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Tom Cantone, SVP, Mohegan Tribal Gaming Authority, has promoted the Mohegan Sun with one-of-a-kind bookings like the only concert date of 2011 for Jennifer Lopez.
For three decades, Tom Cantone has been very successfully riding the next big wave in entertainment and has honed a highly effective marketing strategy that has helped build the entire casino industry.
And he did it all while maintaining a persona of “the nicest guy I’ve ever met,” per business associates like promoter Jimmy Koplik, Live Nation Connecticut, and agent Eddie Micone, Paradigm.
This year, Cantone was promoted to senior vice president of sports & entertainment for Mohegan Tribal Gaming Authority, based at Mohegan Sun, Uncasville, Conn., and was named Entertainment Executive of the Year by the G2E Global Gaming Conference. To further ice the cake, Mohegan Sun Arena was named Best Arena of the Year by the same conference.
“I like to say there’s Radio City, Mexico City and Uncasville. That’s the reality of it all,” Cantone said of the arena’s status as a Top Stop for entertainment and sports. “For that recognition for Uncasville, Conn., to win over MGM Grand and Hard Rock and other bigger brands, we’re starting to make the venue as big and as popular as the artists who play it.”
“I think that is the future of the venue business, making your venue a brand.”
Cantone is also celebrating his 30th year in the business with his first and probably only memoir, “Book ‘Em,” from the man who revolutionized casino entertainment, which will be self-published in December. That’s only appropriate since writing got him into marketing and entertainment in the first place.
Born in Harrisburg, Pa., Cantone attended Penn State (he was named Alumni of the Year in 1999) and, to jump-start his writing career in his senior year, he wrote an article about the transition of amusement parks to theme parks, a la Disneyland. His subject was Hersheypark in Hershey, Pa., which was undergoing that transformation in 1973. He interviewed then-GM Bruce McKinney, who became his mentor and with whom he still touches base frequently.
Cantone sent the article with a thank-you note to McKinney, which morphed into his first job in the industry at the theme park. McKinney and Hersheypark’s Paul Serff saw something in young Tom that prompted them to “open another door for me to a journey that has been fantastic,” Cantone said.
About Timing
Cantone’s career has paralleled new developments in his chosen fields, from the transition to theme parks to the introduction of edgy acts to draw a new demographic in casino entertainment to the rise of Donald Trump, followed by Indian-owned casino properties.
“I’ve been lucky as I’ve evolved my career. I’ve really been fortunate to be in the right place at the right time with the right opportunities. And I took advantage of every opportunity,” Cantone said.
Cantone worked for McKinney for nine years. As a leader, McKinney “was inclusive, he always made you feel special. I was the young guy in an older, provincial company, viewed as the young renegade, but I would have great ideas, I thought. Bruce always ended every meeting we had with ‘Keep her going.’ That gave me momentum.”
Emulating McKinney in his own management style, Cantone believes he is in the people business first and foremost — “people, then product, then profit.”
“I really engage in our human assets, how to motivate them and connect with them,” Cantone said. “If they don’t go into battle for you, you’re not going to win any war.” He also credits his parents and upbringing with the people-first attitude, having been raised in an Italian household with four kids. “We didn’t have 911. Your neighbor was your 911. There was no fear. Everyone was one. That stays with you.”
On Being Relevant
“Whoever can adapt wins. You have to be relevant,” Cantone has always believed. That was lesson number two in his decades-long career. He connects with American pop culture every day because you have to evolve to graduate into the future.
“My playbook has always been American pop culture. That’s your marketing plan. If you have the latest and greatest the world is talking about at your property, you are going to win the day, no matter how small or big the competition is.”
That lesson came home when Cantone left Hersheypark to become vice president of entertainment at the Sands in Atlantic City at a time when that town was just finding its place in the gaming industry. “At the Sands we were one of the smaller properties and we won the day all the time, we beat the big guys all the time. We had a different energy.”
Cantone was recruited by a headhunter for the Sands job and immediately clicked with his new boss, Bill Weidner. He took the job as an experiment, figuring he could always go back to Hershey after a few years in gaming. “Three years turned into 30.”
