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Former Spirit CEO Mullin still in the action with the Aspire Group

April 19, 2010

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The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

It’s been about 26 months since he left his job as president and chief executive officer of the Atlanta Spirit, but Bernie Mullin, it turns out, is never really far from the Atlanta Hawks, the Atlanta Thrashers or Philips Arena. He oversaw the two teams and their general managers as well as the business and arena operations from 2004 to 2008.

“I’m going to the Hawks game tonight, and I’m getting some dental work done this morning with the Thrashers’ team dentist,” Mullin said with a laugh recently when asked if he still keeps contact.

Not that he hasn’t moved on. For the past couple of years, the 60-year-old Britisher has been building the Aspire Group, a global management and marketing consulting business focused on sports and entertainment. He’s used his 30-plus years in sports management to advise clubs in Major League Baseball, the NBA, NHL and English Premier League on building sales and service cultures and growing revenues and profits.

The company’s growth is keyed to the expansion of the Aspire Fan Relationship Management Center, a customer relations and ticket sales operation the company hopes to install and staff at colleges and professional sports clubs around the country and the world. It rolled out the model at Georgia Tech, and Mullin called the project staggeringly successful, making nearly $1 million in new ticket sales in nine months.

“It’s gone really well,” Mullin said on a sun-splashed day as he looked out from his high-rise office at Tower Place in Buckhead.

Mullin terms the operation “replicatable intellectual property,” meaning that the system can be put in place at any school and successfully grow sales and customer satisfaction. Read Full Article

 

 

 

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