Building a Brand and Growing a Community w/Atlanta Braves’ Laura Estefenn

The work hours for a professional working in athletics can fluctuate. That is why the University of Cincinnati Online designed a master of sports administration program that is both flexible and 100% online. Connect and build relationships with other students, alumni working in athletics, and their experience staff. The best part, you can graduate in as little as one year. And sure about going back to school, UC Online has a team of student success coordinators ready to guide you from start to graduation. Reach out today and learn more about UC Online. Go to online.uc.edu, look under master's programs and find the master in sport administration. One more time, go to online.uc.edu, look under master's programs, and then find the master of sport administration. The Los Browes brand is a little bit different. We have pillars that are not only baseball, right? We focus a lot on the community, we focus a lot on family. If they know that, you know, we're another Kunya Junior also likes their favorite artists. They're going to connect more than if, you know, they see one of the Kunya Junior just hitting a homerun. They really showed me the whole spectrum of the business, so that's given me a lot of tools just to keep going in my career. This is the work in sports podcast. Here's VP of Content and Engage Learning at work in sports.com, Brian Klaath. One of the most important aspects and benefits of sports is a sense of community, an overarching feeling that there is a shared communal experience when you celebrate and cheer for the same team with other people. Sometimes even walking around town, if I see someone wearing a Boston Red Sox hat, my hometown team, I'll make eye contact and say, I like your hat, as if it was a bat signal to let them know I'm part of your tribe. This almost always starts a conversation about, oh, where are you from? How many times you've been to Fenway? What do you think of the young guys in the pipeline or some other chatter that deepens that sense of alignment? We aren't talking about politics or movies or weather, we're reveling in the bond that sports can form. That's one way to look at the community connection of sports, but there are also cultural communities, and these, all too often, are underappreciated in the sports world. Consider the Hispanic community. According to data collected by Statista, nearly 32% of rostered MLB players in 2021 identified as Hispanic. 32%, that's a lot. Furthermore, a blended average across all MLB teams shows that 20% of the majorly baseball fan base is Hispanic. These are important groups that should not be ignored, but up until recently, they were. Cultural communities experience their teams and sports differently. The language, the music, the fashion, the culture, the traditions, the history. It is different. As a team or a league, you can't just create an English-speaking broadcast with social channels that follow American norms and expect it to connect with everyone. Majorly baseball caught on to this in 2017, strongly suggesting the teams that they embrace Hispanic outreach initiatives. The Atlanta Braves took the suggestion and made it a policy, launching the Los Bravos brand, which has grown exponentially over the past few years. Today's guest, Laura Estefen, has been instrumental in launching and growing this community-focused program. She joined the Braves as a content coordinator for the Los Bravos brand, after graduating from Kennesaw State University where she was on the women's golf team, and she has immediately seen the impact a community focus can have through sports. Let's let her tell you more. Here is Laura Estefen, diversity marketer for the Atlanta Braves. Hey Laura, how are you, I'm so excited to talk to you today. Hi Brian, I'm so excited to be here, thank you for having me. Yeah, this is great. We had this interview scheduled literally as baseball came back. So we were ready to do our interview and then the announcement, the breaking news came out, baseball's back and you're like, I'm a little busier right now, so I'm just really thankful that we got to reschedule and get this back on the calendar. We're all excited baseball's back, so just thanks a lot for being here. Definitely, and thank you for understanding my timing and just being able to reschedule this, because I'm really excited to be here and just tell a little bit more about what I do, what I've gone through for the past maybe a week and a half with baseball being back. So I'm just happy to be here. I'm sure it's been intense. So let's start at the beginning a little bit. You have a pretty unique journey into the sports industry, just seven years ago, you immigrated to Atlanta from your native Columbia to play collegiate golf at Kennesaw State, congratulations for that by the way. When did you kind of set this goal to yourself? You're growing up in Columbia. When did you say like, I want to play golf, I want to go to America, this is what I set for myself. When did that kind of happen for you? So I was about 10 when I started to play golf a little bit more serious and then when I hit my, you know, 15, 16, I was like, you know, I like this a lot. And if I want to keep going with college and I want to keep going