He had been lucky enough to join “the best executive management team I was ever on” with current gaming luminaries Brad Stone, Weidner, and Bob DiSalvio, all young men starting a young industry for the East Coast, creating the Atlantic City boom. “We put Vegas on notice and the Las Vegas Sun wrote about it,” he recalled.
It was at the Sands that he first created, rather than booked, events. “We created the Meet & Greet, which became as big as some of the events in the venue,” he recalled of his career. “We had Sly Stallone, Don Johnson, people who at that time were the buzz, making the headlines,” Cantone said. “It was a time that has never been duplicated. It had a beautiful run. I was fortunate to be in that new wave of casino business — even Vegas changed because of it.”
Cantone took the Meet & Greet bookings with him to Foxwoods and finally Mohegan Sun casinos.
“We realized people, especially our players, loved celebrities. So if we brought in a celebrity to host a party for our high-end players, that was worth just as much as a show. We created special events around celebrities.”
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Cantone always finds time for his family, wife Anissa, son Marc, daughters Tessa and Brooke.
At Mohegan Sun, he hosted the cast of the Sopranos at the height of their success on HBO. “I did four or five of those and every one of them set a casino drop record that still hasn’t been equaled. I did the last reunion before Jim Gandolfini passed away months later.”
Another of his favorite creations was the Tony Curtis art show. Cantone tracked Curtis, a Hollywood legend, to the Plaza Hotel in New York after seeing him interviewed about his art on TV’s Today show. When Cantone invited him to do a one-man show at the Sands, he jumped at it.
The Tony Curtis Art Show was a huge hit and Cantone made sure the media knew all about it. “It was blasted all over the country. This was before social media,” Cantone recalled.
Cantone has always engaged the media and blasted the news out for every booking “so someone had bragging rights to say ‘I was there’ when everyone else was reading about it,” Cantone said. “For the person who was there, there’s a sense of pride and you’re creating memories.”
He also believes that “if you can create a date, it’s far more profitable and far more impressive than if you just book a date. You have relationships — friends for life — that graduate from that.”
“That’s the critical difference. If you don’t have relationships, you really aren’t going to last long in this business. I have some special relationships that make a difference.
“You don’t have to inherit the playbook; you can create your own,” Cantone believes.
On Marketing
While Cantone is often associated with entertainment, his true role is marketing. He sees entertainment as a marketing tool. “I always use entertainment to differentiate mine from other properties.” Other casinos might have more resources to throw at marketing, but the entertainment war can be won, he said.
Many don’t realize the first slot tournament was at the Sands in Atlantic City, with David Brenner as celebrity host, he said. “That became the model for all future slot tournaments. Every casino does slot tournaments every day now. We opened that door.”
Every casino pretty much is the same, he said — the same slot machines, same hotel rooms, same restaurants. “We all make the same claims, but the options you add to it are what makes someone buy it. I always made entertainment the reason someone bought us over them.”
His fixation with American Pop Culture has honed Cantone’s skill at picking the next winner. Sometimes it’s just a whim. “I booked the Dixie Chicks before they won the Grammy’s because I was enamored with the name. I just thought the name would be fun to book.”
People in your inner circle are important resources, he added. “You get a sense of what’s more real and what’s hype. You try to factor in a little bit of a gut check.”
Today, at Mohegan Sun, he plays the hunches booking the 400-seat Wolf Den with acts not yet ready for the 10,000-seat arena, with Lady Antebellum among scores of success stories.
His other major strategy is to offer A-list artists a place to rehearse and launch their tours. “They not only start their tour here, but they live with us for awhile. We have a $2-billion roof over our heads. There are not that many places that have that kind of infrastructure. It’s an elevator ride from the arena to the hotel room and to restaurants, spas and shopping. You don’t have to get in your car and go anywhere. And when you are in a world-class venue it creates the kind of welcome mat that you want.”
On the Team
Cantone has no doubt that having a world-class venue and an influential inner circle along with being a good judge of talent would get him nowhere without a great support team.
“Our running crew is more experienced than any and makes the artists and road crews feel like family,” he said of the team at Mohegan Sun. “We help build the shows. There is a feeling of trust and camaraderie.”
