When Andy Goldberg stepped into the Mets CMO role, he brought something different to sports marketing: corporate discipline honed at American Express and GE. Rather than applying traditional sports tactics with bigger budgets, he reimagined how entertainment properties claim cultural territory.
What happened next? The Mets evolved from periodic attendance generators to cultural territory holders in America's most competitive entertainment market. Goldberg's cross-industry perspective reveals how any entertainment brand can cultivate deeper connections in an increasingly fragmented attention economy.
Rethinking Your Real Competition
Here's how most sports marketers lose out on impact: they're obsessed with the game itself while undervaluing the holistic experience that actually creates fan loyalty.
According to Goldberg, sports are entertainment. Period. “It’s an entertainment experience. You can be a fan. You don't have to be a fan. You're there to enjoy 3 to 4 hours of entertainment.”
While fans may see the Mets competition as the Yankees, marketers in the space need to look beyond the league.
“You're really competing on a consistent basis with disposable income... It might be going to dinner in New York City or going to a Broadway show," says Goldberg.
When you expand your competitive view beyond category rivals, strategic possibilities multiply. The question becomes: how do you make your experience worth choosing over everything else competing for time and money?
The Problem with Short-Term Marketing Wins
"When I got to the Mets it was much more of a what's in front of us for the next 2 days, and let's pivot constantly versus having a running theme of the work and really elevating,” Goldberg recalls.
This reactive pattern creates limiting cycles. Teams default to game highlights over meaningful narratives. Media channels become content delivery systems rather than experience enhancement opportunities. Metrics emphasize volume over relationship depth.
Sports marketing faces a unique measurement challenge because team performance dramatically impacts fan sentiment. "The Mets feedback loop was good, but you have to take the information, based on the performance of the team," he notes, contrasting it with his AMEX experience, where customer feedback reflected service quality, not external performance variables.
Taking Attention Off the Field
Corporate marketing discipline creates powerful possibilities: prioritizing the complete fan experience over the game itself.
Goldberg focused on building sentiment around the Mets experience at Citi Field as fundamentally enjoyable entertainment. "Win 10, nothing, lose 10, nothing, I want fans to have a great time at the ballpark. That's the most important piece."
The marketing veteran brought systematic thinking from corporate experience: “The discipline that entities have in terms of really thinking through what the core DNA of the company is, what the strategy is, how that's articulated in the work." This created consistency across touchpoints rather than treating each interaction as isolated.
Content transformation became central to this shift. Moving from reactive planning to strategic thinking required changing how the organization approached storytelling. Rather than defaulting to highlight reels, the focus shifted to meaningful narratives creating emotional connections.
"It went from good and sort of sizzle reel stuff to real storytelling, and storytelling behind the players and storytelling behind the team," Goldberg adds.
Fandom-Building Principles That Matter
Goldberg’s transformation of the Met’s marketing principles to keep in mind for entertainment properties looking to build authentic fandom through strategic experience design and media planning.
1. Recognize Your True Competition for Time and Attention
Success often requires understanding your place in consumers' broader lifestyle choices. You're competing with every premium entertainment option, not category rivals
2. Design for the Complete Fan Experience, Not Just the Product
Take advantage of making customers/fans a part of your brand. “The physical touch,” he says, ”the physical moment that someone gets to experience that brand doesn't always happen with a lot of brands.”
3. Embrace Strategic Agility in Media Planning
"It wasn't a big analysis. If we see something's not working, after a day or two we move." The fast-moving entertainment industry requires data-informed planning with flexibility to pivot quickly based on audience response.
4. Integrate Brand Building with Performance Marketing
Effective marketing integrates both objectives rather than treating them separately. "There's not a magical split. They merge over each other. If you're doing it really well, brand can be performance and performance can be brand."
5. Stay Sensitive to Your Audience's Emotional State
Entertainment marketing requires constant awareness of audience sentiment and agility to adjust messaging accordingly. "Be mindful of the sentiment of the fan. If you're blind to what's happening on the performance of the team... You're gonna be tone deaf."
Goldberg’s principles work together to create authentic fandom momentum—a self-reinforcing cycle where strategic experience design creates opportunities for deeper emotional connection. Thus enabling more effective media planning and generating more meaningful fan relationships.
When entertainment brands stop chasing eyeballs and start claiming hearts, they dominate the conversation. It's about recognizing that in a world where every screen demands attention, the brands that win are the ones brave enough to prioritize connection over conversion, experience over exposure.