PATHWAY: In what ways have unconventional marketing methods played into your overall strategy? What approaches have you taken?

RYAN: I think last year was our big break and unconventional. We had Space Balls Night. Everybody did Star Wars, but you need certain clearances to do Star Wars, and we didn't have them, nor did we have the desire, since everyone else was doing it. We got Michael Winslow as a celebrity guest since he was in the movies and we completely decked him out in Space Balls; Our mascot, Amo, was Dork Helmet; We made several TikTok videos and Instagram Reels; we got the interns involved; and we started really going outside of our department and trying to get everybody else involved because you have to have total buy-in. If you don't have total buy-in, it's going to fall apart. I remember radio stations were calling us a week before when we started running our ads, asking if we were really doing Space Balls Night and how they could get involved.

This year, we did Napoleon Dynamite Night. We had Efren Ramirez, who played Pedro, out, and we did the same thing – we made a bunch of videos with references to the movie. When people got to the game, we had a liger drawing contest on the field. We tried to tie everything back to that theme. The biggest part of it was that [our mascot] Amo learned Napoleon’s dance. It took him six months, but he did it on the field, and it blew up on social media. 

The next week, we had ‘80s Night, and we had to think about how to top that. I had a crazy idea, and I still can't believe people followed along with this, but I actually had to be involved, too. We got our players, myself, and our in-game host to recreate the entire Journey Separate Ways Music video, which again blew up on social media. That started serving our ads to different people, and we started finding those different audiences. We didn't ask people to come dressed up in ’80s attire, but they showed up in costumes with the long hair and the Motley Crew, and they were totally bought in. 

It happens to work out that our team's pretty good on the field, so you're getting the best of both worlds. We lean into soccer, but we also lean into the theme nights and experience. I think you have to marry the two together.

PATHWAY: As you do get fans into the building, how do you connect them to the sport? What does that transition look like for your team, and how do you create longevity out of those moments?

RYAN: Our owner is big on investing in the team. We have one of the best coaches of all time here, too. While we do our best to not only put a good product on the field, we can't control wins and losses obviously, but you can tell an owner's invested. But, a big thing is we have to make the game a little more entertaining – to break the norm, so to speak. 

We try to teach people while they're here without them feeling like they're being taught about the game. Other teams and some of our purest fans get upset with us, but we play music during breaks. When the other team gets a red card, we play *NSYNC’s Bye, Bye, Bye when the player walks off the field.

Something that I got our social media team to start doing this year is posting stats after the game, sort of like the NFL and NHL. Soccer has some unconventional stats, like touches in the box, etc., so we try to teach people those things. Why would we choose a specific player of the game? We put those stats out to enforce why they were chosen. It's not necessarily always a goal scorer, but someone doing something away from the play, and we're educating fans. 

I think that's how you do it. You have to educate people at the same time because again, the gimmicks get them through the door, and they have fun, but we want to create fans. We want them to watch games on the road. Our broadcast numbers have been some of the best in the league over the last few years, too, because people are not going to get that sort of entertainment away from Pittsburgh, but they're still going to be invested in the team because they came to a game. They saw the team perform, and they want to know what's going to happen next. I think that's a big part of it.

PATHWAY: You added the Pittsburgh Riveters USL W-League team this year, sold out your first match, and it seemed like you had really great crowds throughout the whole season. What was it like to onboard and introduce a new team to your market?

RYAN: With the Riveters, we had a unique opportunity to make it whatever we wanted. As a marketing department, all we could think of - and we were all completely on the same page with this - is that we have to invite the fans to come on this journey and build the club with us because we're building from the ground up.

We want them to rise with us. We let the fans vote on the club’s name, Riveters, and I think it had 80% of the votes. It was just far and away the best name since Riveters actually ties to Pittsburgh too. The artist who created Rosie the Riveter was from here, so it made sense. Everything, from the voting to our hashtag #RivetersRise, was inviting the fans to grow with us, inviting them to rise with us.

Everything we did was about the rise, and fans were with us the entire time. We didn't have that for 23 years with the Riverhounds, but since I've been here, it's all very fan-centric, and we wanted the Riveters to be like that right off the bat. It definitely helped that women's sports have been on the rise so significantly over the last few years that we knew there was going to be some sort of buzz.

For us, how do you sell out the games? How do you get people invested? I remember our first video gave me chills, I just had this idea that I wanted to show the rise and coming of age. It started with this little girl seeing a soccer ball for the first time, and showed throughout the years how she developed and then grew into teammates, and then the teammates and the girl won together. In the last scene, a Riveters player was sitting on the bench, getting a text from her parents saying “we're so proud of you,” right before she's about to walk out on the field and start the season. 

