be the company\u2019s Head of Sports Inventory. His job was to help strategize how to get the most tickets on their site at the lowest price possible. As online ticket sales became the norm for purchasing tickets, more players entered the field. That\u2019s when Bobby got a call from the founders of SeatGeek, another online ticketing platform. They wanted Bobby to come run their entire marketplace. An easy yes, Bobby\u2019s journey up the corporate ladder has landed him the current position of VP of Marketplace at SeatGeek, the largest competitor to StubHub and Ticketmaster.<\/p>\n
One can only imagine how COVID-19 has impacted the VP of a ticket sales company. \u201cMy job is completely upside down thanks to COVID,\u201d Bobby said. \u201cI am very thankful I have one if I\u2019m being honest. COVID-19 and government restrictions have forced us all to sacrifice large gatherings, especially in enclosed spaces. That means no large scale anything and reduced capacity everything \u2013 if we\u2019re lucky.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ticket sales were booming prior to the pandemic and SeatGeek was finally coming into their own as a dominant force in the market. Then, everything changed. \u201cWith everything grinding to a halt we are now competing with the big guys for pieces of a significantly smaller pie.\u201d<\/p>\n
The silver lining \u2013 SeatGeek now has time to work on different areas that needed improvement but that were being pushed away to focus on ticket sales. \u201cWe have used this time to work on our internal \u2018engine\u2019 and we are betting it will pay off coming out of the pandemic,\u201d Bobby said. \u201cWe now have the time to focus on making our website faster, making our suppliers happier, and delivering for our customers in new and innovative ways.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bobby credits his time as a student-athlete to, well, his entire career. \u201cI honestly cannot count the ways that being a student-athlete prepared me for the real world \u2013 the parallels are endless,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is nothing more valuable in today’s professional world than the ability to manage a team\u2026that’s what a college sports team is at its core; an exercise on patience, tolerance, acceptance, accountability, and knowing your role on the\u00a0team. Those are the things that you need to learn in order to be a future leader in your company.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bobby sums up everything he has done in his entire career in none other than a Coach Bokosky quote. A man of many talents, Coach Bo has been at the helm of the men\u2019s basketball team for 28 seasons. He might be best known for his impressive winning record, but anyone who has had the pleasure of interacting with him (especially his players) knows he gives just about the best life lessons out there. Bobby has used one quote in particular to help propel him throughout his extremely successful career.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust be even keel. Never too high, never too low.\u00a0 You win, you act like you’ve been there before.\u00a0 You lose, no problem, but you won’t get me a second time.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Bobby Graham takes us through his post-grad journey in ticket sales<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3496,"featured_media":7258,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"custom_author_name":"","chapman_pin_hero_slider":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6904","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n