& Entertainment
Good Sports & Entertainment
CEO: Billy Vigeant
Type of Business: Sports and entertainment marketing
Rhode Island's Market Has Changed. Developers, Builders, Investors and Sellers Must Change With It.
By Emilio DiSpirito IV License Partner | Engel & Völkers Oceanside Leader | The DiSpirito…
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Location: Johnston
Year Founded: 1992
Employees: One, plus assorted contractors
Annual Revenue: WND
A local sports marketer, who’s made a name for himself interviewing sports legends on a local cable TV show, is now looking to tackle the national playing field.
Billy Vigeant, commonly known as Billy V, finished filming a national pilot sports TV program last month in Rhode Island featuring former NFL quarterback Jim McMahon. The one-hour pilot show chronicles McMahon’s football career, in which he won two Super Bowls with the Chicago Bears and Green Bay Packers.
Vigeant said he’s currently involved in negotiations with at least four TV networks that are vying for the show. He declined to say which networks are involved, but said a decision is forthcoming.
“The national show is going to be a good-sized deal,” he said. “The networks are very excited about the program, which we are too.” If a network picks up the pilot, then a schedule is set, which could last 25 to 40 weeks as a crew would shoot different shows every week, he said.
Much of the show took place at a social club in Providence, where McMahon shared his thoughts on his driving-while-intoxicated arrest in Florida last November. Vigeant boasts the show was McMahon’s first public interview since the DWI arrest.
Vigeant first met McMahon in 1992 at a celebrity golf tournament at Alpine Country Club in Cranston; the two hit it off and have kept in touch ever since. Now they exchange Christmas cards and gifts.
It’s this kind of close relationship with ex-professional athletes that Vigeant values and relies on to sustain his business – Good Sports & Entertainment, a sports and entertainment marketing company in Johnston.
“I like to develop a personal relationship, then I’ll get a lot more out of my athlete than just putting his face with a product or name,” said Vigeant. “A little loyalty in this business goes a long way, you have to be real, that’s the biggest thing. Also, the power of referral is very important.”
Vigeant, 44, has worked with several high-profile athletes and has countless pictures, autographs and memorabilia to prove it. His client list reads more like a Hall of Fame directory with the likes of Dick Butkus, Gaylord Perry, Yogi Berra, Gary Carter, Franco Harris, Brooks Robinson, among several others.
His company organizes celebrity appearances, autograph signings, sports auctions, agent representation and TV and radio production. Yet the crux of the business entails sports memorabilia, corporate events and Vigeant’s local cable TV show “Billy V Sports Legends,” which airs five times a week in Rhode Island and southeastern Massachusetts.
Vigeant said his local show is similar to the pilot program with McMahon; he films on location and conducts one-on-one interviews with sports legends. The show is mainly a marketing and public relations vehicle for Vigeant, who used to sell commercial time for the program.
GSE also plans numerous corporate events, in which Vigeant determines a company’s budget and pairs athletes with business functions, where they sign autographs and memorabilia. He said the events market both athlete and business via three key ingredients: visibility, familiarity and credibility.
“The Rhode Island marketplace is very naïve to sports marketing,” he said. “It’s frustrating when you’re in a field all your own trying to introduce how and why this concept can work for a business. I’m educating people on how it can work for them by instead of looking at this as an expense, it’s an investment.”
GSE is a contracted sports agent for Mohegan Sun Casino in Uncasville, Conn., where last summer Vigeant gathered Butkus, Harris, Robinson and Carter for a golf tournament. The event, and similar ones like it, gave Vigeant the chance to interview the athletes for his show and have them sign sports memorabilia.
Perhaps Vigeant’s biggest venture in the memorabilia market has been in the sport of boxing, especially work he’s done with Rhode Island pugilist Vinny Pazienza. When the famed boxer broke his neck, Vigeant put together a marketing effort to resurrect his career. GSE produced the Vinny Paz Comeback trading card set to heighten exposure of the boxer’s return.
Some of Vigeant’s boxing memorabilia is enshrined in the World Boxing Hall of Fame in Las Vegas; the International Boxing Hall of Fame in Canastota, N.Y.; the National Italian American Sports Hall of Fame in Chicago; and the Sports Museum of New England in Boston’s FleetCenter.
Vigeant was also instrumental in reuniting members of the Rhode Island Reds, the fabled hockey team. He, along with others, initiated the Rhode Island Reds Heritage Society, a nonprofit group that aims to preserve the team’s legacy through memorabilia and strong membership numbers. The 2-year-old organization has more than 300 members.
Plans on deck for Vigeant include expansion of his outreach program for children, Project V; the establishment of a fishing retreat in Foster for ex-athletes and businesses; and expansion into the product endorsement market.
Vigeant is looking to start a program, within Project V, for inner-city Providence youth where they can learn hockey skills at the Fleet Skating Center and Dunkin’ Donuts Center with former Boston Bruins and current Providence Bruins. He said he’s working with USA Hockey, hoping the group will donate a grant and equipment.
Additionally, Vigeant is working on a project with three area businessmen who acquired 250 acres of land in Foster called Deer Creek. He envisions companies treating their clients with a day or weekend of trout fishing with sports celebrities.
A self-proclaimed “frustrated athlete,” the burly Vigeant played football at LaSalle Academy and Wagner College in Staten Island, N.Y.; he said he lost a chance to play with the New York Giants after a serious knee injury.
“Being an ex-athlete and being a real person gives me the greatest advantage,” said Vigeant, referring to his sports and marketing background. “You have to walk before you can run and we’re at the stage right now where we’re starting to trot a little bit. … It’s a tough market, but at the same time it’s a lot of fun.”
