133. How the Spurs Arena Could Change the San Antonio Rodeo

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Welcome to Big City, Small Town, the weekly podcast all about San Antonio and the people who make it go and grow. Our guest this week is Cody Davenport, the CEO and Executive Director of the San Antonio Stock show and Rodeo, a position he's held since 2018. Although his involvement with the Stock show and Rodeo goes way back, all the way to 1991, when he first started as as a volunteer there. Which is important to note because I think there's about what, 6,000 volunteers, Cody, that makes the Stock show and Rodeo happen every year right in that range. Yes, sir. So we should also tell people you're a uvalde native, a 6th generation Texan with a deep ranching and agricultural roots in the state, and you're a Texas A and M University graduate. Yes, sir, I am. Did I get all that right? You did. You did real good. Well, welcome to Big City Small Town.

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Good to be here. Thank you. So if people have not been paying attention, there may be somebody out there that doesn't know about Project Marvel and the spurs proposed return to hemisphere in a new arena. And more importantly for our conversation today, what it would mean for the Stock show and Rodeo and a massive Bexar county investment reinvestment in what's now the Frost bank center, the Freeman Coliseum and all the associated grounds and property around there. So it's an exciting time. We're in the recording studio a little bit before this is going to air on the 15th of August, but you gentlemen are headed from here to Bexar County's Commissioner of Court for an important meeting where they're getting ready to put this on the ballot in November and put it to voters. Yes, sir, that's correct.

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Yeah. So this is unusual. I've known a lot of CEOs of the rodeo and Stock show over the years, Cody, but no one that was on the precipice is such a big and investment. And maybe you can just start by letting our listeners know, many of whom are not native San Antonians might never have been to the Stock show and Rodeo. What's at stake here? Yeah, I think probably the key thing that I found when I'm out speaking to anybody is it always, you know, I need to start with reminding everybody that San Antonio Stock show and Rodeo is a nonprofit.

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We get lots of questions, you know, like, well, y' all part about the city or they don't understand the entity itself. Sanction Rodeo has been around since 1949. We are a nonprofit entity. And actually the grounds that we're referencing here, the Joe and Harry Freeman Coliseum. The land there was donated by Joe and Harry through legislation back in 1949 for Agricultural Expo purposes. So we can trace our roots all the way back to the original land that was donated by Joe and Harry for the Freeman Coliseum down there to the start of our show. We've been there a very long time. And he had a great vision. And most people won't know the name Freeman, but I'm glad you brought that history up.

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And within one year, 1950, the you guys were up and running.

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So I guess this year earlier in February, because that's your annual stock show and rodeos every February. That was your 75th anniversary. Yes, sir, it was. That's right. That's a big deal. Yeah, and we're very proud of that.

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We, you know, a lot of the talk that goes around right now is the east side discussions, of course, what happens there. But you can look at the old photos and track the history of the place when we were there, it was all farmland all the way around those grounds when we started.

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Everything's built up around us through the process.

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Been a very long time. We're very proud of the fact that we're there. We're proud of what's growing up around us and we're very proud of the fact that we intend to stay there. So I guess back to the original topic, Project Marvel and thing that's hot and heavy on everybody's minds right now. I won't kid you. I came up through the ranks of the rodeo, as you said I am. I'm not a CEO that's been trained to be a CEO or bounced around or anything like that. And they tricked me and told me I was going to run a rodeo. And lo and behold, this monstrosity comes along of changing our entire vision, the grounds and stuff like that. But it's been wonderful and we embrace it. I think that when we first found out that our partners, the spurs, be leaving the grounds or looking to leave the grounds, I'll be honest, I was pretty nervous. I didn't know what to do. I sat around and said, oh my gosh, what happens now to our show? And I get to be the one to sit here and watch it fall apart. And all these dreadful thoughts. Got over that and probably within 24 hours and realized that this is quite possibly one of the greatest opportunities our show has ever faced.

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We had a wonderful opportunity, as I know you're aware, when we went into what was originally the AT&T center and we were able to expand our seating from 8,000 seats in the rodeo to upwards of 16,000, that was a big deal. But here we are now being able to come back into those grounds and in essence create a year round western destination, take what we do and offer it to the public on a year round basis. A lot of people think that means rodeo every single weekend as they're used to in February. And that's not what we're talking about. You can reference Fort Worth, he's had great success in this concept. Vegas, South Point, Casino, things of that nature, so around.