with my sport, I can stay here. Unfortunately, collegiate sports only are available here in the States. That's not something that's like widely available. So my coach just told me, you know, there's an opportunity for a scholarship. Women have a good chance. You play good. You know, maybe an idea if you want to move to the States for four years, get your college degree for free under a scholarship, of course. And then you know, keep playing your sport. And I was like, you know what, that's a really good idea. And about 15, 16, I started playing some tournaments here in the States, played a lot in Florida. And then that's when my coach saw me and I just came to, I went to a California just to check out some schools, but I was in Pooley to into the, not having a direct flight to Columbia. Oh, okay. That's a good point. Yeah. Yeah. So when I came to Atlanta first, we had a direct flight from Delta. That's only like four hours and a half. That's it. That's really how long it takes to fly from Atlanta to Columbia. Yeah. That's it. That's it. I would have thought it was way longer. Okay. Show me my knowledge. Go ahead. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it takes longer to go to California. And then it takes to go to Columbia. That's what I was thinking is like, if I flew to the West Coast because I'm on the East Coast, I'm outside of Philadelphia, that's a six hour flight. It's shorter to go from Atlanta to Columbia than it is to go to the West Coast. I didn't have that perspective. Yeah. So that's when I saw Atlanta. I really liked my campus. I really liked my coach and my teammates. And the direct flight just got me really. So I was like, you know what, let me come to Atlanta and enjoy it. And you know, I've stayed ever since. I never really thought I was going to call Atlanta home, but I love it here. Yeah. I lived in Atlanta for seven years. So I know it well. I love Atlanta. It's a great city. What was that initial introduction to America like for you? And I don't even mean in this broader, bigger sense. But like, I don't know, it has to be a big change for you. There has to be a lot going on mentally, emotionally, all these different challenges of being a student athlete. What was I like for you? It was a change for sure, but I will say that my coach and my teammates did a really good job at wrapping me in their arms as a family. I came to a very European Asian team. So obviously, golf is played a lot in Europe and in Asia, and my coach is Australian. So we had a lot of international players on our team, which was really good because obviously we're here with no family. So we're all we have. So I got here with two one Danish girl and a British girl. I would just, you know, up and down everywhere we went. So it was really good. You know, obviously it was a culture shock for all of us. We always checked around, you know, obviously we, what I was used to in our area, it was more like Miami, Florida. Yeah. And then I got to Atlanta, but not Atlanta, the city, but the outskirts of Atlanta. So you get a little bit more of the South because it was a little shocking to me in many ways. But I love the Southern hospitality. So you get acclimated to how people speak, how people act, you know, that's a good point. Yeah. The Southern accent's a little to get used to. Oh, yeah, definitely. That took me a while. I just, you know, now I embrace it and laugh about it. Yeah, that's funny. So being a student athlete is a lot of pressure. And then you layer in even more for you coming from another country, far away from family. As you look back at that time, what did you kind of learn about yourself? You know what? That's a great question. Because I knew when I was growing up in Colombia that I was very independent, that I liked my own time, I liked my own things, and I was very organized. My dad, whenever I used to go to tournaments, he would, you know, tell me, this is the budget you have, this is the money you have. And he would send me off to like other parts of Colombia and he would just tell me, if you run out of money, can help you there. You're out of luck. Exactly. You have this amount of money, you go, you have fun, and then come back if you have extra that's for you. So I think that really reflected on my college life. I was very organized. I was very independent, obviously I liked to have fun and I was, you know, with friends and all of those. But I think that's what I saw in college a lot, especially when you come to the US and see other student athletes and then you see non-student athletes, right? Because we are on a grind every day. We were, you know, you wake up, you go to the gym, then you have to go to class and then you have to go practice. And that's a regular routine that I was just into and I thought it was normal. And then I would go to class and I would speak to my just regular classmates. I mean, I hate to call them regular people, but I don't really do athletes. Right. They have a different experience than you do. I mean, it's, yeah. Right. So, you know, they were like, oh, you know, this, you know, classes all I got today and then I'm going home and chilling. I'm like, wow, must be nice. Must be nice, right? That's what I hear from most student athletes. They're like one of the key things they learned