Welcome to the Arena from ICR – Conversations with Today's Innovators & Business Leaders Joe Hand Jr., President of Joe Hand Promotions – Knockout Success: Over 50 years of growth in live sports and entertainment distribution
Every successful family business has a good story behind it, but today's guest has an extraordinary one, that's all about innovation, creativity, and loving what they do.
Today we're sitting down with Joe Hand Jr., President of Joe Hand Promotions, the global leader in live sports for bars, restaurants, and cinemas. In his role, Joe focuses on fostering lasting relationships and delivering exceptional experiences for commercial customers, helping them drive revenue for their business.
For over 35 years, Joe has guided the business, which is now the largest independent distributor of closed circuit TV and pay-per-view programming in the world. Prior to joining his father in the family business, Joe began his career in professional sports as a 10th round draft pick of the Philadelphia 76ers.
In 1980, he joined Joe Hand Promotions as a part time team member before going on to create Cable Sports Network, a company that provided fresh sports programming to growing cable systems. He then assumed the role as President of Joe Hand Product Promotions in 1987.
In addition to his role at Joe Hand Promotions, Joe's distinguished philanthropic work includes opening the Joe Hand Boxing Gym in Philadelphia in 1995. The gym is a nonprofit organization which provides a variety of boxing classes to men and women of all ages and ability levels. They offer programs dedicated to disabled veterans, those diagnosed with Parkinson's disease as well as adults and children with disabilities.
Highlights:
- Joe gives some background on the business, what they do for their clients and how they originally partnered with some of the biggest companies in the business (3:10)
- How Joe Hand Promotions started with Joe Frazier and boxing over 50 years ago (7:09)
- How the company approaches innovation and how it has evolved since 1971 (10:05)
- What Joe Hand Promotions brings to the table for their customers (11:23)
- Analytics and data that help their clients (13:17)
- The bread and butter of their business (14:23)
- Going beyond sports events (15:57)
- How Joe narrows down the events they want to pursue and what their growth strategy should be (17:26)
- How they think about M and A (18:43)
- The other companies they have partnerships with (20:33)
- How COVID affected the business (21:37)
- Joe tells the story of being an NBA draft pick (24:20)
- Joe’s non-profit boxing gym and how and why he started it (26:58)
Links:
Joe Hand Jr. on LinkedIn
Joe Hand Promotions on LinkedIn
Feedback:
If you have questions about the show, or have a topic in mind you'd like discussed in future episodes, email our producer, marion@lowerstreet.co.