Sitdown with Team President Neil Glat (10/3)

I'm not just saying our podcast. No, he loved all podcast. Yeah, we talked about podcasts a lot a lot of times in office. And so with a three game homestand coming up Broncos on Sunday, the Colts the week after, and the Vikings the following week before the Jets finally get on the road in the month of October, is we figured should repurpose this interview because we actually spoke to

Neil leading up to the Cleveland Browns. Yeah, and it was the Brown's game preview, So the lead on that is a little dated, but the information with Neil was really good because we touched on a number of subjects. And since we're heading into this homestand we gotta play this, the information is very timely impertinent because we talked about mobile parking, mobile ticketing initiatives at these next three home games, and uniforms, the whole uniform spoiler alerting. Uh, we talked

about uniforms. Yeah, we talked about a whole lot of stuff. But it's his, his entertainment preferences. But like we were talking about before, his he's a fan of podcast and he knows what's up, whether it's books, movies, TV shows. Uh. Really enjoy or time with Neil, even away from the podcast. But he came in the studios and he was happy

to give us some time. So that's cool, right, And not not only did we talk about initiatives, well not, we also talked about you know what a what is a day in the life of the president of the New York Jets and a little bit. Yeah, so we talked about a whole lot. So, without further ado, this is our sit down with Neil Klatt. All right, there is a very special time on the Official Jets podcast. You know, e A and I are always here. Now we have Neil Glatt, the president of the New York Jets,

in the studio. Thank you for coming, No, thanks for having me. It's great to be here. Well, you are a loyal listener. It is overdue for us to have you on the podcast. Neil, you're a president of the Jets for more than six years. His time flown by. It does fly, it does fly. But it's great to be part of the Jets. It's great to deal with Jet fans. They are terrific, they're loyal. Uh and UH, every game is different, every season is different. So no days or all. What is for people that don't know?

As you started out in the league, so what what was intriguing to you about going from a league perspective to a team perspective. So I think at the league you're dealing with a lot of league level strategic issues that implicate all thirty two clubs. When you come to uh the Jets, or come to an individual team, you're all in. It's one team. It's all about winning on the football field. I spend more of my time thinking about how do we enhance the fan experience and how

do how do we do great things off the field. Uh, And it's just being part of a small, nimble group the league experience was terrific and fantastic, and I wouldn't trade it for anything. Those issues are big, broad issues, and you read about a lot of those in the paper as well as what you read about at the Jets. But for me, it was the opportunity to be part of the organization that Woody Johnson already built and hopefully

contribute in some way. Just for fans that don't know you talked about that you're thinking about ways to enhance the fan of experience, Well, what what is the day in the life of Neo Glatt in the office life? Every day really is different. Um, We're in a business that there's a lot of uh intensity to the business. Fans are incredibly engaged. So it could be after a game, you could be dealing with things that went well on game day, things that didn't go well. How do we

address it so by the next game. If there was something that happened uh at the stadium that you want to improve upon, If there was something on the scoreboard that a feature that worked, well, let's do more of it. If there was something that we didn't think we got this, the fan reaction wanting well, let's let's let's think about it. So after a game, there's always a lot of recaps and strategizing and planning. Uh, it could be something that

is in the media. It could be something involving working with the players on a community relations issue, so you really don't know. It could be a sponsor is looking to activate in a different way. So the great thing is, uh, you know, it keeps it extreme incredibly exciting. Is the variety. Um, but it is a singular focus on winning football games. Anyway that we focusing on the business, I can help the football team and then obviously the fans, well you

you keep us on point. And I always tell folks about this because when you have an opportunity to meet Neil and maybe express concern or also express hope or optimism or happiness with something that's going on, Neil always relays things on two people within an organization. So with that being said, if somebody comes up to you and say, hey, you know, I saw something at the stadium that didn't look right, you follow up immediately with within whatever department

you have to reach. You have that personal interaction, and I think that's a great quality to have because you don't let it go either. Anytime you speak to you said, I've been this, I'm going into my seventh season. I've been at the Jets over six years. Uh. When I

