Joe LaBue on upgraded gameday atmosphere, returning to Maryland, fan initiatives

Ahmed Ghafir
33 minutes ago
7 min read

Joe LaBue is now roughly 14 months into his tenure as Maryland's new deputy AD and with time to make upgrades, Maryland Athletics is doing exactly that after announcing its gameday themes and debut of the 'Terp Tank' outside of Section 16. LaBue talks about returning to Maryland, what to expect in SECU Stadium next Saturday, fan initiatives and more:

On returning to Maryland

“It's still amazing. It's about a year in, ‘01 grad. My wife went here too, she's an ‘05 grad so Terps are in our DNA. I've worked in pro sports for the last 25 years. With the changing landscape of college athletics and Jim coming here, he and I, similar backgrounds in the pro world. Really felt like this was the right fit for my next step career wise, and there's a lot of people in pro sports and in this business that don't get to work for teams they grew up cheering for or obviously the school they went to and there's pros and cons to that. Sometimes you don't want to see what's under the hood. But for me, I know coming here and just doing what I can do to help will make a huge impact [on] Maryland Athletics. And if I can walk away saying I played a small role in getting us back to where we deserve to be, [it] would be amazing.”

On the balance between helping teams win more vs. finding other avenues to drive revenue

“The formula is simple. I mean we have full arenas, full buildings. It definitely helps from a competitive standpoint. Helps from a recruiting standpoint in college, helps my pro background, free agents. They wanted to go play in front of full buildings. They wanted to play in front of rabid fan bases. They wanted to, for better or worse, maybe be recognized when they walk down the street, depending on who you talk to. I think with Maryland in particular, for me, it's - we have so much untapped potential, but again, it's not anything that's aspirational. When I was here, we were cutting down the nets in Atlanta. Brenda was cutting down the nets a couple years later. Sasho [Cirovski] was getting going. We were in the Orange Bowl. We were crushing Tennessee in the Peach Bowl. So again, it can happen here. We all know the talent here, the passion, how much this school means to the region, regardless if you went here or not, kid that went here or not, something about that Maryland flag. And for my role, it's yes, helping winning, but I can't come to work every single day and be like, ‘well, I gotta hope we hope we win nine, ten games on the football field this year. Here's my plan if we win ten games.’ That doesn't work. So we've taken the approach of fan experience. Jim's talked about it since day one. How do we take SECU Stadium, Xfinity Center, Ludwig Field on Friday nights for men's soccer in the afternoons…how do we make that better?

So there's been a lot of intentional work over the last 12 months in terms of trying to figure out what are some easy wins, what are some things that we can do differently to drive fan experience? Because people love Maryland. You just need to give them a reason to come to College Park.”

On new fan initiatives for football season

“Like I said, it was a very intentional approach. We were okay listening to fans. We wanted all the feedback. You don't get into this and know you're going to get pats on the back 24/7, 365. It's the exact opposite. Usually, the only people you hear from are people [who] are upset, but that's okay, because that gives you direction and things you got to work on. So we've parking, getting into College Park. We've been very hard at work, working with campus, working with Prince George's County, working with our facilities. Getting people here, that's your first impression of a gameday, just something as easy as getting to the stadium. With the growth of College Park and everything that's so awesome going on here, [it] does create a little bit of a logistical challenge, sort of short-term pain, long-term gain. I mean, this place is unbelievable. I mean, I've said that to everybody coming back here. I’ve been down in Charlotte for the last 15 years. Coming back to College Park, I mean, this city has grown up. It is awesome.”

“So, looking at getting in on game days, so people will hopefully see something that's just easy. Directional signage. How can I use an app to figure out where I need to park? You can go to our app now. We've got an interactive map that'll take you from leaving your driveway to getting into College Park. Once you're in the stadium, whether it's SECU or Xfinity or any of our facilities, where do I get this specific concession item? If I want to buy a T-shirt for my kid, where do I go? These are things that - basic, blocking and tackling, but there's a lot of work. And we know look, we're not going to get a ton of feedback saying this is unbelievable, but what we're not going to get is maybe some people complaining about it on Monday morning, Tuesday. It's one of these things. It's like the silence is kind of what we want.”