Everything we did, we were rising, and the fans were right there with us the entire way, and I think we saw the results of that during the first game. I saw the Detroit City FC playoff game; I saw the Columbus Crew Open Cup game here; But I've never seen this place so full and lively as I did that first game with the Riveters. People were dressed head to toe in Rosie the Riveter attire, they were all doing the arms, and I just knew that we did something right. The plan is to continue to do that, to lean in and invite the fans to be there with us every step of the way because they're helping us build. We're not the ones building it by ourselves; we're building it together with them.

PATHWAY: The organization had a massive announcement recently about expanding the stadium from 6,000 to 15,000 seats. It’s a huge project that's a couple of years in the making, and as a marketer, how do you approach the opportunity?

RYAN: I thrive in the chaos. I thrive in challenges. You can't deny the success of the organization over the past three years. I mean, we went from selling out fewer than 10 total games to selling out 75% of our matches over the last three years. I think we can even do better. Even during tough stretches, we didn’t score a goal for I think six weeks last year, we were still selling out. We knew that people were invested and wanted to be here. Once you get to a point, you know that you are a commodity and that people want to see the rise.

I think it's time to do something like this to show we're investing in our fans who are investing in us. We're investing in this team, we're investing in this venue, and we just can't fit the amount of people here anymore, so we need to grow. And with the league's announcement for promotion/relegation, we want to be at the top. Why wouldn't we want to be at the top? We're showing our fans that from a marketing standpoint, I almost see it as a startup, as I saw it when I got here, it's a 26-year-old startup. We know we have this small base, but how can we continue to grow it? I think we just continue to do a lot of the same things.

We’ll expand in certain areas where we know that we're a little thin. I know the plan is to build over the next few years internally as we build externally. I think the World Cup coming up is going to help us quite a bit. I went to Toronto a couple of months ago, and I saw their stadium, and they're all ready for the World Cup there. I just think about how that's going to be us. We're going to be all set for this, the next big thing in soccer, because we're invested.

I think when you have that mentality, the fans see it, and they know it, and they know you're not just money-grabbing them. You're invested like they are, and you want to see this thing grow, and you want them to be involved. Then, you see an owner like Tuffy [Shallenberger] continuing to invest in the team and the things that he said at our press conference that inspires us as a front office to go out and do even better; saying this to the fans, but he’s saying this to us too, that he’s ready to invest, We're ready to invest with a whatever-it-takes mentality.

PATHWAY: You mentioned the potential expansion of your team. Is there a quality that you look for when you're looking to hire someone to join your team?

RYAN: We are very, very picky because we used to just let anybody work here, and we decided that not everybody can work here. I think the most important quality I look for in a teammate is the willingness to selflessly help in any way possible. I don't care if you're an intern, I don't care if you're an executive, you can jump in, pull your sleeves up, and get your hands dirty because you know that it's necessary for the organization. You're not above it. That's the sort of person I want on my team because I know that when push comes to shove, or things start to fail, you're going to be there and have my back the same way I'll have yours. 

I remember my first game, Jeff [Garner] and I were out here in the stands because we were short on operations staff. We were picking up trash – the team President, the Marketing Director, and the Director of Sales – we were all out there picking up trash after the game. That's the sort of person you want. Some people stayed in their offices because they thought they were above doing that, and those people aren't here anymore. 

We have a very thorough intern process, too, where we try to find those sorts of people, and we hang onto them tightly when we do. That's how we develop throughout. We're hiring the people who want to be here because they know it's better for the organization, not just for them.

If you want to do something, if you want to join the organization, I don't care if it's soccer or whatever it is, you have to be willing to go in and do anything it takes. We had some turnover last year, and I had to hire a new Social Media Manager halfway through the season and the one that I hired had been a free photographer for us for three years. She worked here for free, went to away games for free because she wanted to be here. It was a no-brainer when it was time to hire her, when she said she was interested, that I wanted her here, because I knew she was here for the right reasons.

PATHWAY: You were previously doing something completely outside of soccer. We talk to a lot of people who want to make that transition. What’s one piece of advice from your experience you would recommend to someone who wants to try to break into the sport?

RYAN: This is advice I would give anyone in any walk of life. The best piece of advice I can possibly offer is to never sit back and wait for someone to give you an opportunity; Always go out and seek that opportunity. You could talk to 20 people who won't give you the time of day, but it could be that 21st person that you can connect with, and you say you’ll do whatever it takes; you'll work games for free; you'll be on the game day staff; you just want to learn from them; and you make that connection. That's you going out and seeking an opportunity and not just citing your credentials.

You need to seek the opportunity and never sit back because if you sit back, someone else with possibly less talent but more drive than you is going to get it. It's having that ability to go out and make things happen for yourself, and I think I learned that very early on. I was terrible at it at the beginning, but now what I teach my team is if they say there's a roadblock, I tell them to make it happen by any means necessary.

Thanks to Ryan for taking the time to chat with us. You can connect with him on LinkedIn, and be sure to follow the Pittsburgh Riverhounds SC as the club pushes for a berth into the 2025 USL Championship Playoffs.