He heralds his as the busiest box office in the nation. “I go up there to watch them work on game night when there are thousands arriving in an hour or two, all wanting to be serviced and the phone still ringing for tickets. We’re solving problems and making people happy and changing things around at the last minute. It’s like the Starship Enterprise. It’s unbelievable to watch.”
He doesn’t exhale till everyone, most of whom have traveled long distances and made special plans, is handled properly. It’s not an easy job for the ushers and ticket takers and security people — “but in a repeat market like ours, you can get to know a lot of the same people that come here a lot, or, if they’re new, extend a little bit more of a welcome and make them more comfortable. Vegas is a transient market. We have more of an advantage in a repeat market to create that homestyle feeling of welcome back.”
Jennifer Lopez rehearsed and performed a one-of-a-kind show at Mohegan Sun last year, an experience Cantone believes will never be topped. Lopez wasn’t touring and her career was exploding and she chose Mohegan Sun to stage and perform her only live show of the entire year. His ace in the hole was her handler’s familiarity with the team and property at Mohegan Sun.
He estimated the booking was worth $15 million in publicity alone and 300 million people heard she was at Mohegan Sun. Even better, Mohegan Sun had the second biggest casino drop ever.
The only thing that could be in the same sentence with Jennifer Lopez was One Direction, Cantone said. “The two nights they were here, we were the number one tweet brand around the world, beating out Coke and every major brand, from Southeast Asia to Europe to South America; Mohegan Sun was the most talked about place because of One Direction.”
It’s a new marketing world with social media and Cantone has embraced it big time. “The power of one booking for your brand can turn the entire planet’s attention to your front door. Years ago it would take awhile to get the stories out there. Now it’s instant.”
Now in the News
Even after three decades in marketing, Cantone sees nothing but new things to learn. Technology is a game changer. “This past week, for the first time, people were able to use their cellphones to enter the arena and scan their bar code for admission for a Day to Remember concert at Mohegan Sun,” he said. “It literally was a Day to Remember.”
Besides Hersheypark, The Sands and Mohegan Sun, Cantone has had a few other newsworthy career moves, always, as he said, when there is an industry trend at play.
While at the Sands, he got a call from Donald Trump, who just happened to be at the pinnacle of his gaming career. “It was a tough decision because my friendships at the Sands were very strong. But I felt it would be the right step for me and my family and it was quite a deal.” He worked for the Trump organization from 1987-91.
“Every weekend I would go from the Taj Mahal to the Plaza to the Marina. We had all the venues cranked up. It was wonderful. It was another great timing aspect. I went from theme park development that was now in the news to gaming on the East Coast, now in the news, to Donald, who was now in the news.”
Planet Hollywood revitalized the way of rolling out restaurants, and Cantone made a brief sojourn into food and beverage marketing the West 57th Street property, but his heart was in the casino industry. He returned to the Sands, which had been acquired by the Hollywood Casino Corp. and helped open casinos in Tunica, Miss.
In 1998, he moved to Foxwoods Resort Casino in Ledyard, Conn., for nine years. The world became a duopoly — Foxwoods and Mohegan Sun, versus 12 casinos on a Strip. At the time, Foxwoods was the biggest and most profitable casino in the world.
As VP of Marketing, he keyed up entertainment and brought in the Dixie Chicks, Alicia Keys and Norah Jones, and continued to find America’s next pop stars.
Cantone’s MO is to land the hottest stars to create buzz that his property is the place to be. What he was able to do with a 1,400-seat showroom, versus the arena he has today at Mohegan Sun, was “like tying one hand behind your back and we still competed and we won a lot.”
For the past seven years, he’s been with Mohegan Sun, which includes properties in Atlantic City, Pocono Downs and Uncasville, as well as “any that will be developed and we’re close to developing some, like in Massachusetts in the near future” if they win the bid.
Since his first day at Hersheypark, Cantone has found the job thrilling. “We make memories. I see 8,000-10,000 people pour into here happy and pour out happy. When the lights go down and the screens go up, there’s no greater feeling on the planet than that feeling you provided that night for so many people. That’s in a nutshell what I do for a living.”
Interviewed for this story: Tom Cantone, (860) 862-4412