It’s hard to find someone who hasn’t heard of Travis Kelce. André Eanes and his firm A&A Management have a lot to do with building the image of the Kansas City Chiefs tight end, from his Pfizer campaign to the Kelceroni pizza, as well as underwriting at-risk programs for children. By giving Kelce and the firm’s roster more control over messaging and brand, clients do more than collect a paycheck: they shape the story they want to tell about themselves.
“I think athletes have always been used to showing up, taking a picture, smiling, posting on social media, get paid, done,” says Eanes. “That’s transactional. That doesn’t last, that doesn’t work. We’re pushing more towards having a more long-term relationship.”
You can hear more of the conversation between Eanes and Signal360’s John Battelle on the Signal stage in the video below, or read our lightly edited transcript.
TRANSCRIPT
John Battelle
I’m very excited about our next our next Signal speaker. I’ve gotten to know André a little bit as we prepared for today. Please join me in welcoming André Eanes, the President and Chief Business Officer of A&A Management.
Welcome to Signal. The first thing I want to point out is, you didn’t have to travel for this.
André Eanes
Oh, I did. I walked, which is a lot for me.
You live right here in Cincinnati.
I do.
When we were developing this, must have been seven or eight, maybe nine months ago, I’m, ‘Can we find out whoever is behind Travis Kelce?’ I just want to find who that person is and get them here. That took a little doing. II can figure that you and your brother were behind a lot of other sports figures, which we’re going to get into. But then when you were so happy to get on the phone, and I said, ‘So where are you?’ And you’re, ‘Cincinnati.’ I’m, ‘Wait a minute, that’s crazy.’ You’re a native?
I’m from Cleveland, Ohio. But I went to University of Cincinnati, ended up staying here, falling in love with the city. Not in love with the Bengals, not in love with the Reds, but definitely in love with the city.
Something tells me you might be a KC fan. But before we get into all that, I want to hear your founding story. How did you get into the business of sports management, and what was the approach you took that was distinct?
I like to say it started when we were kids. I come from a family of entrepreneurship. My father and mother franchised 17 Burger King’s, some in Atlanta, some in Cleveland, and built a few here in Cincinnati, and their investors were athletes, Browns players, Indians players. My godfather played for the Browns. He wasn’t that good, but he was on the team. That’s before they took him away from us, the Browns, that is. Then I played at AU basketball when I was a kid, so I always thought I was going to be in the NBA. Being from Cincinnati, I went to St Edward High School, so shout out to any Eagles that may be in here. But Steve Logan was a big influence in my life growing up, being a St Edward graduate, won a state championship, went to University of Cincinnati, and I’m taller than him, so I thought that, if he made it, I can probably make it also. But it didn’t end up happening, of course, but during that process, I got to hang out and be around a lot of the influential athletes Jrue Holiday, being one of them who just won the NBA championship for the Boston Celtics.
We used to play against his team all the time. And my senior year in high school, we actually played them on ESPN. I think they flashed back to that video while the game was on. So you saw me as a kid running around in Jersey. It’s pretty dope to see that. And we won that game. So I thought I was going to the NBA, honestly. I have a twin brother. We knew we wanted to be in sports. Somehow, in my mind, I was going to be in the NBA, and he was going to be my representation. You know what I mean. But did he think that? Well, no, he told me, probably in ninth grade, that I wasn’t going to the NBA. That’s how it kind of happened. I went to the University of Cincinnati. A very good friend of mine ended up playing football for UC. I played basketball at Claremont County, which I wasn’t going to tell you guys this, because it’s Claremont County, and we weren’t really good at all. And that’s kind of when I realized I wasn’t going to the NBA. So I transfer to the main campus of University of Cincinnati, majored in sports management, and still haven’t told my brother he was right to this day. But that’s how it happened. I mean, and Travis trusted us. Our first client actually, was Chimdi Chekwa at Ohio State.
