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"You want to know how I got Dell?" Jay Miller says, leaning back with a conspiratorial smile, because he KNOWS that pretty much every other GM in the minors would kill for a stadium naming rights deal.

"I worked on them for about eight months. To the point where everybody was saying ‘You might be spinning your wheels. You may need to go for plan B.’ 

"I always felt like we were going to get them.  We got to get them.  And here’s the thing that sent it over the top: There’s 21,000 employees in Round Rock.  [Dell's] big office is on [Hwy] 1325 which is ten minutes from us.  Every time you go to a restaurant around here at 11:30 or noon they all wear their name tags.  Everywhere they go, people ring them up at half price. 

"They have such strength in numbers, most of the restaurants will say you can eat for half price.  To the point that they go in and say 'No, I'm with Dell, I go for half price.'  

"I’m laying in bed one night, and the guy from Dell said ‘Jay you’ve got to figure out a hook that it’s an employee benefit that Michael [Dell] will go for, and I’m thinking… That’s it! LUNCH! They’re all getting half price!

"I went back,. I called them back the next day. I said 'Scott, [Helton]  I’ve got it!'  

"He said 'What have you got?' 

"I said, 'You guys eat for half price. Tell you what I do: For the life of the contract, which is fifteen years, any employee that wants to come to a Round Rock Express game,  talking about any time, subject to availability, for half price.' 

"And they started laughing and said ‘That’s it. That’s going to get it done.’ 

"It’s a perq for 21,000 employees that nobody else has."

Selling the Express

Some will tend to write off the success of the franchise to having Nolan's visable visage around the park, both in person and in promotional items. "There may of been some ballclubs that would say 'I wish we had a hall of famer.'" remarks Fendrick. "I’d say the same thing if I was in Midland or San Antonio. What’s good for the League is usually what comes first."

Still, the senior partner in the firm is very circumspect about his role in the organization, even keeping a low profile during the interviews for this story. "It’s been Reid’s project all along and we’re real proud of what he’s done,” says Nolan in the Foreward to "A Season of Celebration," a book on the inaugural year of the Express. This is Reid's baby, assisted by Reese and minority partner Jay Miller.

The law of 'Don't oversell Nolan' is very evident, largely because the organization doesn't need to do it.

"It’s tempting when you’re doing your promotion schedule to overdo the Nolan Ryan image on everything you do," says Fendrick, who is largely responsible for the promotions at the Express. "We don’t do that for two reasons: We have more confidence in our marketing skills than that.  Also, Nolan’s not about that.  He’s very ‘It’s not about me, it’s about the team.' It’s genuine. He doesn’t want to be in the limelight.  He doesn’t mind having a Nolan Ryan bobblehead on a horse. A photo on a mug or a t-shirt. But that’s about it."

The Dell Diamond opened in 2000 and began setting attendance records for Texas League and AA baseball overall. "We set the AA attendance record five years in a row," Reese points out.

How do they do it, above and beyond the Ryan mystique? Hard work. "We really push our season tickets, HARD.  We push that, and we push groups," says Miller.

The other major reason for the success of the Express is that baseball falls just shy of church in the priority list of many residents of Central Texas. "Win or lose, these are the best fans, most knowledgeable, enthusiastic fans of any venue or any city where I’ve ever worked and I’ve worked some pretty good places,” says Kendrick without a shred of PR spin.

"It’s been a lot of work to get people here, whether it’s targeting groups, or our Kids’ Club,  taking fans response," agrees Reese. "We do surveys every year. We do things to keep it fresh. We add something new to the facility every year.  We’ve really tried to make it bigger and better every year."

This season, there was a major facelift to the facility, with the addition of a rock climbing tower in the play area, new seating in the "porch" area bleachers, and additional skyboxes.

The improvements came along with another big move for the Ryan Family's Express: A new AAA club in Round Rock, and a move of their AA club to Corpus Christi, Texas.

Movin' on Up

The announcement came shortly after the blessings of the dons of baseball at the Winter meetings in 2003, and the deal itself to bring the last AAA franchise from Canada to Round Rock was closing as the interviews for this article were being conducted in September of 2004.

The notion that moving up to the AAA is instantly a boon to business isn't necessarily so in Central Texas. "Our fans here are very educated. Very educated," says Miller "And a lot of ‘em have come up to us and said, ‘Well I know where AA is where all the prospects are, and AAA is where you have six year free agents, and there’s a lot movement.'  It shows you how knowledgeable they are. I think what they want to see the same hustle and dedication and interactions of the AA guys."

The move has been portrayed by some as a lucky set of circumstances coming together. There is no luck here, other than what has been hacked out by the hard work of the Ryan brothers. Reid Ryan has always believed that Austin Metro is at least a AAA market. He has been determined, since the Express took the field, to make it so.

"We opened up in 2000," says brother Reese, "I got here at the beginning of the season in 2001.  My focus since I joined the organization was the acquisition of the AAA team.  I have a lot of responsibilities as far as being the Chief Financial Officer and overseeing the day-to-day operations, but Reid and I spent countless hours the last three years just focusing on the acuisition.  It’s been a big ol’ long process that’s hopefully coming to a head today."

It did. The Edmonton Trappers will be the Round Rock Express of the AAA Pacific Coast League in 2005. The AA Texas League Team that was the Express will move to Corpus Christi, where they will be known as the Hooks.

Corpus Christi was a logical choice. Another growing city with only professional hockey, and the home of the Ryans' ranch, the market stands to benefit from the midas touch of baseball people with the vision and character to run a first-class operation.

Will the brothers Ryan be able to pull off the same degree of success in Corpus?

Continued...

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