is to organize their time, like time management. Because like you said, travel, training, practice, competitions, like there's so much going on. In addition to schoolwork and tests, I mean, it's crazy. Yeah. And I had to, you know, first adjust to the language I had to take English classes. I had to take all of those things and, you know, there's this stigma sometimes that, you know, college athletes just have tutors that just do everything for you. And, you know, that might be correct in, you know, maybe the bigger sports, maybe basketball football. But for us golfers, that doesn't work like that. Yeah. That's what it has on a strict, you know, if you were below Z, you had to get your hours in study hall and all of those things. So I was like, I'm not going to study hall. So I had to keep my grades up, I had to perform well. And you know, you had to also have a little bit of a social life. So balancing out time is something that I learned. And I still till these days, sometimes I'm like, well, I did a lot in one day. I'm done. Yeah. Oh, yeah. I'm sure the time management skills serve you well now. So there are a lot of student athletes based on the topic we were just talking about. There are a lot of student athletes that they're so in this grind of training and travel and all the pressure and et cetera, that when they're done being a student athlete, like they're kind of done. They're like, I don't really want to pursue this anymore, like I'm kind of burnt out. But you pursued a career in the industry to go further. Why did you decide to make it a full time career? Why did you decide to say sports is something I want to pursue outside of just my college opportunity? I want to go further. I want to make this my career. Yeah. I think I was burned out in a different way. I've always loved sports, always, always, always. And once I finished my four year, I technically played four years and a half because you can't play. I played four years and a half and I was tired of playing golf. OK. No, I had my clubs and I said, once I get the feel that I need to go to the golf course or like, I really want to go to the golf course, I'm going to go play again. So it took me about a year, honestly, to say, you know, I'm in Spain, but I knew since a get go that I wanted to have a career in sports in sports. I was more tired of playing, but not in game and it makes a lot of sense. Right. Yeah. So I'd stop playing for a little bit and then I just dove into my career in sports and honestly, the main reason why I wanted to keep myself and the sports industry is because the sports world and, you know, specifically golf has given me everything. I, you know, got a really good scholarship. I've been able to stay in the US. So I wanted to just, you know, return whatever I could to the sport that has given me everything. You know, I tell it a bit sentimental, but that's just how I feel. Sports has given me, you know, a lot of discipline, it has, you know, provided me a lot of happiness in my family. It has taken me to the weirdest places on earth. So I love it. Yeah. No, I totally understand that. I think it's great. You're graduating, you know, you've graduated from kind of saw state, which is a suburb in the suburbs of Atlanta. Get hired by the braves as a content coordinator for the Los Prabos brands. I wanted to get, get into the brand, all that in a second. But first, how much of a challenge was it going from golf, a sport you knew really well, really intimately, you knew all the nuances of to then shifting to baseball and making that kind of a change. Sometimes that can be hard for people to get into a new sport. What was that like for you? Yeah, so, you know, my number one sport at my house was always golf. And then on my dad's side of the family, soccer was always number one. But then on my mom's side of the family, I, so I'm from Bogota in Colombia, that's the capital in the middle of, you know, in the middle of the country, but my mom is from the coast. She's from a town called Catajena. And they play a lot, a lot of baseball in Catajena. Yeah. My grandpa is like a baseball, you know, crazy. He knows everything about baseball. So we go up around here in my grandpa, say, you know, he's got three daughters. Then he had me, he had no boys until, you know, my brother came along. But he always said, you know, I got to teach somebody baseball. So I heard everything all the time about, you know, who was, who, who was, when I started a happy, funny story, when I actually started playing, playing, working for the Braves. Yeah. I went to play golf with some of my friends and I saw Chipper Jones at the golf course. And I was like, well, great, I mean, I don't know who Chipper Jones is. Great. We're in the lineup. He's just probably just some random old guy that played for the Braves. Sometimes. And then I call my grandpa and I was like, you know what? I was playing golf today and there's this guy called Chipper Jones and he was like, did you get a picture? And I was like, no, I have no idea who this guy is. And he almost hung out the phone, has never forgotten that story. And then a couple of years back, I was actually walking Chipper just because we had some sort of activation and I was with one of my supervisors at the Braves and we were walking