came in, it was impressive how much people cared. And so if if you see people who work for the Jets on game day or at an event throughout the year and they hear something from a fan or a business part and that's not working, well, they're not gonna say it's not my job. Uh. And that and that starts with me. If there's something that we can do better, we're going to try and do better. We will follow

up on it. We have uh you know, every three to six months, we'll have a fan of what we call a fan Advisory Board, will invite anywhere from twenty to fifty fans. Usually we'll do it here at the at the Atlantic Health Jets Training Center. Often they'll have a chance they'll be an impromptu stop by by by coach Bowls or or or by Mike mcagnet. So they get a little bit of of fun football stuff. But we're really it's serious business for us at that fan

advisory board. We really want their feedback on what's working. What's not working, and you'll see, including me, everyone's taking notes, um, because we certainly want to get their perspective on what's working and what's not working and UH, and those conversations are critically important. And what they don't see after that meeting is there will be a number of follow up meetings where we're just going through it to do list

and a checklist based on what that fan. And speaking of that, you just came out of a meeting where you guys did Basically you're after action report of what happened at the season opener, and we do that after every game and can't leave me do it after every event. So when we finished training camp, what worked well at training camp, what worked well at Green and White? And then what would you do differently next year? Because the season is fast and furious, the offseason fast and furious.

So if you don't really take that time when it's fresh in your mind on how do we improve, sometimes that gets lost in translation. Come next year when you're ready to do it again. You have such a before we jump topics here, I think you have a really unique perspective now after six seasons here and then fifteen at the least so you're talking about just kind of what goes on through your head on our game days

at MetLife Stadium. Well, I want to know is when you're on the road, are you looking at what different stadiums and organizations due to potentially and it's the fan experience Like you talked about before, like how how do you take in a game? Not at MetLife Stadium, It's exactly what you said. We are looking at what they are doing, so what kind of music are they playing before and during the game. We will look at what their concession offerings are. We will look at their prices

to see how we compare to their prices. We have a new initiative that we call our Bump fifty fifty where fans can buy essentially raffle tickets and when some jackpots well the choit's done a great job of that. So we were out in Detroit, that was something we kept our eye on. So for us, the great thing is everyone competes in the NFL pretty intensively on the field, but off the field, it's pretty collaborative organization and so clubs all want to get better. We want to get better.

So if they're working on something, uh, we're gonna go out there and ask a lot of questions and look around. Similarly, we rolled that when we rolled out our rewards program and our digital ticketing solutions four or five years ago, every club that came in was asking us how it went. We gave them tours. Uh, and you know, we're happy to help other clubs in the league similar to the way they're helping us. All Right, So much to get to because we got to talk about what's new on

game day at Mentley Stadium. If you're our Jets fan, are you're gonna be attending Jets game this season? And we want to talk about the new uniforms. But first we gotta ask about Christopher Johnson. Whatdy Johnson? Of course serving as the US and bestor Great Britain in Northern Ireland. What has Christopher been like? It's the CEO and your interactions been like with him? For people on the outside, they see Christopher and he's a likable sort, but you

have an intimate knowledge. It's his passion. I think the fans have heard from him and seeing his passion for football but also his passion for the fan experience. So Christophers out in the parking lots a lot similar to our fan advisory board, He's talking to fans constantly and similar to us taking notes when fans raise issues, he will act upon it either directly or share that with others in the organization and get us going on it.

It's been a fairly smooth transition. Uh. You know, he's a terrific person, and you know first and foremost, but as somebody to work for, you can have a conversation with him, you can problem solve with him, and so, uh, you know, nothing but kudos in praise. He's on top of a number of things organizationally, but also he's also

into the latest workouts and a sharp dresser. Christopher Johnson Yetta, he gotta get a lot of He's got a lot of passions, um and in terms of a lot of things we're doing with the players, in terms of off the field issues, he's developed a great rapport with the players and so we're working with them on a number of social initiatives and other community initiatives, and Chris's leadership

in that area has been terrific. There was a great photo last week of Christopher down on one knee and Jamal Adams down on one knee and those two just talk in at PRAC. This is pretty cool. Actually, before that, Christopher Johnson as the team was stretching, he was on one of the bikes. He was getting to workout and while watching practice, he's putting pressure on all of us. Exactly. Okay,