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But you take the ability that we do not have now, not through anybody's fault, just contractually in the way things are set now. When you have grounds like we reside on, you have three entities. You have the spurs, you have the San Antonio Stock show on Rodeo, and then you have the Coliseum Advisory Board, cab. We all reside on the same grounds.

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We're doing a real good job under the circumstances of partnering together.

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But quite frankly, there's no synergy there. There's no ability to really work together in events and really make those grounds fulfill what their true potential is.

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We're growing. Ever since I've come in, I get calls all the time from across the nation of entities that want to come in. San Antonio is a destination city, especially in the winter. The weather is beautiful. Everything about San Antonio is beautiful. I love this place. So do a lot of people in the nation. They want to bring their events here in the western industry, but I haven't been able to offer that to them due to this three pronged entity that resides on the grounds. So, long story short, what we realized is, quite frankly, this is an awesome opportunity for us. Great opportunity, we need to seize it. So we immediately started working with the county and we said, okay, we understand the spurs are looking to leave and we are here as long term partners of yours to help fill that void. We can show you how this industry can come in there and fulfill that void.

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You really moving from what I would consider almost a tenant status there, kind of a timeshare, to where this becomes your home, the SBC arena, which became the AT&T arena, which is now the Frost bank center, that was built for the Spurs? Yes, sir. And they're, they've been the primary tenant since 2003. It did give you the opportunity to expand your seating for the rodeo and the incredible lineup of live music events that you have with the rodeo. But making it your home, being the primary and exclusive tenant would be an entirely different proposition, as well as what you could do to all the surrounding property where the stock show is staged. Yes, sir, absolutely.

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I think one of the big benefits is it creates an identity, some continuity. Part of the problems with the grounds down there is that, as you're aware, it's a hodgepodge of buildings. Feels like asphalt jungle down there. Lawns just drop periodically through decades of, hey, wouldn't it be fun to build a barn here? It doesn't have an identity. It doesn't have a feel. We come in February, it becomes the western culture. Then we move out. Then you have this concert, then you have that event. You have a boat show. You've got all this. There's no. No identity and no feel of why you would want to be down there. So these plans offer an updated. An updated look to the grounds, number one, to where the buildings are unified.

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So let's say that the county CAB is running RV boat show, which something like they do, but yet simultaneously, we're over here and we're running a big cutting or, you know, a chariot, name it. We have all these things that we want to serve now. You kind of have cross pollinization.

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You've got people that, okay, well, I'm over this boat show. There's action over here.

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Let's walk over there and look at that. And vice versa, we can work together.

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And for the first time, the county referencing CAB and the rodeo representing us have sat down together and mapped out a vision going forward, vision of the facilities, how they would work together, how traffic flow would work together, how we can operate simultaneously. That's the first time that's ever really taken place that we look at a plan together and say we want these grounds to be active all the time. How do we work together to make that flow work? That's another neat process.

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My counterpart, Derek Howard, who's over there with cab, has been a tremendous partner in this process. We worked with architectural firm Gensler. We went all over the nation looking at facilities in our industry to make sure the key thing to us is that we can compete.

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When I'm out there and I'm looking around the nation at the type of facilities that we need to compete so that I can draw these people down into San Antonio. They're very good about designing that and vice versa.

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The county, we were great on working on where they can do expos and we can move in with livestock and out, and yet you have finishes that they can come in and do. You know, their type of production?

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Houston does a good job of it. Their facilities over there, they'll run a livestock show and then within two days it's been turned over where they're actually running an expo inside of that thing. So we looked at a lot of things together across the nation and that's really never been done in the history of those grounds. That's interesting. You are part of. I'll probably get the name wrong but the National Rodeo association which is overseeing all these events and actually rates you guys, you, you've. You've been awarded the best inside rodeo many times over the years. I know. Yes sir. But you are comparing yourself one of the best practices around everywhere from the Calgary Stampede to Houston and how do we stack up these days and how people regard our stock show and rodeo. We hands down are the best. So you expect me to say anything different? That's what I get for asking that question. No, in all honesty. San Antonio, we're leaders in the industry. I travel the nation. I just got back from Calgary. You referenced Calgary. All of our peers in the industry at the higher level. Fort Worth, Houston, Calgary, know Cheyenne, the NFR in Vegas, San Antonio, we're, we're involved with all of that in guiding the sport as a whole and that, that's where we've been lacking. A lot of our peers in the industry that I just referenced, they are doing a lot of year round operations.

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We are one of the few big boys if you will in the industry.

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The large ones that are constricted that we are not operating year round. But yes we are.