Chipper to something. And I was like, I'm going to tell my grandpa, now I know. Yeah, exactly. So yeah, that's how my transition was not too hard just because I grew up around baseball all my life. I knew more of how the sport worked than actually the people, right? I knew some of the Colombian players, I knew the bigger folks in the Caribbean, but it was not too big of a shock. That's funny. So let's jump into the Los Bravos brand because I think this is really interesting. The Braves launched this initiative in May of 2017, but I still think a lot of people, maybe outside of Atlanta especially, aren't as familiar with it. Take us through the Los Bravos brand and what it means to you to be a part of this team. Yeah, definitely. So the Los Bravos brand is the official Spanish brand of the team, right? So back maybe several years ago, MLB decided that every team on MLB had to have social Spanish accounts, right? And they primarily focused on Twitter because that's where play by play is. You know, you don't do play by play on Instagram. You do highlights on Instagram, right? So on 2017, my former boss started the Los Bravos brand and he really merged the Los Bravos brand into the Atlanta Latino community. The Latino community here in Atlanta is, we're land off very big and very connected. So everybody knows each other, everybody supports each other and when my former boss started at Los Bravos, he took Los Bravos to the community and the community really embraced it because I don't think there had ever been something like that in Atlanta for many teams. And here in Atlanta, you know, we might have the Falcons and Hawks, but the braves are the braves, right? It deep rooted love for baseball. So that connection to the Latino culture that hadn't existed before was really strong. And that's the reason why I love the brand and why I keep working on it is because, you know, it's our little piece of Latino and the baseball world in Atlanta. So it just gives me a lot of passion to be able to put a voice to it, be able to just expand the stories of our Latino players that we have because they are amazing and they have all little stories that we're able to tell that, you know, the community here can relate to it. Obviously the community in Atlanta, but we've seen a very big engagement from the international community because obviously we're a Spanish brand. So people in Colombia and the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, have really engaged with the Los Bravos brand and that has just been amazing to see obviously in the marketing side, but on the business side too, we've been able to do some sponsorships. We've been able to grow the brand, do some activations and just create revenue for the brand because at the end of the day, we're a business, right? So that's just been the funest part. How would you describe your early role in the brand? So you were a content coordinator, what did that actually mean for you? What were you actually executing as part of your role with this brand? Yeah. So one of the first things I asked when I was getting interviewed for the job was, you know, do any of you guys speak Spanish? And the first response was, no, we don't have anybody that speaks Spanish that runs Let's buy a list of accounts apart from the MLB crew right to MLB descent like gives a team to us. But they do a lot of things for other teams. So that was my first question. Do you guys speak Spanish? And they were like, no. And I was like, well, that's the first step, you know. That's a problem. That's the first step. So what I saw myself coming into the brand, obviously my day-to-day was covering the games, getting adjusted to, you know, covering the team in Spanish and trying to differentiate our brand from, I call it the English side of the team. Obviously we both were both the same team, but the Los Bros brand is a little bit different. You know, we have pillars that are not only baseball, right? So I feel like my first few days of my first few months at the brace was more kind of telling the Latino side and how we could adjust our brand to be more connected to the Latino culture. And that's how I really clicked with my team. And I'll give a lot of credit to the two people that were with me and my team because they taught me a lot, they pushed me a ton. So it was really great to just be a part of that creation of Los Bros. and just making it very Latino. I love the direction that content is headed in a lot of ways. So we just had, as you and I were talking, we just had Camille Buxedo on the show from WSlam. And she's great, she's part of the cohort from creators of color that you were also a part of. But one of the things I loved in talking to her was she said, you know, we look at women's basketball and women's sports outside of just box scores and back cuts, we're looking at the music, we're looking at the fashion, we're looking at the community. And that's what you're saying too is that it's bigger than just what's happening on the field of play. There's this entire dynamic that comes out of it from the culture. How exciting is that for you to be able to tell these stories and amplify this message that's so important as the fabric of your community? Honestly, it has been such a pleasure and I love it so much because