On what to expect in the season opener vs. Hampton

“So inside the stadium, I mean, something as simple as putting televisions in the concourse. Again, I hadn't been back here…you're going to buy a beer…it’s like I want to go get a beer, but I might miss a big play too. So there'll be over 50 concourse televisions now. In terms of game day atmosphere, it's growing on some traditions. The flag drop. I'm really excited for next Saturday. The team intro is going to be electric. So our content team, our fan experience team has been hard at work in the lab. We've had a lot of really good feedback from the football team too. It's not like, hey, we think this is going to be great. Hope you guys like it. We've been working with them too because you want the authentic excitement when they come running out. So someone from the football staff told me last week, we look like the big boys. This is going to be unbelievable with the lights and the video. So fortunately, it's an 8 o'clock game against Hampton. So we'll have that one night game experience. We'll be ready for when those guys from Blacksburg…it's how are we encouraging fans to get pumped up, get excited? Don't sit down. I understand. Again, we talked about it. The team has a lot to do with that, but we can dictate that too. What music we're playing, what the scoreboard prompts are, the world of partnerships. Nobody just wants to hear a read about the company X Y Z….How are they woven into something you're going to remember? That's mutually beneficial for the partner, for the fan experience?

You mentioned The Shell. We've sort of rebranded our student section and student engagement. We know how important that is. Our students have been awesome. I think they've gotten a lot of bad rap recently, and coming back here, and I think that's a lazy take. I think our students have been very engaged. We saw the best student support we've had in a long time last year through a football season that was 4-8, even basketball season got a little lean there, but we understand why. So just sort of rebranding that fresh start and you get those freshmen and sophomoree on campus that don't know otherwise. They learn and you want to create those habits right away. We want them to be fully engaged in Maryland athletics from day one because if you don't get them in their freshman, sophomore year, it's gonna be a tough ask when they're out of here, right?”

“One of the other things we did this year, we’re launching the Terp Tank. So Terp Tank, section 16. It is a total high energy section that, yes, we have a dunk tank. We're going to be dunking people.”

“We've got plans, but having worked in soccer for so long, the beauty of a supporters section in soccer is it's owned and organic by the fans in that section.”

On expanding the university’s footprint into Baltimore more between Ravens practice, men’s basketball games

“We can't say we're the flagship university of the state [and] not be intentional about understanding there's an entire state outside of PG County. The roots in Baltimore, not only from alumni, fans, student athletes. It's a special relationship. We talked about getting to College Park. We need to get over the fact that it's 45 minutes to an hour potentially on a gameday, right? We understand that. We need to show up in places where people are. We need to say, hey, we need your support, and we'll support you back. That's why having the game against South Carolina in December is going to be great. We were there at Coppin State last year too, but we want to continue to be there.”

“There's no pretentiousness around here, whether you went here or not. You're a terp. Whether you're born here, you live here now, this is your state. This is your team. It's Big Ten college athletics, and if anyone's going to say the Big Ten isn't the biggest and baddest on the planet, then again you're wrong.”

“We're coast to coast, and coming here to College Park, there's something special about college athletics and there's something great about being in the Big Ten too because you're seeing the best of the best every single week. And we take representing the state really seriously. So Baltimore is a massive part of this state, obviously. And we are going to continue to look for ways to do things. I think the Ravens were smart, the marketing boundaries were there no more so why wouldn't you take that opportunity? That's fine. If Commander fans are upset about it, then they should do something about it too. We're welcoming of all. Whether you're wearing burgundy and gold or purple and black on Sundays, you can come and support the Terps on a Saturday. That's the approach we need to have because we've got a lot of work to do to build that brand equity back up in the marketplace. And like I said, it's building it back up. It's not like it's never been done before. So I don't want anyone to think that we're coming here to do anything that's groundbreaking. It's more of just taking this entity that I love and so many love and treating it right.”

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