Selling the Deer: An Inside look at the Milwaukee Bucks Sales Team

The Milwaukee Bucks are a young, up and coming franchise with superstar caliber talent  that is instilling a new winning culture within the organization, and the NBA is taking notice. However, none of this is possible without the Milwaukee faithful who go and support the team at every home game in the BMO Harris Bradley Center.

Christian Ertel, 23 years old from Sheboygan, Wisconsin, is an account manager and business consultant on the sales team of the Milwaukee Bucks. In this position, Ertel is at the forefront of bringing in fans and revenue for the Bucks.

Coming from humble beginnings, Ertel calls Sheboygan, Wisconsin home. Upon graduating from Kohler High School, he attended Ripon College pursuing a sports management major as well as a business minor.

Ertel says that he wishes he would have set his mind on one distinct career path he wanted to follow rather than many different ones much sooner than he did. In doing this, he would have been exposing himself to more opportunities, however he is very gracious to have received the opportunity he did.

This opportunity would be getting hired by his favorite NBA team before even walking the stage for graduation at Ripon.

Now, nearly two years in the profession, Ertel was able to speak about many of the issues he is faced with on the job.

“Be ready to bring the lunch pail and put in long hours. It’s fun, but it’s a grind.” said Ertel when asked about these issues.

One of the biggest issues Ertel encounters is team performance. Fans love going to Bucks games when the team is winning. However on the contrary, if Milwaukee is losing games his job of selling tickets becomes undoubtedly more difficult. So all in all, if the Bucks are a lottery team, Ertel is tasked with getting fans to come and watch in spite of that.

Ertel attests his accomplishments thus far to his strong work ethic, his ability to lend a listening ear to those above him, as well as a burning desire to work in sports sales.

When asked about his future career ambitions, Ertel said, “As a lifelong Wisconsinite, it’s an incredible project to watch unveil the new Bucks arena and I couldn’t be more excited to be a part of it. I see myself advancing into an account executive in the coming year. Following that time, I would love to work in premium sales, as I find it to be the most fun “bucket” of sports sales to be a part of.”

One Comment Add yours

  1. Amy Zufelt says:

    Hello,

    I was wondering if you would be able to provide me with Christian’s email address? Or, if you could pass this message along to him for me.

    My name is Amy Zufelt, and I am the Chair of the Public Relations Department at Cardinal Stritch University. I would love to have Christian come to my PR class as a guest speaker.

    Thanks!

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