I've been able to tell stories from players that are not just baseball because they just not hit a ball and he runs, right? Yeah, they do that and they, you know, the crowd goes crazy and lots of jerseys get sold. But, you know, I love the part where, you know, the mom had to do whatever it took to get the kid out of a bad neighborhood in Venezuela and bring him here to play sports so he could support his whole family, right? I love the stories that, you know, a player loves an artist and they just become human when they see the artist and they get on a little nervous and they're like, well, what do I say to the artist? I'm like, you are a celebrity too. You do, you know, the too bad money just as you were on the same level. Not that, you know, we're in different levels, but I just love bringing out the personal side of our players. We actually had last year we did a cooking experience with some alumni and alumni are a little different, but they're the same, you know, they played baseball the whole life and one of them just, you know, he said, I've been cooking my whole entire life and when we were in the minor leagues, I used to cook for him and for him and they were all in the same room. We never talked about what happened in the minor leagues, but we talked about how much you like cooking, how much that made a bond between all of the Latino players and the minor leagues. So that piece, the more personal side, just really is, you know, what the person is and makes everybody more relatable. I love that perspective. It's like you cheer for the player as like for their accomplishments, right? You cheer them on, like, oh, home run, you know, triple, yay, great play or whatever, but you love a player when you get to know them, right? When you get to understand what makes them tick, how they got here. They're a backstory, like, that's when the love affair really starts and that's where the connectivity really is. Yeah, and that's really how you create the fan base when the kids are really young. Yes. If they know that, you know, we're another Cuniu Junior also likes their favorite artists, they're gonna connect more than if, you know, they see we're on the Cuniu Junior just hitting a home run and making it cool. Yeah, they both pair up, but it's a lot more, you know, personal bond relatable when the player just brings out their personal lives. And that's something that, you know, baseball players just, or I don't know, in general athlete world, but for me, baseball, like, players need to understand that, yeah, you can keep your life private, but you have a chance to impact kids, impact people through your personal lives. And sometimes I get a feeling that they just don't see that they can have that impact. So that's one thing that on my regular job and on the side, I've been trying to tell them, you know, this is something that you can do to help little kids in the VR. Yeah. Help little kids in Venezuela. So it really just goes beyond baseball. So far beyond baseball, I love that. I think that's such a smart way to approach the content and the build out of your, your personalities and these people because they are, they're humans. They need to be seen as people and approachable and having a similar life story as some other kid in the DR or wherever you're speaking of. And it's just an amazing way to grow their personal brand and their impact. I love that. So what have you seen as you look back on your start to where you are now? What have you seen the Los Prabos brand do for the Latino community in Atlanta? I think, you know, it has brought people together. I've seen in games, we have, you know, a big section of Latinos. And, you know, they've embraced the, the Braves a lot more than before. You know, obviously the Braves have a very long story in, you know, South America, Central America because they were broadcasted more than any other team through Turner. So that has just been one thing that I've seen is just they, they've embraced the brand a lot more. And I've seen it from the players too. So the players love themselves the Los Prabos brand. We bring the funner side. We do the music piece. We bring out their flags and that's something, you know, that I love going to spring training for because we take a lot of photo shoots and you know, we take all of our material during spring training and I always bring a box full of their flags and anytime I hand them their flags, they're like, this is the picture I want to take, you know, and they have so much fun. They just embrace it. So that's really what I've seen. It's just brought a little bit of life to the community here in Atlanta and the players have really, really embraced the efforts that we've done. It's so cool to hear the pride coming out too and that feeling embraced by the players too. I've always wondered because when I started out in the media and I'd be interviewing a lot of players or, you know, different types of scenarios, a lot of times I felt like the players themselves across all sports who were international felt lonely, felt isolated, felt like they didn't have a community and the fact that that gap is being bridged now and you're bringing them to the forefront and letting them have pride in where they come from and be a part of the community. I think it's so