DATE: Monday, November 10, 1997 TAG: 9711080301 SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL SOURCE: BY DEBBIE MESSINA, STAFF WRITER DATELINE: VIRGINIA BEACH LENGTH: 105 lines
John Martin gambles millions of dollars on sporting events each year. NFL. NBA. Major League Baseball. Nascar.
And he usually wins.
The best part, though, is that Martin's brand of gambling is legal.
As owner of Great Atlantic Travel & Tour Co., he wagers that tens of thousands of sports fans will ante up to travel to football, basketball and baseball games to cheer their favorite teams.
Martin purchases huge blocks of hard-to-get tickets to some of the most high-profile sporting events in the nation before collecting a single customer's dollar. He puts together packages with bus or air transportation, lodging and other entertainment.
Then, along with his staff of 10, he sells, sells, sells.
``It's a very high-risk business,'' Martin said. ``If you invest in the wrong programs, you can sustain big losses.''
The key is knowing what tickets to buy, where to find them, and how many, he said. That comes with experience, and Martin, 53, has 16 years in the business.
Still, predicting leisure whims is no science. Martin has learned that the hard way.
A notable debacle was when Great Atlantic lined up two excursion boats, with a total of 4,000 seats, off the Florida coast the day before the Super Bowl in Miami. It was billed as Super Saturday Sailing, the World's Largest Tailgate Party. Only several hundred showed and Martin lost $80,000.
He learned two lessons. First, Super Bowl fans are generally more interested in the game than in other activities. Second, ``I learned that unique ideas are not always profitable,'' Martin said.
Virginia Beach-based Great Atlantic is the region's largest sports tour operator. The family run business - Martin's daughter Michelle Yeager is president - is also among the nation's largest.
During the NFL season alone, Great Atlantic buses 19,000 fans to football games in Washington, D.C., Baltimore, Philadelphia, Charlotte and Dallas.
In fact, Great Atlantic is the largest season ticket holder for the Carolina Panthers in Charlotte. And at last year's Super Bowl, Great Atlantic filled about 1 in every 100 seats in New Orleans.
``Everything we do is sheer volume,'' Martin said, noting that he had 36 busloads of football fans in Washington and Philadelphia two weeks ago.
Great Atlantic's volume accounts for its low package prices. For example, a weekend trip to Washington that includes bus transportation, a Redskins game, transportation to the Smithsonian during the day and Old Towne Alexandria in the evening, and a room at the Hyatt Regency in Crystal City starts at $169 per person.
For every sporting event, several packages are available with transportation (bus or air), hotel and sight-seeing options. Philadelphia trips include an overnight stay in Atlantic City.
Great Atlantic does not sell tickets by themselves. They are available only in bus tour/airline packages, or with overnight accommodations.
While most of Great Atlantic's packages are sold locally, many others are marketed regionally, nationally and internationally though cooperative agreements with other travel agencies. And Great Atlantic does not operate on speculation - the company only sells tickets it has in hand. ``We are not selling what we don't have, like some others are,'' Yeager said.
But how do they secure thousands of tickets to perennially sold-out Redskins football games, coveted Super Bowl games, and popular Chicago Bulls basketball games?
It's a trade secret that Martin and Yeager are not about to divulge.
``That's something we don't talk about,'' Martin said. He assured that it's legal. But if he reveals his methods and sources, then his services would no longer be needed.
``This is our livelihood,'' Martin explained.
But running a successful sports tour business has not just been about picking the right games and having the right contacts. It's also about long-range planning and smooth execution.
For example, Great Atlantic knew it would be difficult to find enough hotel rooms for 900 Super Bowl fans last year in New Orleans. New Orleans has 25,000 hotel rooms and the Superdome seats 75,000.
So the company leased the Enchanted Isle cruise ship and docked it right in downtown New Orleans.
For the Summer Olympics in Atlanta last year, Martin invested more than $5 million in event tickets and bought out nine entire hotels about a year in advance. It paid off as Great Atlantic entertained 28,000 Olympic fans.
Great Atlantic is now marketing in Japan for the Winter Olympic games there in February. The company expects to sell 5,000 to 6,000 packages. When that's over, Martin said he'll begin work on the Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia, for 2000.
Great Atlantic entered the international market after being one of 60 travel agencies - 30 in the U.S. - selected out of 1,000 to sell tickets for World Cup Soccer games in 1994.
Martin draws on his experience as a former Army logistics officer to mobilize great volumes of people in an organized fashion. Great Atlantic employs 25 part-time tour managers or escorts who oversee the trips, although Martin still goes on most.
``He can't handle not being there,'' Yeager said.
Customer satisfaction is a high priority, Martin said, adding that many are repeat customers.
``We're a customer-driven business,'' Martin said. ``We deal with people's two most important possessions: their money and their leisure time.''
Martin began taking folks to football games in 1981 as a way to round out a winter ski trip business. That year, he took 40 people to a Redskins game.
Sports tours quickly outpaced ski trips, which he eventually dropped.
Today, sports tours are the bulk of Great Atlantic's business. It also operates about 150 senior citizen tours each year. The company is also a full service travel agency, booking airlines, cruises, hotels and vacation packages. ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by Charles Meads/The Virginian-Pilot
John Martin...
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