So we've talked about game day a little bit. Here is just to dive into it is, if you're going to the Jets game this year, what is new about the eighteen season? From the experienced standpoint summer, subtle um, but more dramatic. So a couple of years ago, we put out what we call pilot Vision. So we understand that fans are coming out, they want to see the action on the field. They want to see the highlights and the replays of the game that's going on. But

we then have pilot vision. They also want stats. They also want to see the out of town scores. They also want to see the red zone from time to time. So how we program that. We're always trying to think what is the fan today? How do they want to consume the game when they come out to the stadium. But it's different. You have eighty thousand people out there. Some want to be on their smartphones, a lot others don't. Some grew up, you know, sitting in an upper deck

listening on a transistor radio. Others don't know what I'm talking about when I mentioned a transistor radio. So you try and strike that balance. And uh so, a lot of it is the scoreboard features, so those are those are new and different this year. We're also doing uh some different things with music. Um so we announced probably about a month ago, we have a partnership with Deaf

Jam Recordings and they're great partners. So that's you said mentioned the stadium, So the runout song was done by some of their artists and so that's been a lot of fun. We in fact had Marcus May and Jamal Adams going to the studio with with Jada kiss Um and they were working on some some music opportunities together and what we call our hype videos. So when we get videos out on social media and Instagram and the like on a Friday before a game, a lot of

that's going to involve Deaf Jam Recording. And I'm in the studio of Jets three sixty Productions, so a lot of that's produced by by the excellent guys and women in this organization who produced that content, including the two of you. So that's that's gonna be a lot of fun.

We also are having a kid today coming up on October seven against the Broncos, and so we're gonna have a lot of fun things for the kids, including w W E and they bring some of their superstars out and their terrific entertainers and there are a lot of fun and we had the miss at our what we call our up front where we kind of introduced a lot of our our new events and new activities, and

the last one our game against the Vikings. We're doing some things with Marble and so that's obviously an amazing entertainment company and we're thrilled to be working with them. So the first number of people coming in the building and get a bobblehead coincidentally, maybe not that coincidentally, we're playing the Vikings, so it's kind of going to be holed versus four Okay, so we're doing a little bit

of that. So we we spent a lot of time thinking about we know what the action on the field is, what people really care about, but anything we can do just have a little bit more fun when you come out. We we we know people investing a lot of their time, so we we try and get creative and some of that we do on our own, and some of that is doing with some of the great partners that I just mentioned. There are a ton of exciting um game day themes for the Jets throughout the two thousand and

eighteen season. What is the genesis in the new uniforms? Everybody's asking the genesis of the uniform? Why, like the hottest button it is? And we have the man himself. It starts with uh, Woody Johnson and his vision for wanting to do something different with the uniform and so, uh, you know, he put together a working group internally but working closely with people at the league who have worked through a number of uniform changes over the past x years.

And so this is years in the making. This is years in the making and also working with Bikey and they do terrific work. And uh, it's a real iteritive process. I mean it's been it really has been years in the making, and it's looking at everything for all kinds of different designs, all different kind of logos and other things that might go on the uniform and uniform changes are subjective. Uh. Ownership loved it. Um Some of the people on the you know, on the football side who

have seen it love it. And but hopefully the fans will love it. And so it'll probably be officially launched in March. Um and we're gonna try and make a little bit of hoopla out of that. Um Uh. Again it's subjective, so just one man's opinion, but that I think the fans will like it. I do think you're gonna see the Jets go through basically all their uniform combinations here in two thousand and eighteen. Because you've already seen the all white with the white face masks against

the Detroit lines. You're going all white. Bet we know of that. We got I think it's the great Dapes mask. Also for the cold scam. Yeah yeah. And we had the green out like we mentioned against the Minnesota Vikings, the traditional green and white against the Miami Dolphins for the home opener. I know we'll see the green pants and the green Out's gonna have the color Rush uniforms.

