Fortune reports:
For the Diamondbacks, however, nice has become a secret weapon - a bulwark against a Phoenix economy that shows no signs of rising from the ashes. So if a fan in the upper deck sends Hall an e-mail complaining about the heat, he will dispatch an engineer to check out the AC. If a sponsor wants Hall to make the introductions at a marketing event, "I'm on that too."
Together with another young Diamondbacks executive - general manager Josh Byrnes - Hall has used obsessive customer service, innovative marketing, and smarter spending on players to keep the wins coming and the turnstiles turning in what may be the toughest economy for pro sports since the Depression.
Anyone interested in pro sports today should read the whole article.The Yankees are having problems:
Not even pro sports' richest franchise, the Yankees, seems immune. General Motors (GM, Fortune 500) - once baseball's biggest corporate sponsor - has canceled its sponsorship deal with the team. And even before superstar third baseman Alex Rodriguez was caught up in a steroid scandal, the Yanks were having trouble selling premium seats in their new stadium - so much so that they hired a Manhattan realty firm to market unsold club seats and luxury boxes.
