Raising future fans: How an NFL playoff run sparked an alum’s new venture
By Mike Schroder ’14 MBA
I graduated from Kellogg in 2014, amid a corporate career that started at Target’s headquarters in Minneapolis and also included six years at McKinsey & Co. Eventually, I started my own boutique management consulting firm in healthcare.
I had never tried to match my professional work with my personal passion for sports, but 18 months ago that opportunity presented itself as my business partner and I began building out Future Fans, a new brand that reimagines how young kids learn sports.
It all started when my beloved Cincinnati Bengals were making a run to the Super Bowl. It was a big deal — it would be our team’s first trip to the big game in more than 30 years. I wanted to share the experience with my oldest child, Ella, who was five at the time, but she was only interested in the pageantry like the mascot, fight song and game-day snacks. I was frustrated that my attempts to teach her the game were failing, so I set out to find a way to engage her that would make sense to her: storytelling and parallel teaching.
Just like our favorite professors at Kellogg did for us, I needed storytelling to capture her imagination and translate the conceptual rules of the game to something tangible that she could grasp. So for example, instead of explaining how downs work, we came up with a bean bag toss game that has the rules of downs embedded into it. My cofounder and I also quickly realized that reading about the game wouldn’t be enough; we wanted our kids to also be able to experience the game. Those insights all came together in our first product, Future Fans Football, which is an experience in a box that enables families to learn a sport together.
Kellogg created for me an MBA experience that was as much about the people as the business concepts we learned. Future Fans teaches the rules of sports, but just like Kellogg, the biggest thing we create is lifelong connection between people. Sports is that increasingly rare thing that can transcend political and socio-economic lines and span generations.
Creating a product that creates more connection in a complex world feels good, and when I reflect on my time in Evanston — even 10 years later — I can see how sports helped bring together my MBA classmates, who came from all over the world. Whether it was me learning about cricket or educating others on how the NFL schedule is built (I gave a presentation on this in one of my classes!) or cheering on the Wildcats at Ryan Field, sports gave us something to build community around.
A year after the Bengals’ run to the Super Bowl, we were making another playoff charge. Except this time, six days before I was set to travel to one of those games, my daughter Ella said, “Daddy, please don’t go. All I want to do is watch the game with you.” I canceled on my brother, and she and I watched what would be a heartbreaking loss together. And I wouldn’t have changed it for the world.
Learn more about Future Fans.
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