So the knee the one that we originally was rolled out on Thursday nights that pop. I think we played against the Bills a couple of times with that Um, those decisions, you know, are really made by coach. Interestingly, it's a coach, you know. I think he's always trying to anticipate what's what's the best kind of coach. He's got a lot, He's got his little private label down there.

He's got the hands. Sometimes I see coach on the slide that we gotta get that, you know, we got we gotta get that to fans, we gotta get that to other people in the building. He has some great stuff. He's watching the press conferences and you know, he always comes up to me, he says, Yep, coach got a new label today. Yeah, yeah, people are asking me about We respect his style. Yeah, we like it, and so I think he'll have I think he'll have a lot

of fun with the new uniform. Also, we gotta go off, Yeah, we gotta go off the field. And we know you're big into movies, into TV shows. So for fans that don't know, one, what is your favorite all time TV show and movie? And two is well, what are you look? What are you watching now? My all time favorite TV show it probably a Seinfeld. Um, do you still watch

it in syndication? Watch it every night? Well? I do I actually record him and then I watch him in bulk, you know, at the times and uh, you know, so I might be watching not a jet game of sporting event. I'll pause it for a little bit and go watch an episode and and then come back and catch up on the game. What was your conversations like with Larry David when he came around? You know, just listen he you can just see the brilliance. Honestly, you can see

the creativity. He is laid back, relaxed, um and he's actually he's an enormous jet fan. Yeah, but he's funny. He was very impressed with how clean the launch area downstairs, and you could just see he'd be you know, he's one of those guys. Pull up, pull up a seat and you'll you'll enjoy yourself. Yeah. What about what about the movie? The movie, uh, Gladiator? Gladiator is probably that's one of those movies. Whenever it's on, you know, I'll get sucking for a half hour. What's been on a

lot lately? As Good Fellas? You kind of see kind of my my demo at work here, but kind of good action oriented. Are you a big Russell Crow fan? I like Russell Crow. Yeah, Yeah, he's great. And Gladiator. Yeah, Gladiator. I actually saw both of those movies for the first time like two years ago. Behind the April. Yeah it's great. Yeah, a little history, little dramatization, good action, get you ready to run through a wall, kind of every emotional state

you can get. Okay, how about streaming series? Me? Sometimes, Neil, we'll go on a plane and you'll catch up on something and you'll get into a series. What's some of the coach that some of the coaches will recommend some shows at times? This summer, I did Sneaky Pete. Okay, this series I'm waiting to come back in October? Is ray Don? Yeah, you're gonna. I've always seen a couple of Right the game, So it's Green's top shows that Yeah, and he's a real gentleman. And he's the voice of

Hot Knocks. Yes, so he among others. But he's got a lot of the HBO sports stuff and when you hear his voice, it's one of those great voices. It is, So what were you about? Yeah? What what do you guys? Streaming? I'm always kind of what what could mean? What what can we stream? In the off season when I kind of gets in the busy season. I think I've told you about this before his Peaky Blinders Netflix. A big

Peaky Blinders fan. That your culture, that's like ninth turn of the century British, you know none of this pretty Los Angeles. He's like our Sam Donald here. He's an old soul, right, I hear great things about that. I'm all in on Peaky Blinders. Um. I watched in college The Sopranos, and I like that a lot. Believe it or not. I have not done the entire Sopranos, and I've kind of probably seen a season and a half.

Of people have said to me, I wish I could replicate watching it again when you get the chance to watch it. So I'm looking forward. I asked him about that ending when he started mentioned but we'll have to I did see the last episode. What was your thought? So I just saw the diner scene, and I don't I didn't know enough. I didn't have the same investment yet because I didn't commit the number of years to the show yet. Neil, let's bring a full circle. Come

back to the Jets here. You talked about it. It's all about what happens on the field, and we're trying to enhance that. Um, do you like what you're seeing as far as this team coming together, having some young pieces, drafting a quarterback was performed well early on in his career and Sam Donald and you you're set up salary

cap wise. I believe Mike has said it. You get the most cap room so you have the financial flexibility following this season, we think about some young pieces on defense, whether that p Jamal Adams or Leonard Williams or Darren Lee an offensively quincy and noone went back and yeah, do you like what you're seeing out of this team and the way, uh it's set up for the future.