We worked with him. It was crazy, because he played for the Raiders. So we were flying to Oakland on our own dime trying to figure it all out. But that was in the bubble of tech in Silicon Valley. So we were able to connect with a lot of investors and business professionals, and we were just 21 years old, trying to figure it out. Then a year later, we were recruiting pretty heavy. We ended up getting a small investor, and he didn’t end up staying an investor. He just kind of gave us money to figure it out. And Travis trusted us. I think we met with 20 plus people that year. Everyone said, ‘No, I have an agent.’ They’ll handle it. And Travis was, ‘Let’s do it.’ That’s kind of how it happened.
You’re talk to me about a little bit about how you think about developing and managing players, and particularly the regional part of it. You sent me a link. We’re not going to play that video. We’re going to play a different one shortly. But of an early campaign that you did with Travis for a local pizza shop. How did you develop this concept of starting with almost regional talent and then going national.
We had no choice. Let’s start there. A lot of the clients that we worked with, we weren’t big enough to go do national campaigns, and Kansas City was a small market. We had instantly had to learn, how can we work with our clients on a regional level, then maybe go national after that. If we can’t focus on regional and local, then how can we even do anything on the national scale?
When we did the pizza campaign, it was amazing campaign, if you guys go, have a chance to look it up, it’s called Kelce’s Kitchen. Essentially, we worked with the local pizza shop, had 14 locations. We were, ‘Okay, Papa John’s back in the day was Shaq, Peyton Manning. They were all getting equity in the company, and they were giving them, not only were they paying them to be the brand ambassadors, but they were also giving them locations to make money on their own right and build a business on their own. I was, “If there’s one company that we can partner with in Kansas City on the pizza side, everyone loves pizza, it would be this particular pizza company, and if it worked out, we’d potentially be able to help them scale, and maybe potentially build a franchise. That’s my background. So I thought it could happen.
We ended up sitting down with them talking about a campaign, and they didn’t have the money to be able to pay Travis what he was worth at the time, but we were able to negotiate a deal where we created his own pizza. It was called the Kelceroni. So if you guys heard of Shaq-a-roni, this was way before that. I should have called Shaq. But it’s called the Kelceroni, and every time a pizza was sold, there was a royalty paid. But the royalty wasn’t paid to Travis. It was paid to his foundation, 87 and Running.
Because of that campaign, we were able to do a lot of things with this foundation and create a program in Kansas City that we’re probably most proud about, called the 87 and Running Ignition Lab, where there’s a program in Kansas City called Operation Breakthrough. They provide mentorship for at-risk youth to teach them how to survive in the world. Get a job, go to college, et cetera. The program starts in third grade, goes all the way to eighth grade. But at eighth grade, in high school, you don’t have any of that mentorship. You lose it all. And because of Kelceroni and a number of other objectives, we’re able to buy the building that was adjacent to Operation Breakthrough, and extend the program from eighth grade all the way to high school. It was one of those things where it’s not super lucrative, but it was a local thing that we could do and build that relationship that way. Travis Kelce Kitchen now is trademarked. He has a national food brand that is sold in Walmart, and it’s a Kansas City Barbecue food line. They had no idea that was going to happen. But we were thoughtful when we do things that if we can’t recreate it, we don’t want to get into it. That’s really much how we look at it.
We really use data too, which shot to P&G, because you guys are probably the pioneers of consumer data and understanding your consumer. I think we take that same approach with our client, whereas our client is the brand versus, you know, Gillette or any of those things. We look at it that way. How can we be the best for our clients and find their niche and who’s their followers and who’s their consumer, so that we can work with brands like P&G to be super valuable.
From the Pizza Kitchen to a national and international stage, I want to cue the video. We could show the video of a recent campaign that you did with Travis.
