Inside Sports & Entertainment co-founder Ety Rybak
After 10 years as a leading hospitality- and event-management firm, Inside Sports & Entertainment Group (ISEG) has been acquired by CAA Sports. Founded in 2004 by Alan Baum and Ety Rybak, partners Jim Zissler and Jason Zinna, and industry veteran Richard Ebers, ISEG manages about 250 events per year, everything from Super Bowl parties to red carpet premieres and corporate events.
ISEG is a high-volume buyer and reseller of ticketing inventory and the CAA deal brings added legitimacy to the firm's secondard ticketing business. The deal also boosts CAA Sports’ sponsorship and hospitality presence — in the past 15 months CAA Sports has grown its sponsorship division selling packages on behalf of the San Francisco 49ers, Madison Square Garden, FC Barcelona, Los Angeles Dodgers, Chelsea FC and Seattle Sounders. The acquistion with ISEG means a more direct conduit to large corporate buyers and high-volume clients, along with more one-on-one contact at specialty events.
Venues Today sat down with ISEG co-founder Ety Rybak on May 20 to discuss the CAA buyout and find out what’s ahead for both companies.
Why was the CAA acquisition attractive to you?
We’ve been working with CAA informally for a long time. In the secondary market, the barrier is always illegitimacy. Think of this deal as a stamp of approval. Hopefully, companies and different partners that we have will say, "If you’re good enough for CAA, then you’re good enough for us.”
How will ISEG be integrated into CAA's current operatation?
CAA has its sports representation business, but they also work with a number of teams. They represent Madison Square Garden and A.S. Roma and a lot of different big brands, big properties, and with that comes a lot of hospitality opportunities that maybe they haven’t found the best ways to maximize. That’s something that we can come in and help with.
There’s a number of firms on the market that provide hospitality services. How is ISEG different?
In the beginning, we were doing a lot of one-offs with different teams — arranging for kids to be a ball boy with the Knicks or be a bat boy for the Mets. It was very cool and very innovative, but it wasn’t very scalable. We took that and moved into a lot of the heavy ticketing and travel packages for the Super Bowl and the Grammys. And we really expanded a lot of events that people think about. We started doing New Year’s Eve. We started doing the Presidential Inauguration. We started expanding the platform and doing events within the events. As time went on, we got more and more brave. In the beginning, we weren’t buying as much inventory, but as time went on, we started buying a lot more. And that just continued to grow, and we saw significant growth every year.
Who are your customers?
There are a lot of high net-worth individuals, but mostly, sales come from corporate buyers. The corporate group is the engine of our business.
What has been the biggest change to the hospitality industry since you began in 2004?
Nowadays, anyone can go to the Super Bowl — everyone’s got a right to go. You just have to have a budget. Or you can just go to the city (where the Super Bowl is being held) and party with no intent to attend the Super Bowl. Last year when the Super Bowl was in New Orleans, we rented out the entire Harrah’s casino and threw a huge party with Flo Rida. For some people, that was the biggest event they attended during Super Bowl weekend. We’ve also been doing a lot of the red carpet movie premiers with "Hunger Games," as well as events for the Oscars and Golden Globes. The stars are on the red carpet and now that’s where everyone else wants to be.
You can purchase your way onto the red carpet?
The movie premieres need money too. At the end of the day, all we’re trying to do is give money to organizations who are trying to run these events. The challenge is finding the right equation to make it worth their while.
CAA has a huge roster of celebrity clients? Is there a plan to get celebrities to participate in some of these hospitality initiatives?
Yeah, hopefully down the line.
So how would that work?
Everybody has their hands in the pot with sports, but Hollywood is definitely one of the few untapped areas that we would love to continue to grow. A client doesn’t want to be put in an awkward situation with a celebrity, and a celebrity certainly doesn’t want to be put in an awkward situation with a client. Everybody wants it to be the kind of event where everybody belongs.
What types of experiences are clients most excited about in 2014?
The most common question I get from clients regarding high profile events is “why didn’t you tell me about this?” People read about stuff or see something on TV after it happens and they’re like “wow this is so cool.” I get the most requests for Kentucky Derby tickets the day after the derby concludes. That’s really what drives the most interest in all events — seeing it on TV.
Interviewed for this article: Ety Rybak, (212) 686-5710
- Intern Risa Johnson was a contributor to this story