powerful. I was also noting that your team's efforts, the Los Prabos social channels, are the leaders in Major League Baseball engagement in growth across the MLB Spanish language social media channels as you referenced earlier, the past three seasons. So with every team in Major League Baseball had to create these Spanish language social media sites, you guys have been the leaders in that. Is that just further proof that the demand is there, the need is there, the desire is there for the community to see this type of focus content in this niche and build this group? Definitely. I'll say two things. So I mentioned that every team has a Spanish account, right? But these are run by MLB staff and what we did at the breaks is, you know, they brought me in specifically to handle the Spanish account of the breaks, only the breaks, right? So there are other teams that don't have that ability or haven't done that. I'm pretty sure now there's a couple more teams that have brought in people specifically to run those accounts, but it didn't used to be like that back when I started in 2018. So that has been one thing that I've liked that MLB and the teams have realized that the need is there, like you said, and they've opened positions for Latinos or Spanish speaking people in the US to run those accounts. So yeah, I will say that that's one thing that I've seen on MLB that has changed a lot. Well, if I was a young person in college who wanted to get into this side of the field was bilingual, you know, Spanish speaking, I would be putting together a presentation and pitching teams on why they need somebody to have this. You know, I'd be using the Los Bravos as an example and showing what it's done for the community and showing what it's done for the entire region and the fan base and for all of it and to tell the stories of their players and I'd be going to other teams and projecting and positioning myself to be an expert, being aggressive that way. So anybody listening, be aggressive, show that this works and get out there and try to make your name for yourself. After two years as a content coordinator and being specific to that role, you're promoted to diversity marketing. That's your title now. How did this change your day-to-day with the Braves? Did it change your focus at all? Are there different priorities there? Are you broader now? How did that change things? Yeah, so really my positions in the braves have just, you know, changed throughout time primarily because of my immigration status. So I don't really want to get too into it, but the braves on my team We're really flexible with some of the needs that I had right because I'm not American So obviously my work status had to change a little bit. So that's why my title has always been a little bit You know brand them or nothing, but when I evolved from, you know, my first few years at the braves My role became more than social. So and I think I see this a lot with you know And I saw it a lot with the creatives of color people because you know Social, yeah, you post and you tweet and you write captions and you take pretty photos or you took photos from our Photographers and then just put a caption to it, but my role became much more than just that, right? It became partnerships and sponsorships. It became player relations in a way that may be I didn't imagine that way right because I spoke Spanish, so the players were there and Something needed to happen. I would be able to communicate with them in Spanish and just let them know. Hey, this is what's gonna happen It became creating that influencer strategy. It became retail. I'm designing not you know, personally designing merch But being able to say, you know, this is what the Latino community in Atlanta is gonna like. This is gonna sell out We should do braves gear with flag countries on the side. So those things evolved a lot more than just social So I've really taken a good view and you know, I appreciate my team and my boss held out for this Because they really showed me the whole spectrum of the Business, so that's given me a lot of tools just to keep going in my career and being able to yeah, you know I do social, but I can tell you Why this will work on social because I've seen it on the other side, right? So it's just been connecting those and I love social, but the Rotter perspective and the strategy some of the things that I've liked the most yeah to continue growing. That's really cool Yeah, so baseball itself is an incredibly diverse sport You see a lot of players coming from other areas of the globe and coming to play in major league baseball What about the professional staff? What about the the organization? Do you feel like that's as diverse and do you feel like there's more Growth that needs to happen there and building diversity within these workforces. Yeah, I think I think there's a lot of room to grow. I will say that I've seen a lot of strides in the last few years I've seen some things change and more Diverse people of color and Spanish speakers come to the team obviously coven had an Effect on how the current state is just because you know a lot of people got let go Other people saw different parties in life and that's completely understandable, but I think there's a lot of room to grow And I will leave