Video:
By 2022 COVID 19 fatigue had set in, changing guidelines and polarization led to confusion and disengagement, especially among middle America. But there was no confusion about the flu shot. It had a 50% adoption rate entering fall 2023. We wanted to reduce confusion and increase vaccinations by reframing the COVID vaccine as part of the yearly flu shot routine to help tackle socializing the routine. We drafted NFL superstar Travis Kelce, leaning into his fame, sense of humor and broad appeal, especially among middle Americans. The campaign kicked off on TV with a simple message. “Travis, did you know you can get this season’s COVID 19 shot when you get your flu shot, two things at once?” “Two things at once, two things at once. I’ll have the two things at once, please.” And then Travis ran with it on social. The partnership led to Travis earning the nickname Mr. Pfizer, “With the stash right now, I look like Mr. Pfizer.” Responding in real time, we leaned into Travis’ new nickname, and within 48 hours, we ran over 50 billboards in the Minneapolis area to welcome our teammate to his very next game, and boosted with paid social content.
Overall, the campaign scored 4.5 billion impressions across channels, 220 million views on social and 2.2 million clicks to vaccine schedulers, leading to a 23% increase in COVID and flu shots and turn the season around for Pfizer, transforming social sentiment from net negative 15.3% to net positive 21.2%. Turns out, finding the right celebrity at the right time and standing by him was a major win for everyone. “Wide open, Kelce touchdown.”
That’s a long journey from a local pizza chain to basically changing the face of vaccination in the United States. You manage the 360 for your clients, so tell me a little bit about the social media aspect of that. Because this is now a channel that’s larger, certainly in cases like Travis, larger than than the mass media. How do you advise and counsel your clients to engage in that space?
It’s not easy. I’d say that. Social media. When we started A&A Management, I was graduating high school in 2008, we still needed a email address from a college university to even get on Facebook. So we grew up in a world where Instagram and Twitter and all this stuff, and X, didn’t exist. When we started A&A Management 30 for 30: Broke came out. It was talking about how professional athletes would go broke, they would play in the league all this time, make all this money. We were ‘This doesn’t really make any sense.’ Then at the time, the social media presence was starting to increase, so we kind of stuck to our guns and said, ‘Hey, if entertainers, if actors, if producers, can all build a platform and have management represent them, why can’t athletes do the same thing?’ From that moment on, we were using data, we used any tools necessary that we can to show our clients and the brands that we’re working with how valuable social media can be. What you’re posting on social media, how you’re posting on social media, when you’re posting on social media, and what you’re posting on social media is important because it tells the story about your life, personally. Then you’re able to use that to say, ‘How can I show that I’m the most authentic person there is?’ Partnering with different brands that you are passionate about, that you care about, and not just taking a deal because it’s money right now. I think that’s something that Travis specifically is very adamant about. He won’t do a deal if he doesn’t use the product. He won’t work with the company if he doesn’t like them. There have been times where, my brother, and everyone our team has pushed certain things, and he just doesn’t budge. Taking that same approach for all athletes, I think, is more prevalent than it’s ever been, just because of the rise of social media and being able to build a platform bigger than, like you said, most mainstream media.
Most content is not consumed on cable anymore, so commercials don’t matter as much as they used to, and it’s more about digital media campaigns and quick hits that guys can show their value. So the Pfizer thing is interesting. Putting Pfizer aside, just showing those impressions, showing how Travis was able to change the sentiment in the way he did, it had everything to do with him as a person, and how he stays true to himself and the value that he can bring to brands, which is why I like showing this video, because when we sit down with a brand, we want to be able to, add value to you, just as much as you’re going to add value to us. If we can’t do that, then the partnership is not going to be what it’s supposed to be.
I spent some time in Cannes for the first time this year. There’s a huge advertising festival that maybe some of you guys have been to. One of the things that I’ve learned is when I went there, all brands just want authenticity. I can’t pronounce that the right way, but authenticity. We’re talking to the CMS of companies. We’re talking to the head of digital agencies, advertising agencies, and that was the core theme of the entire week. I think athletes have always been used to showing up, take a picture, smile, post on social media, get paid, done. That’s transactional. That doesn’t last, that doesn’t work. We’re kind of pushing more towards having a more long term relationship. So when you think about Capital One and Samuel Jackson, when you think about State Farm and Jake, and Progressive in Flo, we want those types of relationships where we can be a part of a brand and build a story for years to come, and not just a six month campaign that we can just do things for.