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I would though our rodeo production. I could go in all intricacies of it but San Antonio is known throughout the nation for that matter throughout the world. We have 69 foreign countries that came and visited us last year. But we are known as the top in the rodeo industry and we want to maintain that edge. We're proud of our heritage here. We're South Texas, we're the gateway to Mexico. Proximity to the birth of the American cowboy, the historically all that.

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We are the real deal down here. We're proud of that and we're.

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We want to take it year round. Do you, do you think going year round Cody will help assuage a lot of east side residents and eastside community leaders who have been historically unhappy with the lack of investment around the arena grounds as a result of the spurs coming over there that they expected much more to happen that didn't happen. And perhaps with greater frequency of events there might be more economic activity over there for people. I, I do, I want to be, I want to be very careful that you know, I don't Want, I don't want to talk negative about the spurs at all. I think they did a wonderful job and again they've been wonderful partners. What I'd like to isolate on is the type of client, if you will. We're just use that as a word. The type of client that comes in now is different if you look at from a business plan. If you're going to open something around there, be it a restaurant, a hotel or something in the proximity in the media area, you need regular traction with that type of client.

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If you're going to a basketball game or you're going to a concert, and I'm down on those grounds all the time. I spend more time down there than I do anywhere else. So I see it at all hours. The traffic comes in bulk and they exit in bulk and there's nothing around there to do.

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Just look at us in February if our economic impact shows it all and you can just sit there and watch it from an organic perspective if you need to. Our people are coming from all over the country and the state, they're coming in to compete in these events. Now I'm talking about the ones that we have our regular crowd that just comes to the rodeo inside of that arena. But I'm talking about a takeover of ground. I'm talking about 1.5 million people that come to those grounds just in the month of February, 22 days of production and we have 1.5 million people on those grounds. So you can't just look at the arena and think what's coming in out of the arena. Now we're talking about a whole different client base. You got people that are coming in with trailers, with animals from around the nation are they're just coming to watch their friends, neighbors, whatever compete at that level. They're out of town money coming in to the area.

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They don't want to really leave their animals or trailers, all that stuff very far.

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So they're having to find the nearest hotel, the nearest restaurant, whatever. And all of our, we have all the data back it up, which hotels are filling and where they're going and all that kind of stuff. Now you have a client that's coming in on an average of 3 days with outside money that needs a place to stay in proximity and if we can move to a year round basis. Now you're given business traction that hopefully your private investors, entrepreneurs, whether it goes public, private, it's all above my pay grade. But what I am guaranteeing is exactly what we've been providing since 1949 in the month of February. I'm providing that type of client. That type of client allows the opportunity of what we're talking about. We as well, east sides are home, as I mentioned earlier. We want to see this stuff built around there. It helps us. If I'm going out and I am competing to bring in these large equestrian events or what, whatever western industry events they are, that helps us to have development around us to support that. That's great for us.

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We need that as well as anybody. So we're on board with trying to push it in every manner that we can. And we're going to bring the types of clients. Well, one way you'll need to push it is the November election in Bexar County. And I think the rodeo and stock shows involvement back in 99 is one of the reasons the arena passed with almost 70% approval, which was. That's an extraordinary number in any election. And I think there's a lot of people that would like to see the same thing happen again. Particularly because the funding mechanism will be the same, which is the Bexar county, what we call the visitor tax for sure. But it basically means that local taxpayers are not being hit, that all of the improvements that will be done there are going to be funded with the visitor tax that Bexar county collects every year, which is estimated to be worth 3 or $400 million over the next 30 years. And so if you even get half of that money, that's going to be a remarkable investment in the east side.

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Bigger than anything in the past. No, it'd be wonderful. And this type of tax, you know, I. We shoulder the burden. Like I'm. I've got to bring people in this tourism tax like this. The more people I bring in and drive in, obviously, the more revenue that comes off that tax. So it's not a tax that's being put on the public, if you will. It's more. We have to drive people in to keep that tax going. And you're right, the investment on the east side, we take those grounds over there, we make them look attractive, we clean it up, up. We work together and stuff like that. It is a substantial investment on the east side that is long overdue. Well, I want to bring up what I think is a subsidiary organization of the stock show and rodeo, and that's the livestock exposition, which I think is also nonprofit, but that's your arm that gathers and distributes scholarships and grants and other youth programs. I think that adds up to, over the 75 years, some $286 million has been given out. So even if you're not a stock show and rodeo fan, that's an incredible number. It's been put to, to use in furthering people's education opportunities. Yes, sir.