I'm always an optimist, Um, but absolutely, Um, you know you saw some of that potential on Monday night and uh, you know you've certainly got a lot of turnovers and and and and got you know, some breaks, but it was outstanding. Um. And you see, uh, when that team can play and the talent that they have. And to your point, Um, the coaches are only making guys better and uh, we have a little bit more cap room this year. If it's not spent this year, then it

rolls over to next year. And then then Mike and his team sitting down with coach Bowls can prioritize how do they continue to upgrade the roster. So, um, you know, I'm looking forward to an exciting season, and and the fans that we've spoken to, uh you know, similarly share that sentiment. This was awesome. Appreciate. Thank you, guys. Another thank you to Neil Glad for sitting down with his Gladiator,

favorite movie of all time. Okay, I have something I'm in here, oh because I think I kind of faked it, and I want to be an authentic and juine first. This is like, this is like a confession to Kneel because you know he's gonna listen. I've never seen Gladiator from beginning to add I've seen parts, But is it like it was on TV and you've seen parts and yes, of course, Well I was in the movie theater. I didn't know if it was left to get a pepsie

in a popcorn. I just didn't come back. I didn't know if it was it was on HBO or something, and you all, you can only watch an hour before you have to go do something. But you're saying that it was on TV. This is exactly what I was saying. Though, is that you can't watch it when it's a TV movie because there are so many commercials in the movie is so long that you're gonna sit there like an all day affair and you're not gonna be able to

fully take in the impact of it. I feel extremely guilty about this because I have seen bits and pieces. I just haven't seen it wire to wire, and that is not right. It is okay, So have you seen the end or is it a cliffhanger? Like have you seen the beginning? I've just seen parts like fighting scenes and it scenes when he's coming out and he's getting all fired up and stuff like that. Listen, I gotta see it. Okay, by the time you listen to the podcast,

you will have e a will have watched glad. Yeah, when all have a full review, I feel like I'm gonna all Neil a book. I think I think that you Jet Nation a book report or a movie movie report. Yeah, and movie review. But so so jets play Sunday when Yeah, okay, so there's a lot of big things happen at the stadium. Well, I was gonna say you only have Friday and Saturday now or a week day. But you gotta watch it

on Friday or Saturday. Yeah, I'll probably watched on Saturday when I'm not watching college football, but that's gonna be hard to sneak that in. Maybe maybe you should do a Friday night because you know, I like to watch my college football on Saturday. So the big things to remember here are Denver is this weekend, and uh, there's gonna be some w w E superstars out of this game, I know that for sure. Then the following week, the

Jets are honoring the Super Bowl three team. Dozens of members from that sixty eight championship team will be back at MetLife Stadium. Uh, and that will be cool because obviously the Jets are playing the Colts, the team they beat sixteen and seven on January twelfth, nineteen sixty nine. Seventeen, well probably an eighteen or eighteen and a half point underdog that day again that changed the football world. And then the final week, I'm excited about this matchup between

four and the Vikings. I'm all about that. I'm a little conflicted because Thoor to me is Noah synderguard of the New York Mets. Because that's a lot of Jacks fans are Mets fans. Yeah, I know, but but that's why it's conflicting because if you're going Thor as the Minnesota Vikings and representing the Vikings, I would I'm that's all it's listening to me because because because that's an enemy on Sunday, but it's it's a it's an ally, okay,

But for me, there's people in the world named Ethan Arthur. Yeah, so so it is the Hulkster versus Thor's that right? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, green big guy ripping apart. Okay, I like that, So I gotta I think giving out baboheads. But yeah, it's something that you should have listened. Yeah, we should have listened to the interview. Again. I want, I want with ever than giving out because I think that's gonna be Yeah that Nieces would like that. A lot of cool things going on with the Jets. Time to get a

victory and and start this home stand off. Right all right, that's all we have here on the Official jetz Podcast. Stay tuned for next week by he said, Jets Cold, Super Bowl, Three big things coming on the Official Jets Podcast.