We made it 15 minutes without me bringing up another name. You built a business that could have very easily been swamped when all of a sudden, on his podcast, Travis admitted that he kind of had a crush on Taylor Swift and then they became, quite possibly, the two most celebrated and famous people, the most famous couple in the world. What was it about building your business that allowed you to sort of absorb that earthquake and manage it. And maybe if you want to tell us a story or two about what’s Taylor like.
I have a great story. I will say, Travis won his second Super Bowl in 2023 and after that, we were, ‘How can we prove that a tight end could be treated as a quarterback?’ So after he won the Super Bowl, the first thing we did was get him on SNL, which was a three-year process. People don’t probably realize that. They just see that he was on SNL, and he did a great job, but it was a long process. Shortly after that, over the summer, I mean, that had to be his busiest summer of his career. He did seven commercials. So I think that when the 2024 season started, all those commercials started airing, he started dating Taylor. And everyone was, ‘Oh my god, Taylor is changing the business.’ And no, we locked all this in March. So when people ask me that, I say it’s dope, but how we’re able to manage that is because we’ve got a great team. All the credit to them. They keep me and my brother on our toes. They make sure everything is in place and in order. The year before, we actually hired a PR team for the first time, so they they’re probably more busy than we are. Tiktoks and People magazine and all these people showing, posting and I just forward it to her and say, ‘Hey, figure this out.’
My Taylor story is sentimental for me. I have a daughter. She’s 11 years old, huge Taylor Swift Fan, and I’ve obviously been in football, in basketball and sports in general since she was born. Probably the two weeks after she was born, Travis ended up signing with us in 2012. A pretty crazy situation. But she never wanted to watch football ever. I used to force her to sit down. You’re gonna watch one quarter. Just one. And she wouldn’t even do that. But when Taylor Swift came into the picture, ‘I want a jersey and want an autograph. Can I go to a game?’ I’m, ‘Now you want to go to a game.’ So for her birthday, I took her to the Kansas City Chiefs, Buffalo Bills game. They lost, unfortunately, offsides call, Travis did an amazing lateral. Man, I was so mad. This is what it went down, in history. But anyways, it was dope. It didn’t happen.
But weeks before, I was ‘Hey, Trav, I’m bringing my daughter to a game. Blah, blah, blah. It’s gonna be great. It’s her birthday. She’s never been to Kansas City before. This will be awesome.’ That was that. We ended up coming to the game. Mind you, I don’t know if you probably guys saw on TV, the suite at the Kansas City Chiefs game is no place for a 10 year old. Touch down shots, cussing at referees. She had her ear muffs on most of the time. But she ended up coming to a game. So we walk in the suite, it’s so much going on. And Taylor finds her way to my daughter. As soon as we walk in the door, she’s, ‘Oh my god, Kennedy, I’m so glad you can come Happy Birthday.’ Being the nicest person ever. Things I didn’t even know she knew.
What does your daughter look like when she saw Taylor Swift?
There’s a picture that went all over social media that I was really upset about, but she was pretty happy. She was excited, but she was also nonchalant about it. I was, ‘Okay.’ But she loved it, because, after the fact, she has not stopped talking about. It’s the picture that they took together that is on her phone, and she has a debit card, Greenlight debit card that you can send a picture, and she put that on there. She wears Taylor Swift gear every single day. But then Travis, they lose the game. After all that, Travis walks into the suite. First person he finds, is Kennedy. ‘Thanks for coming. How come your dad doesn’t let you come to a lot of games?’ And I’m, ‘Because you all cuss too much in here.’ That’s my story. She was super thoughtful about it, and made sure my daughter had the best time ever, despite the 50 people in the suite, party and so, yeah, she’s great.
We’re out of time unfortunately, and there’s much more I definitely want to talk with you about, but we’ll save that for another time. Thank you so much for coming on sharing some of your stories.
Thank you.