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No, I, I. It's what we are. That's what we're about. And all this expansion we're talking about and everything we're doing, essentially being a nonprofit and the giving that you're referencing, stuff like that, everything we're doing here that we're talking about is so that we can expand that giving, expand our outreach. I'm also proud to say agriculture is so diverse and so large now I reference all the time. We've gone so far beyond cows and plows. We're in drone mapping, we're in robotics, we're in speech contest, we're in gardening.

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We're in all these programs out there that touch agriculture that are critical to our food supply chains and things of that nature. It allows us to reach into so many more pockets of students than historically we used to. We're able to educate so many more areas. But in that process, I need to drive more income because I'm having to turn away programs that I love and believe in. And we need more money to make sure that we can fund all these things. As we expand our outreach like that, we also are working.

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I think it's important to note that one of our big strategies inside of our office is directly to the east side, directly to our neighbors. As everything grew up around us, we realized we've been really good at taking care of kids across the state. But where we probably have not been as good as we should have been is in our immediate neighborhoods.

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So we've done things under. Since I've come in, my team, we've opened a riding program right across the street from our office in the middle of downtown industrial east side. We actually have an arena directly across the street that we built. We have seven horses over there now. We have neighborhood kids that come over, ride with us in the evenings. We built a classroom to the side of it for them to hang out in. And we're educating them and getting in them in the show programs. We're even going as far as looking at going out and creating our own 4H chapter that is held on our grounds for all the kids in the immediate area.

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Now, let's say they don't want to ride horses. They don't want be around animals or whatever. We found ways to funnel money back into our kids in the area by making them part of the operations. So we're bringing them in to be gate greeters on the grounds. We're bringing them in to usher the seating. We have taken over control of our concessions. I call it the Niosa Field.

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We're looking to bring in non profits, demand the booths out there in the concessions.

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What that allows me to do is under our structure, our operational structure, I now can go give checks to Sam Houston ROTC Band Club. Maybe they don't want anything to do with raising an animal, but they still can be part of our rodeo and still call it their own rodeo. And I would love to take credit for all that, but I learned a lot of that by studying the Calgary Stampede and how they outreach into their urban environments and how they make these. The residents of Calgary make the stampede their own, how they believe in it. And we started studying that and I go, we're sitting in the exact same scenario. We can do the exact same thing. And I started, I think it was about 30% non profits manning these areas that I'm talking about. The first year we rolled it out is good and bad, but I'm proud to say that last year we actually filled up where I was having to turn non profits away. So now we're trying to create other areas that we can engage them in. If I'm on the east side and I'd like to get more involved with you, how do I do that? If you're my neighbor, come walk in the office in the front. Come to my office. My daughter. Door is always open, but just call the front office.

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I now have. I have employees that are dedicated to engaging our community right now that we hired. And that's their sole purpose. So all they have to do is call that office and say, I want to get involved in the show in whatever manner you want to get.

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And they will facilitate you to the right area and get you involved. What's that number, Cody? 225-5851. All right, area code 210. Yes, sir. How about people that aren't involved in the stock show and rodeo and are unaware of the magnitude of your scholarship program and they have kids in college or whatever. How do they access learning more about the scholarship and whether or not they might benefit from it, depending on where they're going to school or what they're studying.

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We have a scholarship department, same type of situation. Call that number, the 225-5851. Erico210. Call in there. They'll direct you over to our scholarship department to talk about. About what opportunities there are Inside of there, our giving again is very wide, very expanded.

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How do you do it? Do you have a. You're such a volunteer organization. Do you have a committee that handles the. Both the revenue flowing in and the scholarships flowing out? Yes, the application process. Yes, sir, we do. One thing that I need to clarify is we are not. We have distanced ourselves from being the ones of actually choosing the scholars. So Cody can't sit here and decide I'm going to choose my neighbor or my friend or whatever. That's probably good. Yeah, it protects us and me.

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We're distanced from the actual selection. But where we are engaged is we have a scholarship committee. We have two ways of distributing scholarships. One is through what we call our educational partners. Those would be the universities or the whatever entity we're out there funding their scholarships. Those are educational partners. The other one is through competitive effects events.

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Meaning they come in and they're competing through showing animals or the things we talked about robotics or speech or whatever competition we have set up. They come in and they earn those through competitive events or through our educational partners. We have a scholarship committee that is designed and designated to make sure that all of our competitions are fair, run smoothly and follow all of our protocols. And they also work directly with our educational partners partners to make sure anything that we are funding again follows the protocols that we set up.