it at that because when I get a trouble Yeah, I understand Yeah, I mean there's always room to grow it does feel like I mean I've been in the industry for 20 years and it feels like there's been a lot of progress made But those still a long way to go. Yes, and I think that's that's fair to say and I think most executives And I think most decision-makers recognize that too. So I think they they need to continue to focus in this area So you were named as we mentioned earlier and we've mentioned a couple times now You were named to the initial cohort of the hashtag sports creators of color series Series that we at work in sports were really thrilled to sponsor and partner with hashtag sports on Celebrating minority creatives in the sports industry. What does that mean to you to be a part of this Growing community of creatives in the sports industry who represent a diverse culture honestly, it was The best thing ever I could when I first got to notice I couldn't really believe it because I didn't think I was gonna get it But it was really really exciting to see other people like me in a group that we're doing amazing things, right? I met people that you know I've obviously had a med before but I saw things and so the work that they had done I need just to make me you know, it showed me a lot of the things that we can do and the creativeness that just comes from Being together in a room and Afterwards, you know, obviously we all followed each other on social and it's been really cool to see just what they do on the regular basis And just having that connection to other people that do the same as we that you know are also off-color You know, I know it's weird, but yeah, it's just seeing what other people are doing in other industries that are the same as me That has caused me a lot of like, you know pride. Yeah, it should I've had the opportunity interview a lot of the members of the cohort and it's a great group And I just always think to myself there must be a really cool group chat between all of you Like I imagine it would be very funny and just a fun environment for you guys to all interact with one another because it's a great great group Yeah, we'll finish up with this. I guarantee there are young men and women that are listening to this and are inspired by your story And your journey and how you got to hear from Columbia coming up Finding that niche as a student athlete developing into the sports industry and now with the most robust brand But in the Braves as you look back and if you were trying to share with the next generation What kind of advice would you give people and finding their way into the sports industry? I would say the biggest thing is you have to trust the process And I've always believed this back since I was, you know, really young playing my golf days But you really have to trust the process not everything is going to come right away And if it's meant for you it will come obviously you can just sit at home and let it be right because it's not going to come to your lap But you have to trust the process and trust the things that you're doing Trust what your boss is telling you you know, you feel like they're a good boss So I would say that trust the process and trust what you're doing If you have a gut feeling that it might not be the right thing then don't do it, you know You feel it that's probably a reason why But the main thing is you have to trust the presses I love that Laura. This is such amazing information. Thank you so much for sharing your journey with us This is a great conversation I've learned a lot about the most robust brand and all the things you're doing to grow the Latino community in Atlanta I think it's really inspirational. So thank you so much for sharing So much for your story today. Thank you so much for having me. It's really a pleasure to just Tell a little bit more about myself and just keep growing our brand and the things that we do Thank you to Laura for coming on the show today We often talk about community in terms of community relations jobs But to have this conversation through this lens to say let's market to a community Let's make them feel special and valued and embrace their music and culture and history and traditions and bring that into our broader umbrella of what sports should represent in a region I think it's such a smart perspective on how teams and leagues and organizations should approach their audience It's not one-size-fits-all There are customizations that need to happen. There are different ways of communicating. There are different messages There's different styles and I think it's great that Laura and her team of the Braves are embracing that And I hope that gives all of you this perspective as you head out into the world too That this is the way to start to look at the segments of your your audience And to start to say Let's message to people in a different manner that fits what they want and they need and the stories they want to be told So thrilled to have this conversation. Thank you again, Laura. Please everyone listening Rate review subscribe. We want to continue to grow and you are instrumental in that I appreciate all of you for listening and let's continue them to skyrocket this thing in 2022. Thanks all for being here. We'll see you next week