Sports Biz – Out to Lunch – It’s Baton Rouge
You could say we’re sports crazy in south Louisiana. And with good reason: more professional athletes come out of Louisiana per capita than any other state in the U.S.
Maybe it’s our famous cuisine. Or the chemicals in our environment! Whatever the reason, It’s taken us a while to capitalize on one of our greatest natural resources, but that is starting to change. Our sports-obsessed culture is spawning a growing number of sports-related businesses.
Eric Engmann is helping to lead the charge and grow the business of sports in Louisiana and, particularly, the Capital Region. Eric is vice president and CEO-elect of the Baton Rouge Area Sports Foundation. For more than two decades the Sports Foundation has worked to bring sporting events to Baton Rouge and has worked with local, regional and national sports events coordinators in planning and executing their events here.
Eric has been with the Foundation since 2007 and has master’s degrees both in sports administration and business administration. He was promoted to executive vice president in 2012 and later this year will take over from the Foundation’s longtime CEO, Jerry Stovall.
Joseph Tucker is a sports entrepreneur making a return trip to Out to Lunch. His first venture, Hydra-Guard – the hydrating sports mouth guard – was featured in an earlier show. In the 15 months since then, Joseph has launched a second product – Hydraguard Recharge, a sports drink that has many times more electrolytes than the leading sports drinks with just a fraction of the sugar. It just hit store shelves and already orders are pouring in.
This is an illuminating conversation about a growing sector of Baton Rouge sports business beyond LSU sports, but connected to LSU entrepreneurialism.
Photos at Mansurs On The Boulevard by Ken Stewart.