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All right. I want to invite people that have never been to the stock show and rodeo to go. So true or false, the rodeo is the hardest ticket in town to get. True. It's tough.

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It's multi generational families that hang. I wish it wasn't. I want to answer a different way, but it's true. Okay, so let's. First of all, the stock show is wonderful. The to wander the pens and see the kids and their animals is to me as exciting as the rodeo is. There's something extraordinarily rewarding to meet young people that have raised animals from the time they were born to the time they're showing. And you can just get right up close with the kids and the animals. Yes, sir. That's an experience. And anybody and everybody can buy a ticket. What happened is I came in and I realized exactly what you're saying. It's a very difficult in. Inside of the current Frostbank center. It's a very difficult ticket. We have season ticket holders in their generational deep, as you mentioned. We have.

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We try to retain for the public and do what we can there. We have plenty of public ticket sales, but they also go very fast. I Understand that what a great problem for us to have. We're blessed by the community that supports us.

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I can get it. Somebody would suggest that maybe the rodeo doesn't go long enough. Yeah, maybe another. We do have an idea of how to expand it. But what we did do is the grounds that you're referencing. Absolutely. And we tried to take the agriculture educational components of that and spread them throughout the grounds. We started putting a lot of emphasis on our grounds so that somebody can come to the grounds. They can get the experiences that you're referencing. Our universities have been great about partnering with us. They'll do seminars, bring animals out, do all this type of stuff. But probably most importantly, the coliseum itself, our original home base, where we started the rodeo.

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We were just running retail in there. We were selling trinkets inside of it. Right. We moved all that out. And it was difficult.

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It's difficult to move logistically. I won't go into it, but it was difficult to activate it in the center of our grounds. But we were dedicated to do that.

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And what we said is we want the general public to get a taste of what they see on Yellowstone. Because I get called all the time, I watch Yellowstone, I want to see them do this or that. How do I do that? So we took the coliseum and we made it free. And we activate inside of there every single day. We have equestrian events and the exact same events that you watch in the Frost Bank Center. The exact same rodeo events are being run inside of the Freeman Coliseum with some outstanding athletes in our industry.

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But then we also do the things, the Yellowstone things. We'll do the cutting and stuff like that inside of there as well. Well, so every single day, if you come to the grounds, you don't have to have that ticket to the big rodeo. Do we want you to have it and is that the exciting. You bet. But if you just want to experience the culture and the western lifestyle and all these types of things when you come on the grounds, we put a lot of emphasis, a lot of strategies and efforts in taking that original coliseum, activating it and taking the grounds all the way around it. It and activated it. So you can come down there and spend the entire day and get absolutely everything in the industry. What about spending the evening there? You guys have an incredible array of major acts coming in for live concert performances every night of the rodeo. Virtually every night. How does that work? Is that a separate ticket from the rodeo or is that part and parcel of your rodeo ticket? Can the public easily gain access to when a George Strait or somebody comes. In to perform on the now you referencing the off season or the during the rodeo, the concert, it's one ticket. The rodeo and the inside of the Frost bank center, the concert and the rodeo itself are one ticket. So that's that purchase ticket. But we have locations all over the grounds for music diverse from Tahano to acoustical to your standard country western dancing to the 80s throwbacks. We cover the grounds with music venues all over it. So if you again going back to if you don't have the ticket to the big arena, you're going to get your fill of music as well. And you'll get your choice of what you want out there too. It's spread all over the place. We're coming to a close here, Cody, which I could keep talking to you for another hour, but as excited as we are about Project Marvel and all the hemisphere proposed investments, particularly the spurs arena and the Entertainment Zone that I, I think would what isn't getting enough attention is the potential for the stock show and rodeo to become a year round destination on the east side. And that's part and parcel of this conversation. And we're grateful to you for coming on and being able to put more of a light on that. We're very grateful for you having us. We're proud of what we do over there. I think San Antonio as a whole is proud of it. We're excited about the opportunity. We think across the board everything that's happening in San Antonio is exciting and we're very pleased to be here and appreciate it much. All right, we'll see you soon. Yes, sir. Thank you. Likewise.

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Thanks for joining us for this episode of Big City Small Town. Please share this episode with friends and colleagues and if you haven't already, sign up for Monday Musings, my weekly newsletter. Just go to bigcitysmalltown.com and add your email. Big City, Small Town is brought to you by Western Urban Building, the city our children want to call home, and by Geekdom, where startups are born and smart ideas become businesses. Thanks to Corey Ames of Ensemble, Texas for the production of this show. We will see you next week.