Amerks’ Rob Minter strives to give hockey fans a time to remember

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When he completed high school and headed off to Shepherd University, Rob Minter knew he wasn’t destined for a career on the ball diamonds of Major League Baseball.

Scouts were clamoring about guys named Justin Verlander, Jared Weaver and Billy Butler, not some lanky catcher out of Chancellor High School in Fredericksburg, Va.

Still, there was certainly nothing wrong with playing the game at the highest level possible for as long as possible.

So Minter fully intended to weave together the requirements of his classwork as a biology major at Shepherd with the demands of baseball at the NCAA Division II school in Shepherdstown, W.Va.

Until, that is, his academic adviser told him it wasn’t such a good idea. Baseball and biology apparently don’t mix.

The advice: “You’ll never be able to handle the workload so what else might captivate you?”

Minter said he knew that there were courses in the business side of sports, which definitely would be of interest. Welcome to sports management. Welcome to the perfect match — as his experiences of the past 10-plus years have proven.

Since mid-December, Minter has been executive vice president of business operations for the Rochester Americans. He oversees everything except the hockey itself, from marketing to signage to ticket sales to suite amenities to display arrangements in the concourse on game night.

While Buffalo Sabres general manager Jason Botterill, Amerks general manager Randy Sexton and Amerks coach Chris Taylor are responsible for the product and performance on the ice, Minter must ensure brand satisfaction for sponsors and ticket-buyers.

“It’s not just a hockey game,” the 32-year-old native of Fredericksburg, Va., said. “We want you showing up to an experience you’ll remember.”

Minter has created his own memories along the way to Rochester. Since graduation from college in 2007, he has helped groom an infield and worn the mascot outfit for a lower-level minor-league baseball team, made sales calls for the American Hockey League’s Lake Erie Monsters; helped launch the Cleveland Cavaliers’ D League franchise in Canton, Ohio; managed ticket operations for Virginia Tech University; and most recently catered to the court-side patrons of the NBA’s New Orleans Pelicans and the suite-level clients of the NFL’s New Orleans Saints.

That’s called having done a little bit of everything in the field. That’s called learning the ropes.

“To work the 60- and 70-hour weeks that are required, you have to have a passion for minor-league sports, and the first time I met him I felt that passion,” said Brent Rossi, executive vice president of marketing and brand strategy for Pegula Sports and Entertainment.

Long days followed by long nights during the hockey season are not quite how the world envisions life working for a professional sports team. People see glamour and glitz, not conversations with aggravated season-ticket buyers. The students who stop by team tables at job fairs and career days think they’ll be drafting players or scouting player talent, not handing out ticket brochures and coordinating a player appearance at a library.

“I hear all the time, ‘I watch SportsCenter every day,’ ” Minter said. “I don’t care if you can tell me the stats for every player in our organization; that has nothing to do with the ROI (return on investment) for the business. How do you make sure a family of four gets value from a ticket package? That’s what you need to know.”

Which is why, as an intern fresh out of college, Minter was helping the groundskeeper with the field for the Class-A Frederick Keys. And why an hour later he was dressed as the mascot.

And why his first real job in pro sports was selling tickets for the AHL’s franchise in Cleveland, where pro hockey long ago had a rich history but most recently had a history of failure.

“I started in inside sales, the very bottom level in the industry,” Minter said.

He was on the sales staff for about 3 ½ years before moving up to manage season ticket accounts. The duty in those departments has never changed.

“It’s all about building relationships with those people who buy our tickets,” Minter said. “Why are those people spending their hard-earned money to come watch our games? I did anything I could to make their experience better.”

He has been intrigued with pro sports operations since he was a kid, when his family made the 80-mile drive to watch the NFL’s Washington Redskins play. His father had season tickets.

“We went to games every Sunday and there would be 70,000 or 80,000 people at FedEx Field every Sunday,” Minter said. “All these people would show up and park and eat and pay for seats. Some traveled for hours to get there.

“I started to think about all the money that comes through an organization each week. It’s millions and millions of dollars.”

He saw that first-hand for the past three years when he worked for the Pelicans and Saints.

He was responsible for sales of luxury seats and floor seating for the Pelicans at Smoothie King Center, and suite rentals for the Saints in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome.

He also was overseeing the staff that sold and retained premium clients, as well as determining pricing, benefits that accompanied those seats, and the look of the suites.

Those courtside and suite packages were a key piece of the budget, producing in the neighborhood of $30 million in revenue.

Now he’s in charge of daily operations for a team where tickets cost $14 to $28, and a one-night suite rental runs $700.

So who leaves the NBA/NFL to come back to the American Hockey League? Rob Minter, for one. The move allows him to continue chasing his goal of being president of a sports team.

He’s come this far in the industry, he might as well chase it right to the top.

“I love the long hours, I love the people,” Minter said.

But it’s not as if the Amerks are just some little entity on the pro sports landscape. Hardly. They’re part of the Terry and Kim Pegula empire, Pegula Sports and Entertainment. The Sabres, Buffalo Bills and the HarborCenter are cornerstones but the Amerks and Buffalo Bandits have their place.

“There’s a grander scope of responsibility and opportunity here,” Minter said. “It’s more than just the Amerks. It’s being involved with our enterprise as a whole.”

And the Amerks have become more of a focus for PSE executives over the past eight months. They’ve seen a once-proud, once-dominant franchise take a significant slide. The Amerks haven’t won a playoff series since 2005. The crowds reflect year after year of losing.

So just as restoring the on-ice pride in the Amerks crest was a priority for Botterill when he was hired in May, the marketing department is adamant about making Blue Cross Arena at the War Memorial a place for hockey fans to once again gather on a regular basis.

“When Jason Botterill was hired, he placed an emphasis on Rochester, and that caused us internally to look at the Amerks and see what we can do better,” Rossi said. “The Amerks are one of the strongest brands in the AHL. We want people to be proud to be Rochester Americans fans.”

You now know Job 1 for Minter.

“The decisions on where we’re going (with marketing strategies) will be made by him,” Rossi said.

It’s his job to rebuild the Amerks brand.

Minter didn’t show up and shred the business model. Instead, when he arrived for work on Dec. 11, he wanted to do more observing than rearranging. He watched, he analyzed, he chatted. He met with the staff. He asked questions about the season ticket base, the pricing, the marketing.

Before games he dropped by the VIP lounge to meet with loyal fans. He wandered the atrium lobby, welcoming patrons. During the game he walked concourses, ensuring everything functioned properly, and dropped by suites to see if everything was to the client’s liking.

The observation period now over, Minter will very likely make tweaks in the coming weeks.

“We have all the right pegs but maybe we’re not putting them in the right holes,” he said. “We want to make sure our customers know we care about them. It’s truly what our business needs to be.”

He knows one thing already, though. He’s in a hockey town.

“The beauty of what we have here,” he said, “is a long-standing franchise with truly great hockey fans.”

[email protected]/(585) 653-4020

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 Rob Minter

Title: Executive vice president of business operations for the Rochester Americans.

Age: 32.

Education: B.S. in Sports Management from Shepherd University in Shepherdstown, W.Va.

Home: Pittsford.

Family: wife Lauren; sons Connor, 5, and Patrick, 3.

Hobbies: Working out, travel. “My wife and I try to devote a couple weekends a year to see different cities.”

Quote: “This is our pro hockey team and we want to create value, the sense of having something to be invested in, to root for.”