Nashville Predators CEO Diagrams Service and Broadband Power Plays 

Nashville Predators CEO Diagrams Service and Broadband Power Plays

Fiber Connect 2024, Nashville, Tenn. – Running an award-winning National Hockey League (NHL) franchise would seem to have little in common with broadband and service provider operations, but Nashville Predators CEO Sean Henry is no ordinary sports entertainment executive. Twenty-one years ago, he started out selling hotdogs in Detroit Red Wings games and steadily worked his way up through the ranks to where he is now running the hottest arena in professional hockey. Many of his learnings in the sports world are equally applicable to new and current service provider management and their customer service teams as they build fiber networks around the country. 

“I tell every young person, love where you work, love the mission and jump on board,” Henry stated, noting he was ready to step up and help out other departments once he had his job mastered and running well. Hopping in got him noticed and led to increasing responsibilities and learning different aspects of the business. “You’ll be the biggest company guy in the world, because there’s a lot more opportunities.” 

Henry said success requires focusing on the moment and creating a supportive work environment that lets people thrive. “Worry about your job interview or the job you have,” said Henry. “Don’t worry about the job three jobs later. Everything we do is how to be better today or yesterday, not how to be the best at what you do… It’s fun when people do their jobs the best they can.” 

The Nashville Predator’s arena has been recognized as one of the top 10 venues in the country over the past twelve years and the top arena twice in that time period, due to Henry’s focus on celebrating successes and “not getting down” when people inevitably make mistakes.  The arena has delivered significant economic benefits to the city, generating the ability to build three satellite ice rinks in middle Tennessee to introduce the next generation of fans to skating, hockey and the Predators. Building the facilities has served to revitalize the surrounding areas, leading to public and private sector investments that includes a new library, rec centers, a hotel, a new soccer field and restaurants, along with companies relocating their operations so they can take advantage of the economic boom. 

Broadband has been a significant enabler for the Predators to engage with fans both in the arena and outside of it. “The more we can feed [information to] our fans, the more we can position our spots with partners messaging in a pretty cool way,” said Henry. “Whether it be around stats or real time gaming, or maybe it’s gambling as well, the better we’re going to make it. That wasn’t always the way. Every time there’s been a wave, an evolution in electronic digital, there’s always someone that fights it. A lot of sports owners fought against radio. The Islanders wouldn’t put games on TV for 20 years because they thought if the games were on TV, nobody would come to the games, how foolish is that? But their loss was two generations of fans,” 

Henry is all in to provide immersive experiences for fans, be it through live events, bringing the game to fans in bars and their living rooms, and on their phones. Fiber is providing the backbone for a new Wi-Fi system at the arena to provide new channels and incentives to interact with fans.  “We’d be irresponsible if we didn’t take every connection for every one of our fans to sell them more often or to [interact with] them a little bit more often,” said Henry. “And then really leverage our partners messages to them.”  

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